Leighton Buzzard Canoe Club
Minutes of the Annual General Meeting
Held on 23 November 2024 in the Club House.
There are 31 rnembers pr￿nt at thi5 meeting.
Minute$ of Last Meeting
The minutes from last year have been agreed as a true representation of the l&%t meeting.
Chairpersons Report
Good morning, everyone. Thanks forturning up. A brief recap on the ye4r.
We managed to retain our quality club award from Paddle UK it involves a thorough self-assessment and the
scrutiny of all aspects of the club, tncluding equality. diversity, and Ènclusion, governance and safeguarding.
The club sessions, in the sumrner months we continued in the evenings with the Tuesday three different time
trials. Slapton, Kl 6K and the K2 6K, and then the skills session which youFe doing on the fourth Tuesday.
W¢ gave people the choice if they wanted to go for a paddle, which has been popular amongst the more
mature members and otherpwple too, although we can't let the novice kids go off on their own. We thought
the approa¢h still alloTh people io achieve their training goals. The sessions were triggered by the lack of
oaches that we've done all Club ses5ion5, but they se¢m to work quite well. and people get to know each
other better when weye all in one big group, so thai seern¢d to work quite well, fortunately, &8 there's not
mll¢h of a chole¢. The winter fomier and w¢ d)anged slightly for the Tuesday. so that we offer a a gym
session at 6 O'clock for novice5 and junior5, and we incorpor￿ed a fun aspect to IL with little gaTne5 and
things. which Charlotte and Kelly lad, which was quite good and they enjoy it more when they are littl¢, they
don't just hard workouts. Then we did the rnn session at the same time for adults. At 7 PM we do the senior
gy￿, and we managed on qui1¢ a number of Tuesdays. io gd the juniors out running at 7pm while the adults
were doing their gym, which is quiie good. So we'll see. this is dependent on lots of help, Michael, thank yo
and people who have mucked in not necessarily coaching staff for the club, which is really good. Kelly did a
great job with her kids as well. On the Thursday day w¢ do the novi¢¢ junior gym session first, followed by
the adult and then a group we'r¢ doing ergo out on the apron there. which is nice to see that we're self-
organized by them. but ies good tts see ii. We rdn the pool sessions again at Tiddenfoot. The last couple of
yeaxs we ran four sessions. but they really rarnped the price up um this this year. so we just did Thvo Sessions.
and they werent as popular. l think this is not something that we might want to do every winter. l think leave
it a couple of years and then do li again, obviously, if pwple feel differenL let us know, we didn* we
didn't get them filling up last lirne. which is the time b¢fore. where they were over both the whole four
sessions.
The come and tsy ses5É0n& we had four day4 which was seven come and ty sessions, over the Saturdays we
had 58 participants and then the number of beginners courses we manage io fill d¢pends entirely on the
amount of people we get to the eome and ty sessions becaus¢ thays the feeder from that. We've got four
beginners courses with 28 participants. resulting in five new members, which is quite a bit down ¢)n the
previous years aren't we aren't quite sure why. because we followed the same fornjat, irs a bit of a rnystery. 1¢
migh( just b¢ one of tho$¢ things, you know. So for the come and ty its the￿'S a lot of people not turning up,
and the weather on ¢ouple of them wa5 poor, maybe thai was IL But we've got some new members and
realistically, l think last year we 8Ot 23 new mernbers. bul we cant Sikstain that because we haven t got
enough boat space for begimjers t￿)ats or coaching staff.
So moving on io tha¢ last sumrn¢T we trained up a fijrther six Paddlesport instructt>rs, so for the last thre¢
summers we've managed io get a Course of Paddlesport itlstructors. which are all people that are qualified to
lead and io help. whi¢h is really go(Kl.
We've rtt¢ntly provided 12 membeT5 With first a training and then we booked a core coaches ￿Urse for the
springtime where we hkve defmiiely got four. but hopefijlly six people on thaL whieh we desperately need.
For the core coaches course, the cost of thais covered. we were prepared to pay as a club, but we've managed
to 5u¢cessfully apply for a paddle UK bursary. which basically covers the £500, it basically covers th¢ Cost of
that.
Th¢ racing then, we fielded healthy t¢ams for the regional la￿5 as well as sorne out of region races wilh
strong results. There will be a full breakdown of these ar the rewards ¢vening on the 6th of D￿eMber, at the
Christtn&s party. I hope to see you there.
Page l of 4

We have got some promising young athl¢ies coming through. lim toward5 the lop of the club now. which 15
brilliant to see.
The 5UPPOrt stsff, thanks guys. The kitchen w¢ have managed to cater ni¢ely for all the ra¢es but ivs su¢h a
Struggle for the same people all the time doing it and they eventually g¢t sick of dotng IL it'5 a bit of a
thankless task and they come and stand there every Saturday. We have tried to encourage people to help them
to JU￿ do a shift even if you have to do a ¢ouple of Saturdays a year, but we put a calendar up inside th¢re
and Katy is the only one thays so far b&5 hel￿d Mith thaL so it's a problem.
This is an ongoing saga with the lease. This club building opened in 2014 it is supposed io be a five year
review on the le￿, it didn't happ¢n in 2019 but the facilities manager frorn the school contacted me in the
middle of this w¢¢k and said that she's just about f￿IShed a draft version of it to preseni us wilh and we
should gei li in the n¢xt week. They're not going to try and tsk¢ any back payments. Its going to go up
massively because we¥e paying it electri¢ity and 5ervi¢es from 2004. ivs obviously 10 years up the road. $0
ivs going to go up, I donl think ivs going io go down.
Just want to put it on record to thank the support sthff and everyone helps, it is really much appreciated.
We haye purchased a new K2 and a second hand good condition K2 this year.
The membership system seems to be working very nicely as does th¢ new systern for colleeting race fees.
Kari asked m¢ to mention the encampTn¢nt of tents down by the Bla¢k bridge there, ivs increasing, ifs a bit of
a health hazard too, be￿ll$C where th¢y are going to the toiieL in th¢ canal. So. we are a]1 encouraged to ring
up the line. Kaii circulated the nuTnber on a Facebook w)st a while ago, if people could report thern, the more
of u5 reFKTrn the SlK>ner they will be deali with. So, we ask if eVeryb￿]Y could just spend five minutes, just
send a quick ernail of the Facebook post, we will see if w¢ Can get it pitjned and just encourage ¢veryb(¥ly
just to keep throwing email$ Ynd repeated emails to that addresiju5t to highlight th¢ issue that we've goL
I put out an ernail last week about Aqua paddle proposal. which is like pajk n]n, so it encourages
anybody that has a boat io do a SK free paddle on a Sunday. IVS fijnded by Paddle UK, amd they are very
prescriptive of what is require(L the). ne¢d a leader they call a captain to be in overnll charge of IL a
tamekeeper, three trdined Paddlesport instwciors and three rnarshals. l think given the trouble we have getting
enough people to help with th¢ rdces that w¢ a]ready hold, l think it would be diffieult to sustatn that but I
sent out a message to everybody and only people out of 210 replied to me, so I haven't got a clear steer
on it. But l if we dont d(Tr IL theyte going to do it up ai the pub anyway. so it will happaL but if we wani to
be in on it and we want to take pan and we wani to be part of that group, we need to pui outselves forwaxd
and actually sign up and do IL Because the choices when l spoke to the guy, the choices were either here or
he was going to do it off his own back up at the Pllb. The two people that replied basically sai(L no, it wasnt
viable. one w&5 Steve Oxby, he put forward a list of stuff. And the other was Paul Stetming. The other thing
is that IXTe been looking at the Aqui paddle past events and they're nearly all SUPS, I've got nothing against
them, but one of the outcomes from doing this would be to ¢ncourage new members, and if they nearlj. all
going to be SUPS, we're going to have troubl¢ looking after them becaus¢ we need a different SUP seciion
with different Coaches. because SUPS and kayaks are completely different speed. It just woulthi't work
together in the same session. w there is a lot io think about. Well lel's all l%Te goL Thank you.
Treasurers Report
It's been steady year. Nigel just talked about the come and tries and th¢ begll)ner% wurses. M¢mbet3hip h&5
remained pretty stable* you know. dcspii¢ having a good uptskc on th¢ ￿me and try and the beginners.
¢ourse5.
As well as paying for the beginners courses, we also ran a safeguarding course for our welfare oificer and the
safety and rescue courses and Paddlesport instruciors course& and the fee for th¢ November first aid eour5e is
included in these accounts.
We purchased two boats this yfdr and new adult paddl¢& we will wniinue to invest in new equipment for the
club.
This y¢ar we contributed to the repair to the canal enlrance from th¢ school fi¢l¢L that cost us £738, and we
bought the new fridge freezer there.
The wes we host and the catering team have generated a steady Encom< which has enabled us to subsidiz¢
the pool session& as the cosi went up dramati￿1]), this year. the Chrisknas and award ceremony and the
¢hildren's paty, and we also contillued io have a paTticipation grant tuining. The catering team contributed
£2290 to our resetwe, so they've done really well. in August we opened a savings account to take advantage
of the interest rdt¢s available, and that's generating a liule monthly income. The participation grant will
ontinu¢, il's there to help people participate in club activities which they might othenvise not be able to for
whatever reason, details can be found on the website. and if you if you do want to make an application, then
you email Nigel or myself. OUT detsib are on the F￿ard there.
Page 2 of4

ON
Nigel's tsU(ed about the cedars school and the rent and 5erYice charge. The txe fee invoicing system will
¢ontinue as will Webcolleci the new m¢mbership syst¢m we impl¢m¢nted this year. There is a small cost
with thal £160, but I think it has been well worth nu)nhng.
Finally. I would like to thank Cheryl Dixoo for running the race invoicirtg system again this year and Wendy
Guy for examining th¢se ac￿ll￿ts.
It was asked whal proportion of our costs do we pay ￿ tb¢ school: this is approximately £6000 a year. We
pay £533 a month, £275 of that is the service charge. l am tllt¢re5ted to see how thai's made up. I'm going to
be interested to see what changes they are going to make. becaus¢ I don't know if wete getting that value for
money. It's not j￿1 us that's not happy because th¢re's a guy from the football, his narne's Gary. and he's got
the same problems with them and so theyle going to have to up their game if they want more money, even if
we need to employ a lawyer. The rent is cheap but it would be interesting to s¢¢ what theyye going to do
about a service charge. The showets ar¢ not working or ￿ld and the loilets are blocked. Brian Carne last
Sunday. and the showers weren'i working, and all footballers were out there and obviously they got the same
a5 w¢ll. Everything that evenhwlly gets done, rakes age& if we want new light bulbs, it tskes more than a
year, you know. like the shower we used io get when we walked into the gate when it w&% raining. We've got
Y4 fix now, but it took three years to get there, and its just hopeless. There is no mainienane¢ happening. I
dont know if we catt use that to go ba¢k and challenge them in ternis of whatrv¢r it is they do propose.
We've got a plan of the sch(M)I layout so we can work out what our area should cost It will go up, rent has
gone up massively in the last 10 year¥ 8md electricity. it's gone up massively ti)0.
The kitch¢n had no hot water until the Remembrane¢ Tace when the site maintenance guy refilled tbe tank
and then hot water was available in the building. This tank does not seem to aulornaticauy refill. which is an
issue.
Subscriptions
There are no proposed changes to subscription ¢harges for this year. However. there is an importalhl update
regarding boat racks. From membership renewal in April. boat rncks will Only be available lo paddling
meznbers as the ¢lub needs to prioritise rack allocation for those who r¢gulaTly paddle. While this adjusttnent
affects only a few individuals. it is the only change b¢ing introduced at this titne.
First Paddlin
Member
Famil Paddlin
Member 2
Famil Paddlin
Member 3
Famil Paddlin
Member4
Non-Paddlin
Member
All Boat Racks l Maintenan
StudenUAwa
Paddler
£150
£120
£96
£78
£15
£35
£78
87 Paddling members.
24 Non-paddling members.
Trustees
The comrnittee discussed adding additional tr￿*￿e5 to our charity. Cu￿tAt]y, the trnstees are Phil Tingay,
John Hoile. and Julian Brown. Julian suggesi¢d including more regular club metnb¢rs as tsuste¢s. 50 we
propose Carly Hudson. Paul Stenning, Chris Jones. and Nigel Dixon for these rol¢s. This is to infomi you of
our intention. Ihe trustees will revtew this fi￿er.
Page 3 of4

Committee Changes and Elections
Below 15 a list of the new committee members.
No position5 were contr￿ed and there hav¢ been no objeetions to tbe norninees.
Committee Officer5
Chairperson
Secretary
Tre&surer
Club Welfare Officer
Support Team Representstive
Social & Marketino R¢p.
Paddler R¢presenraiiYe
Junior Representstive
Coaching Representstive
Nigel Dixon
Philip Tingay
Andrea Toosey
Fiona Barber
Katy ca￿bpO1e
Charlotte Ellis
Carly Hudson
Leon Dixon
Chris Jones
Non-committee Officers
Support Welfare Offi
Membership Secretsry
Talent Club ofificer
Safety Officer
Voluntttr C(bordinator
Marathon Racing Team Leader
Sprint Racing Team Leader
Lighthing Team CoordhnAtor
Race Fee Billing
Race Reporter
Race Organiser
Novice Course AthnitJistratOT
Flatwater Racing Association Rep
ca￿ring C(bordin￿or
Catering Helper5
Club Shop
Boats & Equipment Coordinator
Timek¢cper
Webmaster
Coaching Coordinator
{vaca￿)
Carly Hudson
Steve Oxtoby
{va¢anl}
Charlotte Ellis
Catherine Sand¢rson
{va¢anl}
Andrea Tcx)sey
{vacart}
The rdce organiser group will ¢ontinue
Katy Catchpole
Michelle Hammett
Michelle Hammett
Kelly Bates
Sieve Oxtoby
{voeGnt}
Leon Dixon
{vacaN}
Any Other Business
None
The miDutes are
rue representation orth¢ tDeetin&
Signed
Name
D/x8
Posttion
Date
Page 4 of4

Lèlghlon Buzzanl C•no• Club
2024
2023
R8¥erv•8 bfr￿ 0111012023..
HSBC membership aceourrt
Nah4tst membership a(%ount
$3650
16994
1618
72262
71599.82
3369.50
74969.32
Ineome:
Membersh￿4
Race fee income
Come and ty & training sessions
Sooal events. tuck and club kit sales
Interest received
Donations received
Key depo￿ts
19999.07
5457.75
1418.25
5214.87
171.&1
10.C
120.00
17174
5541
2233
5419
32391.CKI
30843
Expendllurn:
Boats and equiFKnent
Rent
Insurance
BC affiliation
Race fees
Courses and training
Participation grant
BoaVH&S maintenance
Club house & grounds maintwwnce
Key fob rEfunds
Troph￿8 and medals
soc￿1 events
Web hosting
[jonat￿nS
Tuck shop wrchases
Club kit
Bank chaw and ojnmissions
Subscriplions
Printrng and pos
Sundry
5575
8405
1256
498
4439
3540
1205
10CMI
978
6404.76
1271.68
4612.12
2870.92
250.(K)
395.15
1117.71
862.59
1W4.61
63.04
250.00
2029.17
295
320
550
873
123
73
170.
38
20
28136
2707
19.00
-26321.18
81039.14
74969
ReprK•ntod by:
26100.61
50171 L
4767.47
81039.14
71600
Naiwesl savings a¢¢ounl
3369
74969

Wendy Guy
17 Lomond Drive
Linslède
Leighton Buzzard
Beds
LU72XH
9 November 2024
Leighton Buzzard Canoe aub
Accounts for the years ended 30 September 2024
Hi Andrea.
I have reviewed the accounts that you drafted for the bEar ended 3￿ September 2024 and l am in
agreement with the figures presented to me.
Kind regards
Wendy Guy
Accounts Manager