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2022-06-30-accounts

CUMBRIA SQUASH & RACKETBALL

Chairman`s Report

2021/2022 AGM

1 FINANCIAL SUPPORT ( A few highlights to support Chris` Management Accounts Report in Item 4 of the Agenda )

From NWRF to help Clubs

As all members are aware from previous AGM reports that money from ES to support CAs and member clubs in the lockdown periods and in their bounce-back work was allocated at intervals to the NWRF that distributed it equally to each if it`s CAs - Cumbria, Lancashire, Merseyside and Cheshire.

From CSR to help our members (Clubs and Individual members)

As advised in my 2020/2021 AGM report we planned to extend the IMS support by also waiving this season’s 2021/2022 Club Individual Membership Subscription (IMS) and this has been done. And for this season we have also waived Club`s County League Team Tees.

2. ACTIVITIES FOR 2021/2022

As advised in my report for the last AGM, to follow the actions of ES, we treated this season as a normal season as far as circumstances allowed and generally used the first half of it preparing for our competitions, junior

coaching events and other important established events it was possible to carry out to maintain continuity of them Chris was a main driver of this exercise (supported by others) and has produced the excellent reports you will see in Item 4 of the Agenda.

We will also be progressing other work that we could not do because of lockdown – I will remind you of it and add a few facts not covered by Chris

3. INFRASTRUCTURE

WORKINGTON AND DISTRICT AREA – one of our main concerns is that there are still no dedicated Senior Squash Clubs in the area. There has been very little progress on changing this situation. To remind you of the problem – the nearest is Wigton Club to the West and Windscale Club (Egremont) to the South – a totally unsatisfactory situation for the players of our sports in the area

The following is a short status report on each of the previous local clubs in the area that has created this situation:

Cockermouth – the single court which is an integral part of Cockermouth Rugby League Club is now operational but the rugby club refurbish is not complete yet – so no indication as yet on how it intends to use the squash facility and if a club will be formed to return to our organisation. No contact from the RLC yet

Whitehaven – At the last AGM we were sure that the club would not re-open but that decision has still not been finally made by the owners GLL and the local council. The squash facility is still mothballed for now. So no squash from Whitehaven until that decision has been made. Things don`t look good. We thank Windscale Club for continuing to allow Whitehaven players to use its facilities for another season – No change

Workington- Junior Club has been reformed at the Sports Centre on a trial basis for eleven weeks and the trial ends soon. We have a need to review the results of it to decide on its continuity or to change our approach to it to try to ensure that. Review to be carried out by the Executive Committee

Workington - Senior Club

At the same time, we have been working with the Sports Centre to try to form a Senior Club at the centre – the idea if both initiatives are successful is to integrate them into a single Workington Squash Club – if the work on the Senior Club fails we will just go ahead with the junior Club.

I have been working on this and for many months have made many unsuccessful attempts to meet with SC management to discuss if it would allow a club to be formed and how it would like us to go about it – many promises have been made by SC to arrange such a meeting but there has been no follow-up from it. I have had enough with

this frustration of this situation and a couple of days ago decided to make things move forward by going to the centre and knocking on a managers door`. That worked and I was given a short time to discuss our proposal. The reaction was good once it was known that a player squash committee would be running the club and centre staff would have very little involvement. The management representative said they would like time to discuss it further with their colleagues and said I would be contacted. We will see?? It looks like the SC is very short staffed due to Covid and is the cause of the reluctance to it getting involved

I am in contact with a few potential club members who want progress on this – maybe now we can do that?

DALTON AREA

We thought we were losing Dalton Squash Club for good when it withdrew from the organisation pre lockdown but have good news on this – it has had a change of mind and wishes to re-join. For a couple of seasons now, Chris has been working with representatives from the club to give guidance on the process to do so - Excellent move forward

4. NEW TROPHIES (two new challenge trophies have been introduced) as detailed in Chris` report

The one named for me was totally unexpected but is a lovely gesture that I and my family appreciate very much – it is a very considerate way of ending this very surprising and overpowering season for me. Thank you very much my committee mates – I love it.

In memory of David Henderson

We decided in Exec after David died that we would introduce a trophy in memory of him. We have done so as Chris advises. I have informed Anne, David`s wife, and she and her family are very appreciative of it and thank us very much.

5 EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE (Refer to the attached Organisation Structure – for the current status of the Exec)

We are struggling on the Exec with lack of volunteer support to do the mountain of work I have just reported – that means most have over 3 jobs which is totally time consuming, inefficient and unproductive - and being blunt totally unfair on those people.

During the season we had resignations by Damien Whelan and Ian Lowrey (who also resigned as a Trustee) as regular members of the Exec and had one more new volunteer, Andrew Smith, who joined us as regular member. Damien volunteered to carry out his duties outside of the Exec – we thank him for that – I have sent thank-you letter to both Damien & Ian

Current Regular members of the Executive are Tom Armstrong, Chris Lilley, Guy Huxtable, and Andrew Smith

Current CIO Trustees are Tom, Chris, Guy, Guy, & Jonny Irving

Member Support for the Exec is very important and essential for the continuity of CSR in an effective way. This will be will be discussed in detail in Item 7 of the agenda

This completes my report on our playing activities associated with this very exciting and effective “recovery season”

What are my feelings about our performances?

I was pleased and excited we had started our recovery but was apprehensive about maybe not getting the player support for our comprehensive activety programme generally, particularly because of the junior activities where we had some very poor support in the seasons before Covid, and we were introducing a new event to widen the scope

of our activities and wanted the inaugural racketball event to be well supported. I hoped we were not asking too much of ourselves

Thankfully all my concerns were unfounded as everything went extremely well in all activities. I am particularly pleased about the success Chris and Gavin had with re-establishing very effectively the regular Junior County Coaching (Previously known as Academy Coaching) sessions that grew from strength to strength as the season progressed. Hopefully they will continue to do so because I want us soon be able to enter once again into ES junior inter county competitions and aim to regain our reputation within ES as a very high performance county in those activities. An effective junior development programme is the pathway to that.

This has been the first year for Chris in his position of Junior Organiser and I have no doubt in my mind that the impressive way he (supported by Gavin) has managed the job and worked with the youngsters and their parents is a major contributor in changing their attitudes for and support of our junior activities. They now have a figurehead for the work.

I was disappointed that my attempt to run a successful M&R Awareness Workshop was poorly supported and had to be cancelled. But, I still consider M&R instruction as extremely important for all players and particularly in the development of our youngsters and we must include such training in our development programmes – I will be trying again in the new season. I am sure I was contributory to the lack of support by leaving the workshop too late in the season – I will bear that in mind for the timing on my next attempt.

I think the most meaningful but cautious ending statement I can make is to repeat the statement Chris made in his Executive Summary

“Overall county squash has bounced back very successfully with a great base to start the new season”

Deep down I am highly delighted in where we are

Chris, I know that we have all been involved in some way in our activity programme but I would like to thank and commend you for taking the lead on most of the activities to give us a tremendously good start in our county bounce-back process. THANK YOU VERY MUCH

I now have a few standard items that I believe are essential to include in all my annual reports.

6. THANKS TO SPONSOR

I always like to expand on this in detail because it is very important that all members know the full details of how lucky we are to have this essential financial support

As you are all aware, for the last 15 years we have had a very important and very generous sole local sponsor who I make sure I thank at AGMs and every other opportunity I get. That is of course Thomas Graham (Roger Smith Managing Director). Each season Roger gives £1000 cash, dedicated to junior activities, and free squash shirts for all players on all of our county teams - Junior, Senior and Masters He asks very little for this support – he is happy that we promote his firm whenever we can - on the squash shirts and on, county league and junior county closed champs literature.

This season was the last of that a 15year year arrangement with Roger – and guess what happened shortly after he read my report about it in my last AGM report? He immediately called me and extended the sponsorship by another 5 years.

You must agree with me in saying once again how lucky we are to have such a generous sponsor

Thank you very much Roger – your continued support is very important to us and very much appreciated .

7 SAD NEWS

Every year I have the sad duty to report the deaths of any of our squash colleagues. Unfortunately over the last few seasons I have done this more than ever.

Today I am reporting the passing of Fred Murray and Donald Cape – two of our colleagues and good friends from Carlisle Club who both passed away this season and who had a major impact on the development and effective operation of our organisation since its creation in 1969. With respect to their memories and their families I prepared notes of condolences that were circulated to our members. I have given you some highlights from those notes below

Fred Murray

Fred who was 78 died suddenly on 18 Dec 2021 after a tragic accident at home – he was a lovely person always happy and full of fun. .

Fred was a very good player who competed in and made his mark in club competitions. He was also an ardent supporter of our organisation and my very good friend from its development in 1969 - and represented the county many times in the Northern Counties League and ES Inter County Championship competitions. He also entered our county closed championships where he won at least one Masters` event over the years.

He loved Carlisle Club and even after he stopped playing squash he kept visiting the club for his daily keep fit regime where he became a well-liked feature of the club that everyone looked forward to seeing and having a chat with. Everyone I meet at the club now says how they miss seeing him working out in the gym at the same time every day. I will miss him tremendously.

Donald Cape

Donald who was 75 died unexpectedly at home on 15 Feb 2022. He was a lovely, very friendly person who I met often during my many visits to Carlisle Club where everyone at the club always had good words to say about him, particularly the juniors he coached on a regular basis over many years. He was very well liked by everyone.

I got to know him well and confirmed my good feelings about him and realised why people liked him so much when he joined the CSR Executive Committee in 2000 /2001 where he served very effectively for eight years before retiring to concentrate on other things including coaching his juniors at Carlisle Club. He was a very effective and dedicated worker who was committed to doing everything right - which was exactly what we wanted from a committee member.

Prior to and during his Executive Committee work he spent 8 years on the County Junior Committee where he was a very active and important member. Donald`s excellent all round work was formally recognised by our organisation when in 2010 we honoured him by awarding him the prestigious Hazel Award for Cumbria Squash Personality of the Year

Both of these very well liked and well respected colleagues in our sport will be sadly missed .

On behalf of our organisation I repeat our deepest condolences to their wives, families, and all who knew Fred & Donald .

CO NGRATULATIONS

At each AGM I am pleased to acknowledge and congratulate special achievers:

THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT

I could not end my report each AGM without saying thank you to a few people.

THE FUTURE

We have made an excellent start getting back to normal at club and county level but we must keep up the drive to be successful in covering and developing all aspects of our squash and racketball sports and widen our scope of activities as we have started to do with the introduction of the Racketball County Closed Championships. It is easy for me to say that but I must remember that we have very limited support on the Executive Committee and current members are overworked above the normal expectation. There is much more we could do to cover all development work that is in the pipeline in liaison with England Squash and to further widen our scope of activities

Anyway, I have a good half full feeling for 2022/2023 season so let us be optimistic, get on with it and make it happen, enjoy the challenge and experience and keep smiling in doing so - as I will be doing.

And to risk boring everyone with this subject – please remember that if you want us to run a comprehensive, efficient and effective organisation we need more volunteers on the Exec. So please clubs do your duty and give me a call!

Thank you for taking the time to read this report

Best wishes for a good 2022/2023 Season

Please keep safe and well

Tom

27 Aug 2022

PERSONAL COMMENT

A VERY BIG THANK-YOU to Chris and Guy, and others who may have been involved, for preparing a citation to nominate me for consideration in the Cumbria 21 Sports Awards. I had no idea about that – it was a great surprise.

I am honoured and delighted to win the Service to Sport Award – it means so much to me and my family . As well as the personal satisfaction this accolade gives me, my success against all other sports in Cumbria is a great image booster for our organisation - it promotes CSR and puts us on the sporting map in the county. Something that gives me equal pride and satisfaction.

After the presentation, I eventually had the opportunity to read the citation and was touched and amazed knowing how our membership perceive me and appreciate the work I have done over 50years for our sport

CHRIS & GUY AND EVERYONE MY HEARTFELT THANKS ONCE AGAIN – YOU HAVE MADE ME A VERY HAPPY CSR MEMBER

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