Membership and AGM / EGM

"Dear members,

As you know, we had our first AGM/EGM on the 21st September 2021 since March 2020. In contrast to previous meetings, the membership attendance was in the region of the mid 20's: and with written apologies received from Frank Curtis, Maggie and Bruce Lumsde, Jan and Lyne Lynes, John and Mary Holland, and finally Graham and Anne Burge prior to the meeting. In fairness, apologies were not asked for at the meeting. I simply noted that members who usually attended were absent, and the ongoing concerns around Covid were probably the key determinant for that:, with sending apologies for this meeting not being high on peoples lists of priorities.

This may appear to be an unusual starting point to report back to members, however our next meeting - Covid permitting - will be March 22nd 2022. This meeting will be to review progress we are making towards developing the club, with a view to presenting a more concrete, costed set of proposals on the 21st March 2023 as to how BMSA moves over to the field we own.

The current council was elected unopposed by the meeting to carry on with the work that has been undertaken during lockdown - both in terms of keeping the club going with accessing grants, loans various, and in refurbishing facilities with the monies raised to the tune of over £20000 to date. Certainly, as things stand at point of writing today we have a health balance in our bank of £47K +. All of the money spent (i.e. Mycourts, Squash courts refurbishment) has been spent to make the club safe, facilitate access to play and overdue smartening up as the priority: and all of which should be decided by General Council as opposed to consultation with individual sections.

Your council now consists of the following members who have been voted to serve for the next 18 months to provide continuity. As we become clearer how different sports operate, then how each section meets and feeds back into council will become an important feature of our work as we look to the future development of our club.

Graham Benson - Company Secretary and Director
Martin Shaw - Director
Shaun Watkin - Squash rep and Director
Mark Bradley - karate Rep
Alex Langford - Judp Rep
Alan Hancock - Bowls rep
Tegan Booth - Junior rep
Joe Whieldon
Andy Wiggins
Emma Philpott-Watkin
Chantelle Denham
Dylan
Kevin Pugh
Arthur Osborne who continues to provide an important communications link while we transition to systems various.
Becky Tomlinson - as bar manger.

As you know, we depend upon our members. Certainly, I would like to see the bar busier, and hopefully this will come as uncertainty around Covid eases. . Currently, social functions are providing important revenue to support the bar. Our sports sections are steadily growing now that we are open. For existing members, government guideline's have influenced what we can/cannot do. Consequently our approach to opening up BMSA has been to take it cautiously. This has impacted on players across all sections. This has guided how we pitch membership fees for the coming year 2021/2022.

Each section rep will be informing members of their sections what fees will be. As a basic principle for existing members the following options are going to be available:

1. You pay the full fee for the year.

2. You pay a rebated price for your sport.

3. You pay a rebated price for your sport, yet donate the difference between full and rebated price.

For the rebated price and donation they need to be seen as separate payments so that we can take advantage of associated tax breaks.

4. For new members only, we are offering a new membership discount for 3 months - October - December only. This is to try to recruit
new members. The price will be greater than the rebated price to existing members.

For those of you who were not at the meeting, this was something all members present were consulted over.

I appreciate that this is a lengthy email. Considering that this meeting did not last as long as previous meetings, we covered a lot of ground.

Finally, as you renew your memberships can I ask you to ensure that the information we hold about you is accurate. Changes caused by Covid required rapid contact with members at time. This made preparing numerous letters impractical for that reason alone. Covid has not gone away, and is going to be with us in some shape or form. Therefore, access by email, and or text becomes all the more important.

Kind regards

Graham

Graham Benson
Company Secretary and Director BMSA"