Minutes of the English Orienteering Council AGM
held at Hambleden on Saturday 30th March 2013

Present:

EOC Officials
Philip Gristwood Chair
Lesley Ross Treasurer
Helen Gristwood Kit Officer
John Duffield Interim Secretary
Karin Kirk Sponsorship
Voting Regional Reps
John Dyson SWOA
Jerry Newcombe SCOA
Simon Greenwood SEOA
Alistair Tinto YHOA
Stephen Round NWOA
Others
Andy Hemstead Chair Veterans Selectors
John Rye Chair Senior Selectors/Interland TM
Charlie Adams SHI TM
John Cooke Webmaster
Judith Holt
Richard Tiley
Dick Towler

Meeting opened at 4:10 pm

1. Apologies

Apologies were received from the following: Paul Becket (EAOA), Sarah Brown (VHI TM), Keith Marsden (Chair Junior selectors), Jeff Butt (JHI TM).

2. Acceptance of 2012 Minutes

The minutes of the 2012 meeting were accepted as a true record.

3. Matters Arising

There were no matters arising that would not be covered by the agenda.

4. Chairman’s Report

  • In 2012 both the Veteran and Junior teams won their Home Internationals and in the SHI the England team were second to the Scots. Congratulations are due to all team members and thanks to the team managers and selectors.
  • Earlier this year the Chairman wrote to the Chief Executive of BOF to lobby for the reintroduction of funding for 2013. We were again informed that they would not be able to provide any funding this year.
  • The National Fixtures Group is now called the Event Scheduling Group and is now scheduling Home Internationals (HI) as required.
  • Looking to the future, the rota for staging HIs where England is the host is nearing its end point and needs to be extended. The aberrations in 2014 will need to be taken this into account such that nations all have their turns at hosting in future.
  • Our previous Secretary, Chris Morris, has now stepped down. On behalf of the EOC the Chairman expressed his thanks for his efforts over 4 years – thanks endorsed unanimously by all those present.

5. Treasurer’s Report

The statement of accounts for 2012 and also the forecast for 2013 had been issued to everyone before the AGM.

It was proposed that the petrol rates stay as they are currently – single occupancy of car 11p, cars with 2 athletes 20p, car with 3 athletes 28p and 2p more per extra athlete, and the travel cap for flight/train at £75.

The accounts and these proposals were accepted by the meeting.

By the end of year we need to try to achieve a balance of at the very least £2400 at end 2013 to cover payment of deposits for Interland 2014 – and to have some cash in hand for kit procurement.

The SHI last year was well under budget as they took a minibus rather than flights. This saving has been used to cover some of the costs for the competitions this year. Expenditure this year is expected to be more than last year – the juniors are competing in Wales, seniors in Northern Ireland and veterans in England. Seniors are competing in Northern Ireland so flights involved will be required.

We have not been given any money by British Orienteering again this year and so need to raise the £2000 they have previously contributed from elsewhere. The Treasurer proposed as a start point that the athlete personal contributions for Home Internationals be £90 for juniors and seniors and veterans and for Interland 2014 to be £100 and that the regional contribution be 85p per capita (in line with the trend over recent years (apart from 2012)).

This will not cover expected costs so we still need to raise an additional £700 as outlined in the email distributed with budget and forecast documents.

Suggestions for raising this were:

  • the regions making a higher (than 85p) per capita contribution,
  • athletes’ personal contributions going up by another £10,
  • each region paying an additional £10 for any athletes representing England from their region
  • or some combination thereof.

A discussion ensued on the cost of the Home Internationals and Interland, the way in which they are financed and how the shortfall could be made up.

Stephen Round (NWOA) and Jerry Newcombe (SCOA) spoke with the views of their regions. Among the points made by them and others were:-

  • Should we drop one of the competitions?
  • Would it reduce costs to merge all the home internationals?
  • If this were to happen, the logistics of putting on one large merged event would be considerable, and would be beyond the resources of many areas that could hold a single international.
  • Any change to the structure would require the agreement of the other home nations. The Chairman reported that other nations had recently been in favour of NOT combining the competitions.
  • The competitors themselves had been asked their opinions and were in favour of the internationals.
  • Any increase in charges to individual competitors would make raising Senior teams even more difficult. Juniors generally are unaffected by cost increases, because their costs are largely borne by Regions, Clubs and proud parents. Veterans seem happy to accept the costs for the privilege of being selected.
  • Since we can be reasonably optimistic about the likelihood of sponsorship, we should defer the discussion on finance for a year, to see if the attempt is successful (see Item 13 below).
  • Most regions had not considered the implications of any of these significant suggestions which addressed the primary role of EOC.

The meeting voted 3-2 to continue the present structure for another year, and unanimously to continue financing the England teams by increasing athletes’ personal contributions to £90 for Home Internationals and £100 for Interland 2014 and reducing the regional contribution per capita charge to 95p for 2013.

6. Home Internationals

  • Ward JHI (Surrey, SE England) – results:
Men Women Overall
England 72 69 141
Scotland 55 51 106
Ireland 29 33 62
Wales 24 27 51
  • SHI (Perth, Scotland) – results:
ENG IRL SCO CYM
Relay 22 10 27 12
Individual 22 12 28 14
Total 44 22 55 28
  • VHI (Tollymore, Northern Ireland) – results:
England Ireland Scotland Wales
Individual 140 69 120 93
Relays 118 38 100 56
Total 258 117 220 149

Dates of all 2013 HIs have now been fixed in the autumn and can be found on the EOC website.

7. Interland

  • Another win at Breda in the south west part of the Netherlands making 19 in a row. Thanks to John Rye for all his efforts in managing another successful trip.
Class WTB VVO NOLB LNPCCO FRSO ENG
Grand Total 87 198 71 119 189 247
Position 5 2 6 4 3 1
Junior Cup 23 53 17 66 81 106
Position 5 4 6 3 2 1

• Interland 2014 is in France on 30th March, within 100km of Calais.

8. Appointment of Selectors & Team Managers

  • None of the selectors have said they do not wish to continue. Current selection panels are named on the EOC website.
    As mentioned last year John Rye stepped down as SHI Team Manager and on behalf of the EOC the Chairman expressed our thanks to him for doing the job for many years. Charlie Adams (YH) is the new Senior Home International Team Manager.

9. Selection policies

  • Two out of the three selection policies for this year are in place and published on our website, the other is expected to be posted imminently. (Afternote: Posted 2nd April.)

10. Website

  • The EOC website is still running successfully and John Cooke has taken over as webmaster. Photographs are now being routinely added to galleries. Some of the other content needs to be tidied up a bit but it is becoming a useful repository for our records. If anyone can provide any further historic information, previous results, etc. we would be pleased to have it to add to the site.
  • Over the last year the counter shows we continue to have an average of nearly 900 visitors each month. In that time we have had 3500 different visitors. As before there are peaks corresponding with competitions. We have had visitors from 61 countries, down from 64 last year.
  • Tim Holt has continued to support us over the past year and we recorded our thanks to him for this. The secretary has written to Tim to say thank you and to confirm that he is willing to support us in future.

11. Team Kit

  • In order to meet demand, we hold an ample quantity of kit. Ordering on demand is not an option as delivery times are too long. We get a discount of 5% and free postage for ordering hoodies and T shirts in bulk.
  • Prices remain the same for this year :
    • O tops are selling for £36.
    • Hoodies are selling for £20
    • T shirts are selling for £9
  • In stock at the moment:
    • O tops 1 x XL, 5 x L, 11 x M, 5 x S, 4 x XS.
    • Hoodies 3 x S, 14 x M, 7 x L
    • T shirts 0 x S, 9 x M, 10 x L
  • We will need to order more small and medium O tops, small hoodies and T shirts before the Home Internationals.

12. Election of Officers

Philip Gristwood was proposed as Chairman and Lesley Ross was proposed as Treasurer. Proposer – John Dyson; Seconder Simon Greenwood. This was agreed unanimously.

John Duffield (CHIG – SEOA) was proposed as Secretary by Jerry Newcombe, and seconded by Simon Greenwood. This was agreed unanimously

Karin Kirk has agreed to become the EOC representative looking after sponsorship. This was welcomed by the meeting.

13. AOB

  • Sponsorship
    Karin Kirk introduced herself and outlined her ideas for sponsorship. She is targeting suitable individual firms and intends to target alumni of EOC teams.
  • Constitution
    The Secretary will review the Constitution and if necessary propose suitable amendments at the 2014 AGM.
  • Selection Policy
    NWOA had queried the operation of the Junior selection policy during the year, and had not been satisfied with the reply. The Chairman replied in more detail on behalf of the Chair of the Junior Selectors and the NWOA representatives were satisfied with this fuller explanation.

14. Next meeting

  • The 2014 AGM was provisionally set for the Saturday of JK next year in South Wales in mid April. This will be confirmed in due course.

The meeting closed at 5:20 pm