Minutes of the English Orienteering Council AGM
held at Staffordshire Wildlife Trust, The Wolseley Centre,
Wolseley Bridge, Stafford, ST17 0WT,
on 1st May 2010
Present:
Philip Gristwood Chair
Trevor Simpson Treasurer (in place of Lesley Ross for this meeting)
Helen Gristwood Kit Officer
John Rye Senior TM, Chair Senior Selectors, Interland TM
Chris Morris Secretary
Jeff Butt Junior TM
Andy Hemsted Chair, Veteran Selectors
Steve Round NWOA
Alistair Tinto YHOA
Simon Greenwood SEOA
Mike Bray SCOA
Brenda Morgan WMOA
Arthur Vince SWOA
Karen Nash Observer
Henry Morgan Observer
Christine Vince Observer
Penny Hemsted Observer
Meeting opened at 5:00 pm
1. Apologies: Sue & Keith Marsden, Barbara Fothergill EAOA, Heather Phipps YHOA, Lesley Ross, Sarah Brown.
2. Acceptance of 2009 Minutes:
The minutes of the 2009 meeting were accepted as a true record.
3. Matters Arising:
All actions complete.
4. Chairman’s Report
• Improving on last year, both the Junior and Veteran teams won their matches, with a comfortable second place in the SHI.
• The EOC Website is still running successfully, although we are still experiencing some problems with posting pictures.  Hopefully we will be able to sort this out before too
• Early last year, noticing a report on favorable BOF funding from Sport England, the Chairman took the opportunity to write to BOF to lobby for increased funding for 2009.  They said that their extra money would not come for another year but agreed to grant us £1800 again in 2009.  He recently met Mike Hamilton and repeated the request, and also followed up with an email.  Prior to the AGM Mike Hamilton indicated that BOF will provide £1800 again this year.  In case this source of funding is discontinued in future there are a couple of other ideas that were discussed under AOB.
5. Treasurer’s Report
• In the Treasurer’s absence, the Chairman introduced the 2009 accounts and the forecast budget for 2010 which had been previously circulated to all by the Treasurer, Lesley Ross. He noted certain amendments: Craft no longer provide O tops now Ultrasport, price of sweatshirts £16 not £19.  The Chairman, in the absence of the Treasurer, proposed the acceptance of the accounts. This was seconded by Jeff Butt and carried unanimously.
• For a sound budget EOC needs a balance of around £3400 at 31 Dec 2010 to cover Interland 2011 costs and also outlay for England clothing – O tops.   The budget assumed that the grant of £1800 would be forthcoming from BOF (from monies received from Sport England).  No Home Internationals in NI in 2010 so should make expenditure slightly lower than previous few years.  This budget required either a rise of 5p per capita (detailed formula in accounts) in regional contributions from 50p to 55p with athlete personal contributions for Home Internationals remaining at 2009 level or that regional contributions remain at 50p but athlete contributions increase by £5.
• If no grant from BOF then to compensate, to cover the deficit, the per capita regional contribution would need to rise by an additional 20p and an increased athlete contribution of £5 would be required.
• The meeting agreed (6 regions in favour) to increase the per capita amount for regional contributions to 55p and maintain the athlete contribution at £75 (median).  The meeting also agreed to amend the vehicle travel reimbursement rates (to reflect increased fuel costs) to: cars with 2 athletes 16p, car with 3 or more athletes 25p [no change and congruent with BOF practice] (plus 2p per additional team member above 3). The details are listed below.
This was proposed by Philip Gristwood and seconded by Mike Bray.
6. Home Internationals
• JHI (Newborough, Wales)  – results:
England – 130
Scotland – 112
Wales – 65
Ireland – 52
• SHI (Co. Fermanagh, N Ireland) – results:
Scotland – 54
England  – 46
Ireland  – 23
Wales – 18
• VHI (Eyam Moor & Longshaw, England) – results:
England  – 240
Scotland  – 208
Wales  – 170
Ireland  – 76
• Dates of all 2010 HIs have now been fixed in the autumn and can be found on the EOC website.
• SCOA is hosting the SHI later this year on behalf of the English regions.  The first bulletin is imminent.  The relays will be on the Saturday at Pamber Forest and the individual event at Ironbridge integrated with the November Classic.  Allan Farrington is the overall coordinator.
7. Interland
• Another win at Hechtel in Belgium making 15 in a row.  Thanks to John Rye for all his efforts in managing another successful trip.
• EOC – England  – 245
VVO – Vlaander  – 238
FRSO – Walonie  – 167
LNPCCO – N.France – 112
NOLB – Nederlands  – 102
WTB – Westfalen – 94
The winning margin was very small this year following a comfortable victory last year.
• WTB have confirmed the details for Interland 2011 in Germany: 6th March 2011 near Lübbecke.
• The Ligue Nord–Pas de Calais de Course d’Orientation (LNPCCO) sent a team to Interland 2010 as a trial and achieved a commendable result.  They have been invited to compete again in 2011.
8. Appointment of Selectors
• No new selectors have been appointed during the last year.
9. Selection policies
• All three selection policies for this year are in place and published on our Website.
• It was suggested that the Junior team is picked after the Selection races and not wait to include all known form up to July.   John Rye also asked that selections be made before Christmas for Interland.   Chairman to write to TMs/Selectors on this subject.
10. Website
• As mentioned before it is running well, but we still have some difficulties in posting photographs ourselves and need help from the web developer.  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 have had 3500 visitors in 11000 visits with 31000 pages viewed.  We are currently running at an average of 150 visits per week but with peaks of between 300 and 800 corresponding with competitions.  We have now had visitors from 60 countries.
• We have continued to get a good support service from Tim Holt and although we budgeted a sum of £75 for maintenance and development he has intimated that he will not need any payment for the past year as he considers this is his contribution to orienteering.  We record our thanks to him for this.  If we need any significant work from him in future we are prepared to pay for that.   We have recently paid the fee for hosting the website for another year
• The Secretary has written to Tim offering our thanks and also enquiring about the methods for backing up the server and hence protecting our data.   Those procedures have now been confirmed and are sufficient to rebuild the website in the event of a disaster. Further details are available from the Secretary if required.
11. Team Kit
• We hold a lot of team kit. Ultrasport now supply the O tops.   We need to hold a stock of England kit for team members as suppliers are not sufficiently reactive to supply in the timeframe between selection and the various matches.
• Unfortunately the prices of Hoodies, sweatshirts and T shirts have risen slightly during the past year, although Ultrasport have kept O-top prices  unchanged.
• The Hoodies recently introduced are proving a hit particularly with the youngsters.   In the last year we have added new red England jacket to our range of kit and although quite expensive these have proved popular.  They are bought on order and no stock is held.
• There was a problem concerning entitlement to kit earlier in the year.  For clarification it is proposed that the following rules be applied:
• Anyone may wear the T-shirt, including England supporters.
• Hoodies & Sweatshirts are available only to selected team members who take part in the competition, and officials of the EOC.   This includes Reserves who actually travel with the team, whether they are called up to run or not.
• O-Tops and Jackets are available only to selected team members who actually take part in the competition.  This includes reserves who are called up to run.  It also includes selected team members who travel but are unable to run due to injury/illness.
• This proposal was discussed and agreed and these entitlement words will be added to the Kit page on the Website.
12. Election of Officers
• The Council shall elect a Chairman and one other officer each year.   It was noted that there is only Chairman plus one other official according to the constitution.  The Chairman proposed that we should change the constitution to have 2 officials as that is what we have effectively had for some time. This was seconded by Simon Greenwood and carried unanimously.  However, it must appear as an agenda item next year for formal ratification.
• Philip Gristwood was re-elected as Chairman unopposed. Proposed by Simon Greenwood, and seconded by Mike Bray
• Last year the Secretary was re-elected.  This year it should be the Treasurer to be elected and Lesley Ross, who has been acting as Treasurer since Catherine Galvin retired last year, proposed by Brenda Morgan, and seconded by Simon Round.
13. AOB
• EOC Funding
• The Chairman had been informed that at least some members of Scottish teams were much better subsided than members of our teams, also that they were provided with free or subsided kit.  If funding were improved for some of our ‘younger’ athletes it may encourage them to accept invitations to run for our teams.   It would be good if we could obtain more funding so that kit could be subsidised and personal contributions held down to a lower level.  There is also the possibility that we may need to replace BOF funding if this is cut or stopped in future.
• One idea was to raise money from the 3 English Area Championships (National Events). BOF get a lot of income from the JK and British Champs, Scotland from the Scottish 6 days, and it would seem reasonable that English competitions should help support us.   The following table shows participation and estimated BOF levy for the 3 most recent events.
Area Champs Host Club Date Runners BOF Levy
Northern SYO 31/01/2010 745 1567.00
Southern NGOC 21/02/2010 683 1405.80
Midland LEI 21/03/2010 787 1676.20
2215 4649.00
• The possibilities in order of preference would be :
• For BOF to give the full levy to EOC (and perhaps from the other National Champs to their organisations)
• For BOF to share the levy with us, perhaps 50/50
• For an additional levy to be added to the entry fees of perhaps £1 per competitor.
• The feeling of the meeting was that it was unlikely that BOF would be happy to share the levies, and that an additional levy may be unpopular as it would put entry fees up.  It was agreed that it was still worth considering other ideas to raise our own funds.
• Another idea was to try and raise money as sponsorship.  This is currently being investigated.  This could have implications such as having to add sponsors logos to the England Kit.
• The feeling of the meeting was that this was worth pursuing since juniors especially are pleased to have the kudos of well-known firm’s logos on their kit.
• The meeting wondered if there might be some sponsorship opportunities by advertising on our Website as this had a large number of visitors.   This will be investigated.
• Last year it had been suggested that it may be advantageous to appoint a “travel agent” for the EOC who would liaise with regional contacts to facilitate accommodation etc at Home International events.   A volunteer came forward early this year but unfortunately has recently said that he will be unable to continue due to ill health.  At the meeting John Rye advised that Sarah Brown was prepared to take on the role of Home International Coordination Officer to advise English regions hosting HI’s on what is required of an HI, both the competition and the supporting aspects (accommodation and feeding). It is important to note that the events will still “owned” by the Regions and this role would be purely advisory.
• Last year the meeting agreed that the VHI team leader should be mandated to vote in favour of removal of 35’s from the veteran teams at the next VHI (to take effect from 2010 VHI).  John Rye advised that this is still not resolved and for VHI 2010 the default is that the 35 classes remain part of the VHI competition.
14. Next meeting
• The British Champs will be in YHOA in 2011 and this weekend was preferred as the date and venue for the EOC AGM.
• The meeting was in agreement that the AGM should take place at the British Champs on Sat 7th May at 5pm (or some other time to be agreed before the event).
• Meeting closed at  6:32 pm

Minutes of the English Orienteering Council AGM, held at Staffordshire Wildlife Trust, The Wolseley Centre, Wolseley Bridge, Stafford, ST17 0WT, on 1st May 2010

Present:

  • Philip Gristwood Chair
  • Trevor Simpson Treasurer (in place of Lesley Ross for this meeting)
  • Helen Gristwood Kit Officer
  • John Rye Senior TM, Chair Senior Selectors, Interland TM
  • Chris Morris Secretary
  • Jeff Butt Junior TM
  • Andy Hemsted Chair, Veteran Selectors
  • Steve Round NWOA
  • Alistair Tinto YHOA
  • Simon Greenwood SEOA
  • Mike Bray SCOA
  • Brenda Morgan WMOA
  • Arthur Vince SWOA
  • Karen Nash Observer
  • Henry Morgan Observer
  • Christine Vince Observer
  • Penny Hemsted Observer

Meeting opened at 5:00 pm

1. Apologies:  Sue & Keith Marsden, Barbara Fothergill EAOA, Heather Phipps YHOA, Lesley Ross, Sarah Brown.

2. Acceptance of 2009 Minutes:

The minutes of the 2009 meeting were accepted as a true record.

3. Matters Arising:

All actions complete.

4. Chairman’s Report

• Improving on last year, both the Junior and Veteran teams won their matches, with a comfortable second place in the SHI.

• The EOC Website is still running successfully, although we are still experiencing some problems with posting pictures.  Hopefully we will be able to sort this out before too

• Early last year, noticing a report on favorable BOF funding from Sport England, the Chairman took the opportunity to write to BOF to lobby for increased funding for 2009.  They said that their extra money would not come for another year but agreed to grant us £1800 again in 2009.  He recently met Mike Hamilton and repeated the request, and also followed up with an email.  Prior to the AGM Mike Hamilton indicated that BOF will provide £1800 again this year.  In case this source of funding is discontinued in future there are a couple of other ideas that were discussed under AOB.

5. Treasurer’s Report

• In the Treasurer’s absence, the Chairman introduced the 2009 accounts and the forecast budget for 2010 which had been previously circulated to all by the Treasurer, Lesley Ross. He noted certain amendments: Craft no longer provide O tops now Ultrasport, price of sweatshirts £16 not £19.  The Chairman, in the absence of the Treasurer, proposed the acceptance of the accounts. This was seconded by Jeff Butt and carried unanimously.

• For a sound budget EOC needs a balance of around £3400 at 31 Dec 2010 to cover Interland 2011 costs and also outlay for England clothing – O tops.   The budget assumed that the grant of £1800 would be forthcoming from BOF (from monies received from Sport England).  No Home Internationals in NI in 2010 so should make expenditure slightly lower than previous few years.  This budget required either a rise of 5p per capita (detailed formula in accounts) in regional contributions from 50p to 55p with athlete personal contributions for Home Internationals remaining at 2009 level or that regional contributions remain at 50p but athlete contributions increase by £5.

• If no grant from BOF then to compensate, to cover the deficit, the per capita regional contribution would need to rise by an additional 20p and an increased athlete contribution of £5 would be required.

• The meeting agreed (6 regions in favour) to increase the per capita amount for regional contributions to 55p and maintain the athlete contribution at £75 (median).  The meeting also agreed to amend the vehicle travel reimbursement rates (to reflect increased fuel costs) to: cars with 2 athletes 16p, car with 3 or more athletes 25p [no change and congruent with BOF practice] (plus 2p per additional team member above 3). The details are listed below.

This was proposed by Philip Gristwood and seconded by Mike Bray.

6. Home Internationals

• JHI (Newborough, Wales)  – results:

England – 130

Scotland – 112

Wales – 65

Ireland – 52

• SHI (Co. Fermanagh, N Ireland) – results:

Scotland – 54

England  – 46

Ireland  – 23

Wales – 18

• VHI (Eyam Moor & Longshaw, England) – results:

England  – 240

Scotland  – 208

Wales  – 170

Ireland  – 76

• Dates of all 2010 HIs have now been fixed in the autumn and can be found on the EOC website.

• SCOA is hosting the SHI later this year on behalf of the English regions.  The first bulletin is imminent.  The relays will be on the Saturday at Pamber Forest and the individual event at Ironbridge integrated with the November Classic.  Allan Farrington is the overall coordinator.

7. Interland

Another win at Hechtel in Belgium making 15 in a row.  Thanks to John Rye for all his efforts in managing another successful trip.

• EOC – England  – 245

VVO – Vlaander  – 238

FRSO – Walonie  – 167

LNPCCO – N.France – 112

NOLB – Nederlands  – 102

WTB – Westfalen – 94

The winning margin was very small this year following a comfortable victory last year.

• WTB have confirmed the details for Interland 2011 in Germany: 6th March 2011 near Lübbecke.

• The Ligue Nord–Pas de Calais de Course d’Orientation (LNPCCO) sent a team to Interland 2010 as a trial and achieved a commendable result.  They have been invited to compete again in 2011.

8. Appointment of Selectors

• No new selectors have been appointed during the last year.

9. Selection policies

• All three selection policies for this year are in place and published on our Website.

• It was suggested that the Junior team is picked after the Selection races and not wait to include all known form up to July.   John Rye also asked that selections be made before Christmas for Interland.   Chairman to write to TMs/Selectors on this subject.

10. Website

• As mentioned before it is running well, but we still have some difficulties in posting photographs ourselves and need help from the web developer.  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 have had 3500 visitors in 11000 visits with 31000 pages viewed.  We are currently running at an average of 150 visits per week but with peaks of between 300 and 800 corresponding with competitions.  We have now had visitors from 60 countries.

• We have continued to get a good support service from Tim Holt and although we budgeted a sum of £75 for maintenance and development he has intimated that he will not need any payment for the past year as he considers this is his contribution to orienteering.  We record our thanks to him for this.  If we need any significant work from him in future we are prepared to pay for that.   We have recently paid the fee for hosting the website for another year

• The Secretary has written to Tim offering our thanks and also enquiring about the methods for backing up the server and hence protecting our data.   Those procedures have now been confirmed and are sufficient to rebuild the website in the event of a disaster. Further details are available from the Secretary if required.

11. Team Kit

• We hold a lot of team kit. Ultrasport now supply the O tops.   We need to hold a stock of England kit for team members as suppliers are not sufficiently reactive to supply in the timeframe between selection and the various matches.

• Unfortunately the prices of Hoodies, sweatshirts and T shirts have risen slightly during the past year, although Ultrasport have kept O-top prices  unchanged.

• The Hoodies recently introduced are proving a hit particularly with the youngsters.   In the last year we have added new red England jacket to our range of kit and although quite expensive these have proved popular.  They are bought on order and no stock is held.

• There was a problem concerning entitlement to kit earlier in the year.  For clarification it is proposed that the following rules be applied:

• Anyone may wear the T-shirt, including England supporters.

• Hoodies & Sweatshirts are available only to selected team members who take part in the competition, and officials of the EOC.   This includes Reserves who actually travel with the team, whether they are called up to run or not.

• O-Tops and Jackets are available only to selected team members who actually take part in the competition.  This includes reserves who are called up to run.  It also includes selected team members who travel but are unable to run due to injury/illness.

• This proposal was discussed and agreed and these entitlement words will be added to the Kit page on the Website.

12. Election of Officers

• The Council shall elect a Chairman and one other officer each year.   It was noted that there is only Chairman plus one other official according to the constitution.  The Chairman proposed that we should change the constitution to have 2 officials as that is what we have effectively had for some time. This was seconded by Simon Greenwood and carried unanimously.  However, it must appear as an agenda item next year for formal ratification.

• Philip Gristwood was re-elected as Chairman unopposed. Proposed by Simon Greenwood, and seconded by Mike Bray

• Last year the Secretary was re-elected.  This year it should be the Treasurer to be elected and Lesley Ross, who has been acting as Treasurer since Catherine Galvin retired last year, proposed by Brenda Morgan, and seconded by Simon Round.

13. AOB

• EOC Funding

• The Chairman had been informed that at least some members of Scottish teams were much better subsided than members of our teams, also that they were provided with free or subsided kit.  If funding were improved for some of our ‘younger’ athletes it may encourage them to accept invitations to run for our teams.   It would be good if we could obtain more funding so that kit could be subsidised and personal contributions held down to a lower level.  There is also the possibility that we may need to replace BOF funding if this is cut or stopped in future.

• One idea was to raise money from the 3 English Area Championships (National Events). BOF get a lot of income from the JK and British Champs, Scotland from the Scottish 6 days, and it would seem reasonable that English competitions should help support us.   The following table shows participation and estimated BOF levy for the 3 most recent events.

Area Champs Host Club Date Runners BOF Levy

Northern SYO 31/01/2010 745 1567.00

Southern NGOC 21/02/2010 683 1405.80

Midland LEI        21/03/2010 787 1676.20

2215 4649.00

• The possibilities in order of preference would be :

• For BOF to give the full levy to EOC (and perhaps from the other National Champs to their organisations)

• For BOF to share the levy with us, perhaps 50/50

• For an additional levy to be added to the entry fees of perhaps £1 per competitor.

• The feeling of the meeting was that it was unlikely that BOF would be happy to share the levies, and that an additional levy may be unpopular as it would put entry fees up.  It was agreed that it was still worth considering other ideas to raise our own funds.

• Another idea was to try and raise money as sponsorship.  This is currently being investigated.  This could have implications such as having to add sponsors logos to the England Kit.

• The feeling of the meeting was that this was worth pursuing since juniors especially are pleased to have the kudos of well-known firm’s logos on their kit.

• The meeting wondered if there might be some sponsorship opportunities by advertising on our Website as this had a large number of visitors.   This will be investigated.

• Last year it had been suggested that it may be advantageous to appoint a “travel agent” for the EOC who would liaise with regional contacts to facilitate accommodation etc at Home International events.   A volunteer came forward early this year but unfortunately has recently said that he will be unable to continue due to ill health.  At the meeting John Rye advised that Sarah Brown was prepared to take on the role of Home International Coordination Officer to advise English regions hosting HI’s on what is required of an HI, both the competition and the supporting aspects (accommodation and feeding). It is important to note that the events will still “owned” by the Regions and this role would be purely advisory.

• Last year the meeting agreed that the VHI team leader should be mandated to vote in favour of removal of 35’s from the veteran teams at the next VHI (to take effect from 2010 VHI).  John Rye advised that this is still not resolved and for VHI 2010 the default is that the 35 classes remain part of the VHI competition.

14. Next meeting

• The British Champs will be in YHOA in 2011 and this weekend was preferred as the date and venue for the EOC AGM.

• The meeting was in agreement that the AGM should take place at the British Champs on Sat 7th May at 5pm (or some other time to be agreed before the event).

• Meeting closed at  6:32 pm