Committee Meeting

1. Apologies

No one had received any apologies from the absent members.

2. Previous - Actions Leaving Pony players as Umpires; DOS/0502-01

DOS confirmed she had spoken to all the final year Pony players and three had expressed an interest in attending the ABUA-GB umpire clinic in February 2006.

3. Previous Actions - Finding Umpires for 2006 Season; KS/0506-01

DOS said she had spoken to Scott McVay who said he was willing to attend the clinic and help with umpiring.
TD suggested that her husband Paul might be interested in helping out with umpiring.
The committee also spoke about asking Graham Crabb if he would be interested in additional umpire training.

4. Previous Actions - Funding of Umpires Clinic; C/0506-01

RH suggested that BaseballMK would pay the costs of the final year pony players attending the clinic, providing they agreed to umpire a minimum of three Bronco games.
KS also suggested that anyone else who umpired three BaseballMK games and who attended an ABUA-GB clinic that season would be refunded their clinic costs by the club.
The committee then agreed both proposals.

5. Previous Actions - Club Ethos Discussion; C/0506-02

The committee agreed the decision made at the previous meeting that this item could now be closed.

6. Previous Actions - Financial Projection 2006; NS/0506-01

NS explained that he had requested some projection information from team managers and had not received what he required.
KS asked what information NS did require. NS said he would need projected umpire costs and BSUK costs. KS/0507-01

KS then began talking about money collection mechanisms for the 2006 season. KS said that he thought that the club must move to a standing order payment scheme.
TD then asked how that would affect members who did not attend every practice session.
KS explained that even if a member did not attend the costs were still being incurred in their absence. KS also pointed out the costs would definitely be increasing to create a reserve for the 2007 clubhouse costs.

CB then enquired about the current state of the club cash reserves.
RH said that the club reserves would comfortably cover the team registration costs for 2006.

CB said personally he would rather make a single cheque payment than monthly payments.
KS said he had experience from monthly standing orders from his business and there was very little overhead.
DOS then illustrated that 120 spread over twelve months was far easier to budget.

TD then queried what would happen in the event of a member ending their membership.
KS said he would suggest that there was a 30 days notice termination option.

NS expressed some concern that it may make managing the club accounts more difficult.

CB then checked that the committee were still planning to have a sibling discount for the following season.
The entire committee agreed that a sibling discount would still be available next season.

7. Previous Actions - Caps as Assets; C/0506-03

NS explained that he believed the committee was responsible for the fact that the cap stock had not been managed better throughout the season.
DOS confirmed that she had been economical with the caps, hoping that the Pony stock could be stretched to a second season.

KS repeated that that every team would be having new design caps next season.
The committee therefore agreed that the caps no longer had any financial value.

NS then said he wanted to change the club accounts to include a fourth account that would be a club "bucket account". The "bucket account" would be used for any transaction that was not easily attributed to a team account.
RH repeated for the last time that having one account that spanned the other three accounts would make the accounts unclear and therefore less useful.
DOS stated that as NS was the club treasurer then he should be allowed to use a fourth account if he thought it was appropriate.
The committee then agreed that NS could add a fourth account to the club accounts.
NS will now be reworking the club accounts for 2005 to include a fourth "club account".
NS stated he would be using the "club account" to write off the value of the unsold caps. NS/0507-01

DOS suggested that the caps could be used as prizes.
KS added that they would be really useful in next years schools programme.

8. Previous Actions - Winter Training; RN/0506-02

This item was again deffered until the next committee meeting as Rob Norris was not available. RN/0506-02

9. Previous Actions - Team Reports; KS/0506-03, NS/0506-02, RN0506-03

RH confirmed he had received the reports for each team and they would be in the next web update.
DOS asked whether the committee would get to review the information.
RH explained that it would be reviewed by the committee like any other web update.

10. Previous Actions - Award Evening Dinner; DOS/0506-01

DOS suggested that the club host a Race Night.

RH asked when the event would take place.
KS said that Bow Brickhill Pavilion would be available on a Friday evening.
TD said she had contacts at Newport Pagnall Council who she could ask.
DOS & KS agreed that the event should take place on a Friday evening in October.
DOS then said that she no longer thought that the AGM should be combined with the award evening.

DOS said that she would begin advertising as soon as a date was agreed. DOS/0506-01

KS said he had approached Tom Gillespie and asked if he would present the awards.

11. Previous Actions - Election of Sub Committee (SC-a); C/0506-04

KS explained he had now spoken to BSUK and they had confirmed that members of BaseballMK were now being investigated by the British Baseball Federation board.

DOS then asked whether this compelled BaseballMK to have its own enquiry.
RH explained that if members of BaseballMK were implicated by the BBF investigation, then the club would have to decide how to react to the findings.

CB suggested that the sub committee should not be elected until BBF investigation was complete.
KS, DOS & TD agreed that was a reasonable procedure.

12. Previous Actions - Darrin Mullers Letter of Complaint; DOS/0506-02

DOS reported she had responded to Darrin Muller and said the committee would look into his complaint after the results of the BBF investigation were known.

TD then asked what the complaint was because she had not attended the previous meeting.
RH told DOS that every member of the committee should have been sent a copy of Darrins complaint.
DOS said she would try to find the e-mail so that she could send it to the members of committee who did not attend the August meeting. DOS/0507-01

13. Grounds - Knowlhill; KS/0505-02

TD checked with the committee that Knowlhill would not be available for the 2006 season.
KS explained that he had not yet met with the developers to correct the diamond dimensions. KS/0505-02

RH asked KS to ask the council what the terms of the lease would be on the diamond. KS/0507-02

14. Grounds - Woughton

KS reported that he had spoken to the Woughton management company and they had agreed a more favourable financial plan for the 2006 season.
Originally Woughton had indicated that the costs for next season would be almost twice those charged for 2005, however KS was now confident the increase in costs would now be related to an inflationary increase.

15. Financial Matters

RH asked about the status of the outstanding expenses relating to the MLB envoy.
NS said that he had not been invoiced by BSUK, and was expecting to leave the cost in this years accounts.
DOS expressed that she was not happy with the limitations of sharing an envoy with other regional clubs.

16. Sponsorship / Grants - Tesco Vouchers

KS explained that Estelle had registered the club with the Tesco voucher scheme.
Although the scheme does not have any equipment directly related to baseball, there are several general purpose sporting items which will benefit the club.

17. Sponsorship / Grants - Equipment Grants

KS said he had done an equipment inventory now all of the equipment had been collated.
It seems that the club now has considerably less equipment than it had at the beginning of the season.

KS has therefore asked Estelle to make an equipment grant application her top funding priority.

CB expressed some concern that he would have trouble operating the pony team without kit.

18. First Aid Course

KS describe an opportunity he had created having done a deal with a qualified first aid instructor.

KS explained that a First Aid course typically cost 90 per day.

KS has asked BSUK to endorse a one day sporting first aid course hosted by BaseballMK for twelve people.
Six people will be BaseballMK coaches, and the other six places will be made available at 50. KS/0507-03

19. Scoring Clinic

KS suggested that some members of BaseballMK should be sent to a scoring clinic.
RH said that he was not aware of any scoring clinic that had been organised in the last three years.

DOS & TD asked whether NS could run a club clinic. NS said that he did not think he was qualified, as scoring involved an extensive understanding of the rules.

KS said he would investigate a scoring clinic as it was clear BaseballMK currently lacks qualified scorers. KS/0507-04

20. Constitution; RH/0505-02

NS submitted an updated constitution for the committee to consider.
KS said he had sent an e-mail that RH said he had not received. KS agreed to resend the document.

RH then highlighted that if the constitution was not agreed by January so it could be adopted at the AGM then the club would not be able to get any funding in the following season.
KS then suggested that all members of the committee should exchange their suggestions one week before the next committee meeting. RH/0505-02

21. AOB - Youth Forum

RH suggested that the members of the BaseballMK committee should be considering what ideas they wanted to propose at the 2006 youth forum.
DOS asked whether the league would be willing to adopt an idea from BaseballMK.
RH explained that the league would probably be very open to suggestions after the problems with the 2005 season.
The committee agreed to consider new ideas that could be sent to the Youth Forum. DOS/0507-02