LOUGHBOROUGH BOAT CLUB COMMITTEE MEETING MINUTES
22.02.2018
6:30PM
LOUGHBOROUGH BOAT CLUB, ZOUCH
Present: Mary Carswell, Stuart Ward, Sandra Martin, Keith Hudson, Tim Ives.
Apologies: Rebecca Hambleton
Minutes from previous meeting:
Minutes were approved
Actions arising:
Erg for sale. Erg was sold within the club.
Sleepers for bridge. KH has sourced sleepers and will organise delivery when the next stock comes in. Plan to repair the bridge on an work weekend.
Organising of junior sessions to help all to progress as well as they can, following the increased membership has been looked into. One suggestion is to split the group and have a second person go out in the other lunch with the juniors. As to helping with confirming junior numbers at the weekend, there are a number of web apps and programmes that can be used to confirm attendance. The same programme can be used for the rest of the club too to help with confirming presence at training sessions.
Accounts:
Balances:
General: £27,241.99
Savings: £11,290.20
Social: £409.79 (+£1202.98 in new social)
Recent spends: Club ties stock.
Ties are proving to be popular with the sales to match.
Accounts for AGM are going well and so far it is all looking very positive. The main time will be spent cross checking the payments made by cheque. First draft of accounts are expected early-mid March. Scott to be invited to next committee meeting with regards to the accounts.
Rowing and Facilities Development:
As the weather is starting to improve, the club needs a little bit of care taking, including repairing the bridge, tidying up the grounds as well as giving the club a freshen up and paint. Suggestion to hire a skip to get rid of some of the increasing collecting of junk was raised, feasibility will need to be looked into.
Ideal date, negotiating around external events and races is the weekend of 10th and 11th March, send out email. KH will lead on putting together a jobs list which can be kicked off over the weekend and continued from there.
Energy report from Nadine:
Nadine and Keith met with a representative of a renewable energy company. The only real suggestion from the representative was towards an air source heat pump, discussion on this point led to the feeling that it was not the best way to invest money into energy. Air source can increase energy usage as electricity is used to top up the heat if it is required. While solar power is an option, the pay-back period is up to 20 years depending on the tariffs that are paid.
The far more favoured option, backed by all of committee is to invest the money into insulation of the building. There is already insulation in much of the roof and under floor so the main area to focus on is in the wall cavities. Different approaches to be costed but either a form of external cladding or insulation in the cavities.
New club members, Ben Smith (active), David Gardner (gym), Adam Lowe (Junior) and returning member Shane Freer (Gym) all approved by committee.
Coaching, Welfare and Safety:
Training Camp Survey Feedback.
With a small exception of the 27 members who responded to the survey, there is a great interest in attending a training camp. There was an emerging preference for a more performance based camp with a short 2-3 day length over the May bank holiday. Mixed responses were received in regards to boat size.
TI to follow up and look for suitability and availability of locations, early suggestions include Peterborough, Grosvenor (Chester), West Norfolk (start of Great Ouse Marathon) and Goring Gap (Reading) KH to pass on contact details for Charlie to TI in regards to Goring Gap.
Vicky has put together a draft Welfare Statement for the club using Leicester’s as a template. It is looking good and fully inclusive. Next step is to add the chain of actions if something gets reported and how to report something.
On a safety note, it has been good to see that there have been no reports of collisions or other incident in the water more recently. Crews have been showing self-policing of wearing bright/high-vis clothing.
Social:
Annual dinner choices are to be made, SM and SW to organise.
Summer ball, sub-committee numbers are small and could really do with increasing that number. Some of the early preparations are taking shape.
External meetings:
East Midlands Regional Council.
The main arising issue is around data protection, what is being held, where and how it is used. To follow up and ensure we are in compliance and what changes may be needed. Having had a quick discussion, we are generally compliant but the finer details will need to be looked into.
A note is to be added to membership forms to say how the information is stored and how it will be used.
AGM:
Discussion took place about re-writing the club rules in a clearer updated language ahead of the AGM and renaming the rules as Club Constitution, in line with British Rowing’s guidelines. BR have a skeleton for a club constitution from which LBC’s reworked rules can built. It was accepted that, as time is limited before the AGM, it may not be fully feasible to have a final version ready for the AGM so an EGM may be necessary in the year however, it was agreed to push forward with rewording those previously covered aspects of the club rules for the AGM in April. MC and SW to take lead
A second issue that arose was the need for an equity policy and grievance policy for the club. This is, again, in line with BR. Much of what will go into the policies are currently in the club rules and it is a case of putting the words together in their own documents.
A.O.B:
Points were raised about the level, type, consistency and safety of winter training. A need and desire for some form of coaching over the winter season either periodically or more often was raised. Where we have members training others how to lift weights, if that is not done properly or by someone who is suitably qualified, we are in danger of being liable for any injuries sustained. MC and TI to liaise and make contact with Loughborough University to see if there is anything that they can provide. In general, there is favour for some form consistent coaching either internally or externally sourced.
Mike from Soaring Dragons was invited to committee, although he couldn’t attend, he did pass on comments so far. SD are all very happy with it so far, their training is going well and are enjoying the new location.
They have an open day on Sunday 25th March 2018 12:30pm which is likely to add a few members to their club.
RD to contact Soaring Dragons to organise communications between treasurers.
Next meeting:
RD to email to identify suitable dates to allow for a full committee as well as Scott.
End of meeting