ST. HELENS RUGBY LEAGUE REFEREES SOCIETY Minutes from the 2016 Annual General Meeting held at the Greenall s Club, Alder Hey Road, St. Helens on Wednesday 3 rd February 2016. Meeting Chaired by: Phil Smith. Minutes recorded by: Andrew Mulligan. The Chairman, Phil Smith opened the meeting by welcoming all members present. 1. MEMBERS PRESENT & APOLOGIES FOR ABSENCE As per attendance record 2. CONFIRMATION OF PREVIOUS AGM MINUTES Phil Smith read through the minutes of the previous AGM. No objections were raised. The minutes were proposed as a true and correct record by Sam Jones, seconded by Craig Hill. Carried. 3. CHAIRMANS SUMMARY Phil Smith addressed the membership with regards to the past 12 months. Full Chairman s report found in appendix A. 4. SECRETARY & TREASURER S REPORT Presented before Marchs General Meeting (02/03/16). The Secretary Treasurer presented the membership with an overview of the societies expenditure for the last financial year. On a whole, the society made a loss for the year of - 67.53. With a final closing balance of 2,585.13. This year the society has been able to spend more money on members, thanks to successful grants and funding last year. The society decided to subsidise the community award tickets by 10 as a pose to 7.50 the previous year; whilst equipment, a new website domain and member expenses for training courses were all funded. The membership fees were down on the previous year due to a reduction in members, and it was stressed that subs are the main income for the society and are imperative to be paid in full and on time. To conclude, the secretary thanked those members who had participated in events representing the society throughout the year, and those who have contributed and assisted in society matters. 5. CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENTS As the constitution was given a total rewrite and was put into place at the SGM before Julys meeting (01/07/2015) there were no proposals amend or change the constitution. As a result no changes were made to the constitution. CARRIED. 6. MEMBER STATUS No young members were eligible for automatic upgrade to full membership. Richard Stokes is still not officiating so remains an honorary member. Proposed by Dave Webster, seconded by Jamie Barr. 7. RATES OF SUBSCRIPTION The Society membership fee has traditionally been set at a full NWC match fee. This currently stands at 28. The Committee and members saw no reason to change this amount.
The Young Members fee, by way of rule 4.02.2, shall be set at 14 Membership fees of 28 and 14 for Full and Junior members respectively were proposed by Brian Cummings, seconded by Ryan Snelson. All in favour. Carried. Members were reminded that subscriptions should be paid as soon as possible and in any case by 70 days after the AGM (approximately around the May General Meeting) as per rule 4.03. 8. ELECTION OF SOCIETY COMMITTEE The Chairman, Phil Smith, wished to continue in his role as Chairman of the society. There were no other nominations for the role, Phil remains as Chairman for the next 12 months. CARRIED. The Secretary Treasurer, Andrew Mulligan, wished to continue in his role as Secretary Treasurer of the society. There were no other nominations for the role, Andrew remains as Secretary Treasurer for the next 12 months. CARRIED. The Vice Chairman, Jamie Barr, wished to continue in his role as Vice Chairman of the society. There were no other nominations for the role, Jamie remains as Vice Chairman for the next 12 months. CARRIED. The Society also appointed Craig Hill to continue as Training Coordinator & Phil Smith to continue as development officer. Other roles nominated were: Safeguarding Officer Brian Cummings; Committee Persons Innes Arnold and Ben Patey; Online Media Officer Denton Arnold; Website Officer Ryan Snelson. These roles were proposed in bulk by Andrew Mulligan, seconded by Jamie Barr. Carried. 9. HONORARIA All members set to receive honoraria in 2016 were asked to stand outside the room whilst the membership discussed their honorarium. It was agreed that the Development honoraria should stay the same as last year at 180. Proposed by Ryan Snelson, seconded by Brian Cummings. It was suggested ahead of the meeting by Andrew that the Secretary honoraria be decreased from 230 to 180, and the surplus 50 be rewarded as a new honoraria for the Training Coordinator. These changes were proposed by Denton Arnold and seconded by Frank Tickle. All were in favour. 10. MEETING SCHEDULE Members saw no reason to change the date or venue of our meetings, therefore it was proposed that the Society meeting remain on the 1st Wednesday of the month, at the Greenalls Club. Proposed by Phil Smith, seconded by Frank Tickle. CARRIED. END OF MEETING. With the business of the Annual General Meeting now concluded, the Chairman, Phil Smith, closed the meeting at 20:10.
APPENDIX A CHAIRMANS REPORT FEBRUARY 2016.
Chairmans Report February 2016 The last 12 months has seen another year of progress on and off the field. One of the highlights and a real coup for our Society was hosting the first ever European Match Officials seminar. 10 emerging referees from 8 different countries spending 4 days in St Helens back in May. The importance of this from a development point as well as a fantastic opportunity for us to make contacts can t be underestimated. Some of the officials we hosted went on later in the year to officiate International matches and tutor match officials courses. They will be back again in September for a Level 2 course delivered partly by us but also hopefully joined by a much larger gathering of up to 40 officials. This is something we really need to get behind and embrace. How many of our own members are qualified to a Level 2 standard? Fostering relationships with Saints enabled Craig Richards their development coach to come to one of our training nights to assess our coaching methods as well as attending our meeting as a guest speaker. We were also invited to send members to listen to Saints coaches Keiron Cunningham & Sean Long deliver an insight into coaching methods. Saints were also more than helpful providing facilities and education for the European weekend. Through the Service Area connection we took a table of over 20 places, albeit at a discount rate, to the Awards evening and to see Callum Kelly presented with his Referee of the Year trophy. We ve been able to access discounted tickets for the WC match later this month and enjoyed a free night at the theatre for the Gareth Thomas play. Also off field, we ve attended the Rugby United event at Liverpool St Helens and participated in the RFL Founders Walk. People may question why we bother with all these things after all we are a referees Society. Well apart from being one of our 6 core objectives, theres lots of topics that cross over into officiating and many of these offer benefits to our members. We ran the twitter competition for a 2nd time and like last year recruited a new member as a result. As long as we don t neglect the officiating side of things then we should continue down this path. This year our members have taken the RFL Championship Ref of the Year, the RFL Community Young Ref of the Year, the NW Youth Ref of the Year and the NW Junior Ref of the Year - all awards voted by bodies external to us. This would suggest we haven t taken our eye off the ball. Congratulations to Mike Woodhead, Jamie Barr, Denton & Tolver Arnold. Our members have been appointed to numerous finals and representative games over the year and these have been well documented in the Newsletter. Congratulations to all and it seems like almost everybody s had a piece of the pie. Three years ago I challenged our members to be on the Champion Schools Finals in each following year. This year that was achieved with Jamie Barr and Denton Arnold this years representatives to add to Craig Smith previously. Today I m throwing down the same challenge to our present under 18 s - a St Helens representation for the next 3 years! The St Helens Schools Finals are a start and again in 2015 all our officials conducted themselves brilliantly, demonstrating their skills and teamwork over the 2 days. This time last year we said recruitment was a worry. Since then we ve had 8 new members recruited and officiate on games. All are keen to progress and the challenge is on for the Development team to get them up to speed and to the standards we expect as quickly as possible. To help, development nights at Blackbrook have started back up. One development area we do need to focus on is getting members progressing through the RFL pathway. The NW Development team do a good job in arranging regional training and education and its clear we have a large group of our members in this bracket who would benefit greatly from regular technical sessions at local level. The plan is for our Development team to meet early February to formulate a plan for the year ahead.
During the year many hours were spent rewriting the new constitution a thankless but necessary task. Thanks to Simon Barrie and Innes Arnold for that. The Sunday evening slot for the Christmas meal and Awards were well attended - well done to winners Mike Woodhead, Jamie Barr, Denton Arnold and John Kinsella. The Newsletter continues to be produced were now up to issue 19 with some great articles. Watch out for our special in March - issue 21. The Newsletter has helped to re-connect with a lot of our former members the result being a re-union this Sunday organised by President Frank Tickle. It was sad at the start of the year that the committee had to deal with discipline issues regarding social media. The message reinforced the perils of using those platforms inappropriately. Its prompted the RFL in light of this and other similar cases to re-think their code of discipline policy. It was even sadder when we heard of the tragic death of our former member Chris Leatherbarrow. The Society as a whole was totally shocked but at the same time could be proud how it rallied behind his family to offer support at that horrible time. For the 4th year now at this time I ve spoken about the uncertainty coming out of the RFL referees department. Although we have a new Head of Referees in Steve Ganson - a former Chairman of this Society - with just days to go to the start of a new season, the structure below him is still unclear. The positives though are that substantial funding has been directed towards overhauling the Development & Recruitment side of things and a lot of volunteers, including our members, have benefited from upskilling courses. There s still plenty to do but at last it seems there is a will to tackle this issue. I d like to thank everyone who has put their hand up and helped the Society in any way over the year. To all the development team who volunteer week in week out to work on behalf of our members. Also to Andrew Mulligan who had the unenviable task of following on from Simon after 10 years. For the next 12 months the new committee have some challenges and initiatives already in the pipeline. At present our Society is thriving and strong. We need to keep improving to keep growing. Our training is top drawer under the guidance of Craig Hill who does a fantastic job in keeping the sessions varied and interesting. We re now the only Society in the NW delivering organised group training. That s not really something to celebrate, just fact. 15-20 members regularly turning up to the indoor sessions at Sutton Manor. A masterstroke to switch from outdoors to inside over the winter to keep things ticking along. The challenge is to keep the numbers strong when we go back outdoors in the cold and rain at the end of the month. Our middle group of members are all well placed and trained to jump to the next level this season. All are working hard and waiting for their opportunities. More importantly to me, each and everyone of them will progress by demonstrating the right standards and values which run through this Society and which will hold them in good stead in the years ahead. Our new starters will be challenging them in the near future by following this same path and will need to learn quickly all our core principles to succeed. Finally best wishes to everyone on a successful season ahead.] Phil Smith.