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1. President Lew Mockett addressed the meeting and welcomed Delegates and Officers and introduced Robin Powell and Clive Bennett the prospective Vice Presidents Controllers for Divisions two and three respectively. The meeting endorsed these two appointments.

In Attendance.

President Lew Mockett (Chairman), Senior Deputy President Alan Clemits, Junior Deputy President Brian Lee, Secretary David Bain, Assistant Secretary Reg Reeve, Treasurer Don Bristow, Match Secretary Paul Thomassen, Competition Secretary Viv Evans and 67 others signed in the Attendance Register.

A. Odell (Southbourne), Brian Baker(Ninfield), Joe Barrass (Past President), John Beavan (County Coach), Peter Bennett (Stedham), Roy Jackson (Middleton), Derek Foster (Alexandra Park), Ron Hemmings (Crouch), Phil Herrington (Petworth), Brian Henham (Fishbourne), Bob Palmer (Eastbourne), Laurie Pinch (Eastbourne), Geoff Sutton (G.P.C.), Richard Pettet (Storrington), Ken Ridgway (Honorary Member), Ron Rose (Staplecross), Ray Stephens (Witterings), Reg Strong (Steyning), Cecil Wadey (West Sussex Tourists).

3. The minutes of the meeting held on Monday 3^rd April 2006, (circulated), were approved, after entering the missing Under 25’s report (circulated). Proposed by Eddie Lendon (Selector) and seconded by Pat Murphy (Past President).

5. Hon Secretary’s Report.

David Bain said that since the Executive meeting in April the G.P.C. had met on two occasions.

He reported on the following items:-

(a) County Website Thanks were extended to John Barden, Wadhurst B.C. for the work he has done in setting up the County Website. It is taking shape very nicely, comments/suggestions would be welcomed.

(b) County Year Books The difficulties experienced with the distribution of the County Year Books early in the year are well known and we hope that situation can be avoided in future. Viv Evans has take over the co-ordination with the Printers from Harry Payne, who has been elected President of the Indoor Association. Correspondence should be channelled through Viv. Thanks were extended to Harry for his past efforts on this very important work.

(c) Sponsorship The EBA has obtained sponsorship for the National Championships from Waitrose and for the National Two Fours Championship from Crampex. Members are urged to support these companies.

(d) Bob Jack MBE Bob who is well known throughout the Country, having been Treasurer of the EBA for a considerable number of years, has been awarded the MBE for his services to the sport. A congratulatory letter from the County has been sent to Bob.

(e) Non Attendance at County Matches The GPC were concerned that there were four incidences where players selected for County Matches had failed to attend . Two of these players had been due to receive their County Badge. The attention of Club Secretaries was drawn to the fact that they are responsible for making sure that their members are aware of County Selections. They are reminded of the letters Paul Thomassen, Honorary Match Secretary, sends out early in each season notifying dates of Selection meetings. If no notification is received within 14 days of the dates given, Secretaries should contact Paul.

(f) Centenary Celebrations In the year 2009 Sussex County will be celebrating 100 years. A sub committee of experienced Officers has been formed to make the necessary arrangements for the celebration of the occasion. If any club or any individuals have any thoughts, ideas or suggestions they should be sent to the County Secretary.

(g) New Club Balcombe B.C. Have paid an affiliation fee now awaiting ratification by the Executive Committee. (The meeting accepted their request for membership). Herstmanceaux B.C. and the Masonic Fellowship have also shown an interest and these were being followed up.

Mail Shot The Secretary’s mail shot went out in August and thanks were extended to those clubs who had already sent their returns, particularly those clubs who had sent in nil returns which was an indication that his letter had been received. He said that due to his holiday commitments he would not be able on this occasion to send out details of the AGM as early as his predecessor. He did, however, anticipate details being out at least 14 days before the AGM. This was the reason for the early notification of the County Lunch He requested all clubs to ensure that all returns are in by the end of the October.

The Secretary pointed out that the 2006 membership figures shown on the Annual Return would be the figures that the Treasurer would use for invoicing Clubs in February 2007. He pointed out that the members of clubs at the present time would have paid their fees to the clubs in their early season subscriptions which would have included the per capita charge to both the County and the EBA. He also said there are a number of clubs not sending in their lists of male members. He pointed out that this is a requirement of clubs and stressed that these lists are kept by the County for information purposes only and are not in any way passed on to any third party. The requirement is a list of names only.

E-mails The County wishes to go down this route. One club has queried the system suggesting that the County was passing on the costs to Clubs. It was pointed out that if postage costs continue to escalate a far greater cost would have to be passed on to clubs. All Secretaries without an e-mail facility are urged to nominate a reliable person with an email facility, within easy distance, as a contact.

.Insurance The attention of all Secretaries was drawn to the paper from the EBA accompanying the minutes.

The Secretary’s report was adopted. Proposed by Reg Reeve (Assistant Secretary) seconded by Norman Kennard (GPC).

The Bank balances on Current and deposit accounts as at 30^th September 2006 are as follows: Balance on Current Account with the Bank of Scotland 4,401.90

Balance on Deposit Account with the Anglo-Irish Bank 22,851.49 £26,851,49

The Treasurer and Reg Reeve have slightly improved the receipts of Vice-Presidents subscriptions compared to the previous year. As at the 30^th September 2005 we had received £1,144 of 2006 subscriptions, whereas as at 30^th September 2006 we had received £1,161.50p for 2007 although regrettably it is doubtful whether the final amount of Vice-Presidents and their subscriptions will show any increase from last year. Income from Vice-President Matches has increased thanks to the efforts of your Controllers to whom we give grateful thanks in providing such entertainment and income.

The cost of supporting our under 25’s is increasing substantially but your Committee consider such costs as being an investment in the future and this appears to be justified by the excellent result achieved.

Cost of communication within our Association and generally continues to spiral and I have asked the GPC to propose to the AGM that all clubs provide an e-mail address to whence communication can be addressed, not necessarily an officer of each club but at least a contact point so this form of communication can be developed. This arrangement would greatly reduce communication costs.

You will all be aware that our Sponsors decreased their support from £1,750 in 2005 to £500 in 2006 and in order to budget for a possible complete withdrawal in 2007 a request will be made to the AGM to approve a per Capita member’s subscription of £1.00 for 2007. Apart from this item all other subscriptions will remain the same that is the E.B.A. subscription, County and National Competition fees and the County Year Book. We cannot guarantee the Year Book cost but with general application and reorganisation we are confident this can be achieved. The meeting was advised that the Honorariums paid to officers have remained the same since 2001 and that no increase was envisaged.

Finally an appeal was made to all delegates that all Club Officers endeavour to comply with the requests made in their circulars. These requests are made after much consideration and it is very onerous when your Officers have to spend considerable unnecessary time and costs in chasing returns and forms.

The Treasurer’s report was adopted. Proposed by Richard Giles, (VP Controller), seconded by Gerry Hayes (GPC).

(a) With a large number of Clubs now on the internet Paul Thommassen is proposing to send as many match selection sheets as possible by e-mail to Club Secretaries, Members of the GPC, Past Presidents etc to save on postage bills. There are some 45 Clubs whose Secretary or the Club Office plus a further 15 County officers with e-mail addresses. This will save the County some £70.00 per year on postage costs alone. If you add on the cost of paper and envelopes it is even more. This will of course mean that the sheets would no longer be sent out on various coloured paper as now. Match sheets will still be sent to Clubs by post if they are not on the internet. To this end all selections will be sent out on white paper, this will save even more money. Currently it costs about £4.40p a ream for coloured paper as opposed to under £2.00p a ream for white. The exiting stock of coloured paper will be used before this takes effect. Overall this will save the County some £100.00 a year on a conservative estimate

(b) The 2007 programme is nearly complete and will comprise of 4 Middleton Cup Matches, 6 Home County League Matches, 19 Friendly matches, of which 14 will be Badge matches and 15 Executive matches, 8 outdoor and 7 indoor. Kent are not using Sandwich B.C. this year, but are placing their matches at Canterbury B.C. which is easier to get to and has far better parking facilities.

(c) There will be 12 coaches required for matches in 2007

(d) Clubs were recently asked who were willing to host Touring teams and possibly County matches. Thanks are extended to all the Clubs who responded.

David Mahoney (Worthing Pavilion) asked (if a trial run using the internet could be arranged before the action in (a) above be carried out.) Paul said that this was his intention.

John Fairs (Tarring Priory) asked (if result of County Matches etc could be placed on the County Web site) In response it was said this was already being done.

The Honorary Match Secretary’s report was adopted. Proposed by Eddie Lendon (Selector) seconded by Tony Dade (Windlesham)

Entries for 2007 are coming in very well; closing date is the end of October, clubs are reminded to ensure all returns are in by then.

In 2006 we were allowed an extra entry in the pairs Finals at Worthing because of the number of total entries in that particular County Competition

In recent years Newick Bowling Club has been used for the latter stages of County Singles Competitions. They have now, however asked to relinquish this obligation and consequently it has been arranged for the Lewes Bowling Club to hold these Competitions there. We are very grateful both to Newick for their past help and to Lewes for undertaking this for the future.

Thanks were extended to the other Divisional Competition Secretaries for their hard work, and particularly to David Henderson who has looked after two Divisions once again. The meeting asked that these thanks also be extended to the County Competition Secretary himself for also looking after a Division. Viv did ask the Division two delegates to urge one of their members to come forward and to relieve David of having to look after two divisions. Thanks were also extended to the Clubs who so kindly allowed their greens to be used for Qtr/semi finals and the under 25’s competitions.

Viv reported that the Under 25’s will play in a different format next year. Rather than playing at a single venue the competitions will be run by being given ‘play by dates’

Clubs were reminded it has for many years been the practice of Clubs engraving Trophies for their winning members. However, it now appears that some clubs appear reluctant to get County Trophies engraved. Last year three trophies came back un-engraved as against seven or eight this year. If the trend continues Trophies will have to be returned much earlier for engraving to be done in time for presenting at finals.

In closing Viv asked where had all the umpires had gone? He said he experienced great difficulty in obtaining Umpire during the past season. He asked clubs, if they had umpires in their midst to let him know.

Peter Flint (Selector) asked from the floor ‘Why did the Year book only list National / International Umpires’ It was said that the Umpire Association put these names in.

The Competition Secretary’s report was adopted. Proposed by John Barden. (Wadhurst) seconded by Ron Ford.(Past President).

Lew Mockett started this report by announcing that the joint committee between the Indoor and Outdoor associations had been disbanded and the finances accumulated would be divided between the two bodies. He said that initially he was hopeful that a working relationship could be achieved but this unfortunately was not to be. Alf Bridges said he was disappointed that this had happened and then reported as follows.

The number of registered players for the season was 69 (an increase of 11 on the previous season) of whom 37 played in matches. 5 matches were played against club sides of which three were won and a County match was played against Surrey which was lost. In the 1^st round of the National Double Fours they beat Hampshire but lost to Surrey in the afternoon.

A very successful coaching day was held at Woodingdean and thanks were extended to that club and its members and officials also to the County Coaching staff. A total of 28 boys and girls attended.

Special mention is to be made to Stuart Holland who represented England under 25’s against Wales. To Aaron Sexton who with Adrian Finnie won the Home Counties Pairs title and to Matt Ives who went out in the semi-final of the Home Counties under 25’s singles but won the County title.

Alf thanked the County Officers who had supported him by being in attendance at all matches with special mention to Brian Lee who had supported him through out the season. The coming season is being looked forward to especially now that the Under 25’s have been accepted into the under 25’s Home Counties League.

Gordon Cummings thanked Clubs who have donated to the Benevolent Fund, unfortunately only 65 clubs have subscribed which is only just over 50%. He reminded clubs that only members of clubs who donate to the benevolent fund are eligible for help if the circumstance should arise. Any club can still donate and will be shown in the County Year Book as a late donation. Three grants had been made during the past season.

Benevolent Fund Report was adopted. Proposed by Eddie Lendon seconded by Viv Evans.

To approve change to Competition Rules Page 60 (Champion of Champions Competition) as recommended by the GPC.

Insurance A number of questions were raised from the floor asking if the Insurance as proposed by the EBA was to be compulsory to all clubs and what if clubs had a better insurance of their own. Are Ladies covered in the case of mixed clubs? Would clubs with a parent organization i.e. a social club to whom a bowls section was attached and insured as such have to participate.

Alan Clemits, as the EBA delegate answered the questions as well as he was able saying that this is still in its early stages and would replace the existing Insurance offered by the EBA. He said that he thought it would be difficult for clubs to get a better quotation elsewhere and that it was hoped that the EWBA would be participating. Clubs would be kept informed of the progress and the comments from the floor would be reported back to the EBA.

New Club

A question was asked by David Henderson re the formation of a new club (Royal Sovereign B.C. and the disbandment of Eastbourne Fishermans B.C. The Secretary said he had not had any official notification of these events. Alan Glennister gave a report on the situation to date and said that official notification would be forthcoming.