Council Minutes 2021-02-12

BGA Council Meeting 2021-02-12

Held at: ZOOM conference call

Meeting started: 20:00

Present: Gerry Gavigan, Toby Manning, Matt Marsh, Patrick Ridley, Neil Sandford, Richard Wheeldon, Colin Williams

1) Apologies

Apologies for absence had been received from Joanne Leung

2) Minutes of Previous Meetings [2020-12-04]

Minutes of 2020-12-04 were approved

3) Review of Actions [https://www.britgo.org/council/internal]

The online list was updated.

Note - actions raised during this meeting and action updates are recorded on that list rather than directly in these minutes

4) President's Report

Toby talked through his report.

It was noted that Alex Rix would not be traveling to Russia for the World Amateur, and was disinclined to compete if it is held online in 2021. An appeal will be issued to the stronger players to see what interest there is in representing the UK this year.

The proposed changes to the EGF subscription rules were discussed at some length. Matt and Gerry agreed to produce a model for how Gerry's suggestion might work. Matt said that this would not be until after the Online Congress is complete.

It was agreed that clubs could apply for re-opening grants of up to £100, if needed to help them get started again after Covid. Neil and Toby will add this to a communication to go out to club secretaries.

5) 2020 Accounts

Richard presented the 2020 Accounts, which in an unusual year were looking quite strong.

6) Online Committee Report

Colin talked through his report, with some feedback on the initial strategy meeting for the new Committee volunteers. He gave an update on the latest progress on the website upgrade, and noted that there would be a requirement for additional hosting for a short period whilst the transition was tested. Richard was comfortable with the likely cost of that (up to £100).

7) Andrew Thurman's MBA

Pat led a discussion around some questions raised by the report. It was agreed that Richard would do a 'Treasurer's recovery plan' in case he should suddenly become unavailable. The Council would then consider at the next session whether any other plans are needed.

Barriers to volunteer recruitment were discussed, during which Gerry agreed to draft a brief Job Description for the Reviewer position.

A comment made by Andrew about organisational culture was not understood, so Pat agreed to ask Andrew for his anonymised base data to help us better understand the issues involved.

8) 2020 AGM

It was agreed that this would be held on 23rd April if possible, by ZOOM. Colin is to check the constitution for notice periods etc. and prepare a suitable communication to members. He will ask Chris Kirkham for a list of e-mail addresses for members, as that may be more inclusive than just using the Newsletter mailing list.

9) 2021 BGA Congress (Face to Face)

It was agreed that the best we could say at the moment is 'will be held in the Autumn if possible'.

10) Regional Coordinators

After some discussion around the definition of a region, Colin agreed to draft a job description and circulate it to the Council.

11) Governance Committee Report

There was some discussion around the mechanism of transferring to a CLG, and some concerns on the number of members we may lose as a result. Questions were raised about how to handle multi-year BGA memberships where members did not transfer across, and the status of Youth members.

The Governance Committee will meet again shortly to finalise these points. The intent is to have an initial discussion with members at the AGM concerning the proposals and their impacts.

Neil asked for support for the work involved in splitting Members and Clubs into two separate Committee functions. Neil will re-issue his document on members and clubs committees to ask again for feedback.

10) Date of next meeting

It was agreed that the next meeting will be 9th April 2021 at 20:00 by ZOOM.

Last updated Sun Feb 14 2021.
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