Management Committee Minutes for Meeting Held 17/07/2024

NMTSB Club

Minutes 17 July 24

Those Present

Brian Croad (chair), Ash Khan, Sarah Tuckey, Scott Scarrow, Mohmud Mahamed, Nick Martin, Andrew Rickman, Toni Horodyski,

Apologies

Gavin Young Paul Impey

Minutes of previous meeting:

Minutes had been distributed prior to the meeting, and were adopted at the meeting.

Matters Arising From Previous Meeting:

Land Sale – BC reported that the developer (ND) had contacted him this month to arrange a review of the value of the option for the land sale. ND stated that he had raised this with the previous chair previously. ND provided limited information, but the tone of the email suggested that since his offer had been made, house prices had increased, but not as fast as the cost of labour and materials.

BC reported that he had carried out very brief research online about this, and suggested that there might be some merit in this. Labour and materials cost appear to have risen about 35%, whilst house prices have only risen about 8%; however, further work was needed to provide clearer impact on the value of the offer. It was agreed that members of the committee would meet with ND to discuss this without any commitment, and to obtain clarity over each of the the cost changes. Action – BC to arrange meeting

BC reported that the S106 agreement had not been produced and sent to us yet and was therefore still to be signed.

Painting of the lounge – NM reported that this had been completed and the lounge was now looking much smarter. Nick/Brian have the ceiling tiles been done? Yes all done

Club licence – AR reported that he was in contact with Kingston Council, requesting the date for the appeal. He reported that if the appeal fails, the club will be limited to 15 functions (that continue after 11pm) per year.

Pickleball – GY reported that a contractor had now painted the lines for 4 pickleball courts on tennis courts 5 and 6, and nets, balls and bats were to be purchased. NM reported that he had set up a membership category for pickleball, and booking for pickleball will be through myCourts. At the moment a key difficulty will be setting up the system to recognise whether court 5 or 6 had been booked before confirming a booking and vice versa. It was suggested that the bar staff could support this manually on a daily basis until this problem had been sorted out. NM reported that the tennis courts had now been set up on myCourts for tennis coaching so that there was no conflict with coaching.

Action – NM and GY to modify myCourts to link the pickleball courts and courts 5 and 6 and/or put in place for staff to monitor.

GY reported that an email address had been sent up for pickleball-related issues – newmaldenpickleball@gmail.com.

APEX Tower group membership – SS enquired about the proposal for group membership. NM reported that if a group membership for people in the Apex Tower was agreed by the club, this would result in a reduced annual fee of 80-90% of the normal fee for the first year, and then normal rates thereafter, but the exact reduction had yet to be agreed by the committee. He reported that this was in line with all other corporate arrangements agreed by the club.

Action – NM to determine a fee reduction and put to the committee for approval.

Current Membership; 933 active 864 paid

Finance:

MM reported that he will be contacting Barclays to get full details of the loan that the club has with them (ie interest rate, early penalty payments etc). He will report back to the committee with these details, so that a decision can be made as to whether to repay the loan (either in part, or in full). Action – MM to discuss with Barclays.

MM reported that the club had made a surplus of approximately £32,000 over 2023-24, and is intending to prepare the club accounts in September.

MM will be reviewing cash flows in each area of the club, in order to develop a more focused methodology on budget monitoring and management.

Club Management Matters:

Matters relating to the land sale position and to the club licence were discussed under matters arising.

ST and BC reported that staff members had made complaints about the behaviour of a club member of the social section, saying that he had made disrespectable comments to staff and several staff members felt intimidated by him.. The impact of this was exacerbated because the member generally sat or stood at the bar whenever in the clubhouse, and regularly attended the clubhouse. All members of the committee agreed that the club had a duty of care to its staff, and such behaviour was not acceptable. The committee also agreed that BC, NM and SS were to meet the following day to agree a communication to the member, advising the member that his membership was being rescinded with immediate effect, but also giving the member the opportunity to challenge this decision.

Action BC, NM, SS to issue communication

SS raised the issue of a formalised code of conduct for all members of the club and guests. SS and NM to review what the club currently has, and update or renew it. This will then be communicated to all members, and a summary of the code to be put up in all key areas of the clubhouse. This code will also form part of the booking requirements for any function involving non-members. Action SS, NM

Tennis Section Report:

AR reported that the annual tennis tournament had been completed on time and had been a success. The committee congratulated AR for organising this.

AR also reported that the A3 open tournament was being held on Saturday.

Squash Section Report:

GY reported that registration had opened for the squash club tournament in September.

Badminton Section Report:

AK reported that the badminton tournament had been completed successfully. This had been the first such tournament for 5 years.

Gym Section Report:

ST reported that the club was looking at requests by members to bring their children (aged 11-16) to train at the gym. The committee agree that this could be done on an ad hoc basis, but the children would have to be accompanied by their parents and that an annual fee would be required for the child. Furthermore, these children would only be allowed into the gym during set periods. Fees and time periods are yet to be proposed by ST and agreed by the committee.

Action – ST to propose fees and time periods.

ST reported that concerns had been raised about whether the spin bikes required formalised maintenance, and uncertainty about when formal classes (eg spin classes) were being held in the gym. BC also raised the issue of uncertainty over the arrangement between the club and the gym instructor. BC, NM and SS to meet tomorrow to agree a communication with the gym instructor, in order to set up a meeting to formalise an arrangement between the club and the gym instructor to maximise the benefit of both. It was agreed that this communication be provided to AR for comment before being sent to the gym teacher.

Action BC, NM, SS to issue communication

Health & Safety;

None discussed.

Marketing:

The system proposed by Stefan and Phil at our last management meeting has been set up now and is working. This means that all enquiries via the club website will be shown in a Wix website and various members have have access to this site so as to very quickly respond to enquiries regarding their sections or areas of expertise..

AOB

None discussed. SS proposed that AOB be removed from the agenda, with the intention that any issues to be raised at each meeting should be raised and added to the agenda in advance of the meeting (except in the event of an issue arising after the issue of the agenda that required discussion at the meeting). This would mean that all members of the committee would have advance notice of all issues to be discussed.

The committee agreed to try out this approach.

Signed: Brian Croad Chairman

DONM

Wednesday 21st August. 6:30pm

26/08/2024