A Message From Your Chairman

It is nearly 5 months since I was ‘elected’ to this position and I thought it might be a good idea to give you all an update of what we have been up to since I sat down.  It also occurred to me that no one, apart from our previous Chairman – Nick Drysdale, asked me what I would like to achieve in my time as Chairman so I would like to share some of my thoughts with you.

What has Happened Since the AGM

Since the AGM I have attended an England Squash Council meeting in London and been introduced to the politics that is an inevitable part of any organisation.  At a national level, there is less funding for all sporting bodies and this requires a change of focus from many national governing bodies.  In November, Richard Bickers and I will be attending the England Squash AGM at which some important points are on the agenda.

The UK government is reducing funding across many sports. England Squash itself has had a reduction of funding from £13.5m to £7.9m (that is for a 4-year period not per annum).

To retain the funding going forward, England Squash are must implement new Articles of Association.  The need for sporting bodies to change their governance has come from Government and is delivered via Sport England.  Government feels, due to numerous cases of abuse etc, that sporting bodies should adhere to the same governance standards as corporations especially where they are in receipt of public money.  There are guidelines of what is required for modern governance which can be found at Sport England and England Squash have worked hard to make the minimum changes required to satisfy the requirements.

England Squash have been working closely with Sport England during this process and enough progress has been made to allow a new set of Articles of Association to be approved at the AGM on 11 November.  It is important to note that if they are not accepted by those eligible to vote at the AGM then England Squash will have its funding suspended with immediate effect.  You may recall this being the case for other sports where revised Articles of governance had not been accepted at their AGMs.  Your committee will be meeting on 2 November to finalise our position on several issues to be dealt with.

While the regions and the counties still receive some level of funding from England Squash it is highly likely that over time the amount available will be reduced.  We will need to find alternative sources of income if, at the very least, current levels of funding are to be maintained.

I won’t bore you much more about what is happening at a national level other than to say that England Squash are going to have to rely on membership as a way of generating its own income.  As a result, they have put together a set of benefits for members and this is continuously being reviewed.  England Squash believe that the decline in the number of people playing the game in the last ten years has finally halted.  They need to continuously monitor this and to encourage counties to get their players registered have increased the rebate to the counties for those who can demonstrate membership of players is being enforced.  We are doing this in Avon via the BaD league and the ES Membership rule that was turned on last Friday.

We have also looking at social media and the role it can play in the county.  Currently the BaD league has a website and a Facebook page.  We created a new Facebook page which is solely focussed on official information from the County.  The Bad Facebook page will continue and will be the fun side of things.  We also recognise that a new website for the County is required.  Like the new Facebook page this will solely be used for promoting the game in our county. The current BaD site will continue as it is since it does a brilliant job for our leagues and boxes.  The county website will not cross into that territory. There will be links between the two sites. We are finalising our plans for the new website and hope to announce something soon.

What I Would Like to Achieve

During my time as Chairman, simply put, I would like to leave the game in our county stronger than when I took over.  With that in mind there are a few things I think the county needs to look at.  I say the county because it is not something I or any member of the committee can do on our own.

Firstly, like every other sport, we need to look at how we can increase the number of people, particularly Juniors and women, playing the game.  This does not necessarily mean people playing league, it could just be more box matches, meetups or other social gatherings.  This would also cover increasing the number of people who are able to coach.  We are currently setting up some courses for those who would like to do some coaching in their local clubs.  If you are interested know more please let us know.

Secondly, whilst we have a reasonable amount of money in our account it will not go very far especially if we want to invest time and money in programmes that last more than one year.  Some other counties have a lot more to work with than we do and conversely, we also have more than some others.  In the current climate of reduced public funding we, as a county, need to explore more creative ways of generating our own income. This does not mean that public money is not available but where we do apply for it we will have to meet certain conditions and play within the remit of what public funding is to be used for, namely the Government’s programme called Active Nation.

Thirdly, as a sporting body and like England Squash, we as a county need to look at our own Governance procedures and where needed seek to revise them.  This is probably the most boring piece of work but it is vital if we are to continue as a sporting body.  There are guidelines of what is required for modern governance which can be found at Sport England.  This is a broad subject and will take some time to work through.

Finally, I would like to find ways to engage more with the members of the county.  During the summer, we started doing that by setting up a couple of working parties to look at rule changes and refereeing/marking. 

The rule change working party put forward some recommendations on the Order Change and Out of Order rules. We consulted with the team captains over the rule changes via SurveyMonkey which resulted in a 92% vote in favour of implementing the recommendations. 

The referees/marking working party has completed the first round of its work and a handbook for captains and teams will be published in the next few days.  A referee/marking course to be led by Roy Gingel was arranged for 15 October but had to be cancelled due to lack of interest.  We will schedule another course for early in the new year and hope that more of you will be able to attend that one.

Going forward I hope that you will all see that there will be opportunities to help on a short-term basis via working parties or to provide feedback via surveys etc. and two new working parties will shortly be announced. 

If would also like to look at producing a Newsletter, perhaps on a Quarterly basis, where you can all share things with the rest of the county such as pictures, stories and events.

Growing our game in the county will require effort by everyone whether that is just providing feedback when asked, volunteering to join a working party, learning to coach, becoming a qualified club referee or simply encouraging your friends to go on court at least once year as a social activity.

I am new to this Chairman lark so I am bound to make mistakes.  Anyone who has seen me play will know that to true!  I just promise to do the best I can.

I would like to conclude this message by thanking everyone who has participated so far in working parties and the survey.  I would also like to thank the committee who work hard to keep the game going in Avon.  Their work is largely unseen and they do it for the love of the game and we should all do what we can to support them.

If you would like to contact me to offer any thoughts please do so at [email protected]

Thank you.

Seamus Singh

Chairman

Avon County Squash

Member of Vivo Squash Club