Chelmsford Walking Football Committee Meeting September 2021

We had our regular CCWFC committee meeting on Tuesday and as usual I thought it would be helpful to share a flavour of what was discussed /agreed.

I have added a PDF attachment for folks that prefer that format

The key messages from our committee meeting are: – 

1. Financials

Terry provided a financial update.

The net income year to date is £664.29, we are forecasting a positive net income year end of £1,104.29

Our current net assets (allowing for the pitch hire and other accruals) are £3093.59.

 Our finances are where we expect them to be.

 Our 20/21 final accounts and monthly accounts are available to members on request.

2.     Social activities

I provided an update on social activities. 

The ‘Gunrunner’ social for the Friday 29th October 2021 remains well subscribed, with c100 tickets reserved (65 club members ,25 Gunrunner following and 10 CCFC guests).

I have collected £550 from club members so far, there are 5 people still to pay. There are a few tickets left if anyone else wants to come / have more tickets.

We will run a raffle again and raise money for the UK Prostate Cancer charity. I have asked for club members to start donating raffle prizes.

CCFC have donated a VIP lunch for 2 prior to a home game.

25 club members took the ‘season ticket for a fiver’ offer.

We will reintroduce the ‘pie and a pint’ sessions once a month from October.

I will arrange a Christmas bite to eat in a local Chelmsford pub.

3.     Playing – Essex Walking Football League / WFA cup competitions / development

We discussed our performances to date and noted our league positions. 

We noted the continuing issues of player availability for league / cup games. On paper we have 39 people committed to play for the o65 and 31 people committed to play for the 060’.

In reality we are often struggling to field our blues second teams.

We will take a very different approach to determining league / cup playing commitment next year.

We noted the narrow defeat 4-3 at Norwich in the o65’ national cup (despite a hat trick from Spencer).

We discussed the success of the 070’ tournament on the 12/8 and agreed that we will run 1-2 of these annually.

We noted Colins debut success leading England to a 4-1 victory over Guernsey. We have ensured good publicity through the CCFC news round up and our own website.

We are determined to feed the younger end of the club and add competitive players so that we achieve the balance between recreational football and competitive ambition.

Our ‘working group’ is the CCWFC committee plus Spencer Pratten , Colin Haydon , David Gregory , Barry White, Ray Barry and Stuart Lomax.

We have had some thoughtful inputs from David, Ray , Barry in advance of our meeting on the 14/9.

The primary focus of the work is to examine the issues and propose action to (a) attract more 50 – early 60’ year olds (b) attract capability (3) do this whilst maintaining our commitment to being an open door to all o50’.

We discussed the character of our training sessions and noted that (a) it has been valuable to introduce the structured warm up / skills session (b) that we now need to apply & developthe work that

Spence & Bob have done in the coaching programme, so that we have a more disciplined and consistent approach in practice and (c) we need to consider grading the groups , so that people are

comfortable with the degree of difficulty / challenge in their session.

This grading probably falls into 3 categories (a) those who are more competitive and are firmly committed to league and cup football (b) those who aspire to improve their game and want to play more competitive walking football and (c) those who are very happy with recreational football.

This will be another topic for the ‘working group’ in the context of club development.

It will also be a decision to be made in the context of next steps in the coaching programme.

We discussed how ‘hosting’ the EWFL programme at Chelmsford has gone, overall, our view is that it has worked well (once past a few teething issues).

We would be happy to ‘host’ at Chelmsford again next year.

We also noted the continuing support of our volunteers for our EWFL ‘hosting responsibilities ‘. Many thanks to Ray R , John G , Geoff S , Gerry who continue to do a very valuable job.

Our hosting responsibility for the remainder of the season is –

Tuesday 26/10/21

I will be writing separately, nearer the time, to seek support from volunteers to support this last date.

4. Playing administration

Peter and I met with Sarah Adkins (Essex Council) on the 10/8 setting out our concerns about several service issues.

We have noticed significant improvements in the timeliness of unlocking the gates, access to toilets, and changing rooms being open.

We still want more changing rooms open and the showers being turned on remains an issue.

We also raised several ‘development’ issues , these included the provision of defribulator close to the pitch; having advertising signage on the 3G pitch fencing

and; allowing a drone over the 3G pitch to help support our coaching programme.

I have made all three cases to Sarah Adkins in writing, we await her response.

5. ‘Stepping into the future’ action plan – update

I gave a further update on club development.

 5.1 Marketing – growing the membership

John Green and David Gregory continue the ‘leaflet drops’ ( including at the CCFC ground) – thank you.

We have put a reprint of our existing marketing material on hold , pending decisions at the ‘working group’. It is likely that we

will need to differentiate our materials to appeal to a broader spectrum of o50 year olds.

Bob has started to update the website and add more current content.

We have agreement from Steve Shore to have advertising boards at the CCFC ground. He will waiver rental costs, but we will have to pay £144 for the production of the board(s).

We have this in hand.

Our goal is to grow our membership to 100 by Sept 2022, this means adding c34 new members over 18 months. 

To date we have added 15 new members since the 1/3.

5.2 Reaching into the community

We continue to directly appeal to the wider Chelmsford community through our relationships with the Essex Chronicle, Chelmer Radio, Chelmsford Community Radio and regional TV.

We continue to work with ‘Provide’ and ‘Active Essex’ to offer channels for folks seeking to rebuild health or seeking social inclusion.

5.3 Over 70’ invitation tournament

The inaugural tournament took place on the 12th of August. 

It was a great success and we are committed to run 1-2 o70’ tournaments annually.

Thank you to Gary, Tony E , Ray R and Ray B  for their efforts.

5.4 Coaching programme

There has been great progress on the draft coaching manual & supporting video material – thank you Bob & Spence.

I have circulated the draft manual and links to the video material to all members, inviting feedback.

Disappointingly, we have only had 3 responses to date.

Whilst there is some further development to do on the coaching manual (largely adding a broader spectrum of exercises / routines) the key challenge

now is to consistently apply the material across our coaching sessions. The committee and Spence are working on how to achieve this.

5.5 Sponsorship 

We have received the 36 new kits promised by Steve Shore, a large part of this kit has now been handed out to regular league and cup players.

We have also had confirmation on being able to have an advertising board (s) at the CCFC ground.

We continue to make the case for training equipment sponsorship.

 6. Welfare

We noted Gerry’ hard work on the welfare front and that practical first aid training has now started taking place – thank you Gerry (and those undertaking the training).

We have the case for a defribulator to be sited close to the 3G pitch submitted to Essex Council.

We noted that we have now had 3 reported cases of club members testing positive for COVID. Thankfully all are reporting relatively mild (although uncomfortable) cases.

It has prompted us to remind the membership that COVID hasn’t gone away and that we must continue to adhere to the good practice set out in our COVID assessment plan.

7. Governance

Peter has put in place all of the arrangements for our AGM on 21st September 12.45 – 14.00 (approx.).

The agenda will be going out around the 13th September. We currently have c 20 people attending. We would encourage members to attend.

The bar will be open and there will be sandwiches. 

8.   General

I hope that this summary keeps you connected to what is going on in the club and gives you a real sense of what we are doing to sustain and develop the club.

If you have any questions or ideas, please feel free to talk to Terry, Peter, Bob, Gary, Gerry or myself.

The agreed minutes of the last Committee meeting (3/8) will be uploaded onto our website shortly. Our next meeting is on the 5th October 2021.

Chris
Chairman
On behalf of the CCWFC Committee

Author: Bob Willis