I hope that you are all well.
We had our regular CCWFC committee meeting today and as usual I thought it would be helpful to share a flavour of what was discussed /agreed.
For those who are not so fussed on scrolling through e mails, I have attached a PDF.
The key messages from our committee meeting are: –
1. Financials
Peter provided a financial update.
The net income year to date is £1312, we are forecasting a positive net income year end of £1532.
Our current net assets (allowing for the pitch hire and other accruals) are £3,741.53.
Our finances are where we expect them to be.
We discussed our invoicing practice for training sessions (currently billed after a member reaches 5 sessions) and agreed that we will change this to being invoiced monthly ( for whatever sessions have been attended in the month).
Our 20/21 final accounts and monthly accounts are available to members on request.
2. Social activities
I provided an update on social activities.
We had a successful Xmas social at the Original Plough , Chelmsford on the 8/12, which 21 club members signed up to attend.
I have sold £460 of raffle tickets to date, the draw will take place on the 21/12 before training. 50% of the proceeds will go to our club , the other 50% will be donated to Prostate Cancer UK.
We have set a provisional date for the next social ( a quiz night extravaganza) of 8th April. More on this shortly.
3. Competitions and tournament updates
We acknowledged the contribution of both those who were selected for the ‘ Spirit of Xmas’ tournament Chelmsford sides and of those who supported training.
We also noted the excellent effort by Billericay in both organising the tournament and raising over £2000 for the local foodbank.
We will run ‘balanced sides’ club mini tournaments on Tuesday 11th Jan and Tues 8th Feb, with food and the bar at the club afterwards.
There will be a cup and medals for the winners.
We have agreed to run 2 x o70’ tournaments at the club , the first will be on Thurs 19th May followed by a second tournament on the Thurs 18th August
Steve S is working with Essex clubs to agree participation , this will determine the structure of the tournament.
We will involve Tony E and other o70’ in leading team selection, team management and running the day(s).
We expect to communicate details of the new EWFL league season and national cup competitions in February.
Finally, we have set a provisional date of Thursday 31st March for the Steve George memorial tournament. I am in discussions with Vicky George (Steve’ widow) about finalising arrangements.
4. ‘Marketing
We have 2000 new leaflets and 40 new posters. David is now planning a distribution campaign, which will include doctor’ surgeries, gyms, sports centres , supermarkets, hand outs in the town centre and at CCFC.
Andy Fairhead has already committed to support David in this, if any other members would like to help, please contact David.
We have erected our CCWFC advertising board on the 3G fence and will soon have our much larger advertising board on show at the main club.
I have also agreed with the club that they will advertise CCWFC in the match day programme for free whenever they are running short of paid advertising, we have had two to date.
Finally, David has arranged for a free article to appear in The Edge during January (circulation 10k) with a follow-up paid ad appearing in the February edition.
We currently have 82 members (up from 67 in March) our ambition remains to increase this to 100 by Sept 22.
5. Playing administration
We were pleased with the way team selection and team management worked for the Billericay tournament. It was more structured, disciplined and cohesive.
Steve S is working on arrangements for establishing our league / cup player pools for 2022. This is likely to be a main, core pool of league players , with a reserve pool of players who are happy to be called upon or are aspiring to play league / cup football.
We will be very transparent about establishing this position and clearly contract with players on their commitment to being a league /cup player and the club’ commitment to manage participation, professionally.
To support this , Steve is developing a check list for team managers / assistant team managers to ensure we maintain high, consistent standards across all teams.
Additionally, we will be considering additional team managers and non-playing assistant managers during Janu / Feb – if you have an interest in these roles, please talk to Steve S.
Peter will be undertaking our membership audit in January.
6. Coaching programme
The coaching manual is finished and will be circulated to group leaders in January, this is of course supplemented by a considerable amount of online video material.
I will be canvassing existing coaching experience and qualifications so that we have a clear view of our coaching resource.
Spence will then shape and implement our next steps on coaching (which will include separate coach the coach sessions).
Our main aim is to drive consistency and raise our standard of walking football.
We have also agreed to recirculate the ‘laws of the game’ and to introduce a light-hearted periodic focus on the main laws of the game during training.
Consistency of understanding, with no ambiguity or interpretation, will help us play better walking football. We can all benefit from this.
7. Welfare
I have been engaged with McCarthy Stone, who have committed to buy us a defribulator.
We are in the final stages of concluding this and have opted for a portable AED which we can keep pitch side , minimising the time to deployment.
Once arrangements are finalised, we will arrange for professional training on the AED for a number of our members.
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 O, Bob, Steve S, Spence ,David G or myself.
The agreed minutes of the last Committee meeting (9/11) will be uploaded onto our website shortly. Our next meeting is on the 4th January. 2022.
Chris
