1 - ATTENDANCE
- Marc Shipley, Mandy Forster, Kevin Forster, Tracey Coats, Connor Snaith, Mick Barnes, Anita Hammond, Ian Davies
2 - APOLOGIES
- Russell Hughes
3 - MINUTES OF THE PREVIOUS MEETING
- Minutes of the Meeting 11th February agreed.
4 - MATTERS ARISING/ACTION POINTS
4.1 - Action Point Update:
4.4 (11/2/25) Marc/Kevin – Ongoing. Once Club works are completed, the Committee will consider entrance door replacement.
4.4 (11/2/25) Marc – Completed. Marc has informed ST Council cleaning service that buckets of dirty water must not be put in the Men’s urinals.
5 (11/3/25) Marc - Completed. Executive Committee has agreed the new oven should be professionally cleaned annually.
5 (7/1/25) Mandy – Completed. Safeguarding Policy to be ratified at tonight’s meeting.
4.2 - Dashboard
Marc reported that £1,586.25 has been transferred to the Treasurer for court bookings and £195.75 for memberships.
Current membership 181.
4.3 - Squash News
Club Championship - To begin 28th April, final Saturday 10th May. No one has volunteered yet to learn from Kevin how to run this competition with a view to taking it over. ACTION Marc – to update the recently added section ‘Dates for Your Diary’ on the Boldon Squash Wazygoose home page.
Safeguarding - Mandy asked the Committee to agree to adopt the Safe Squash / Safeguarding Policy Statement for Boldon Squash. This was agreed. ACTION Marc – to add the policy to the Wazygoose home page. ACTION Mandy – to email the details to all members.
4.4 - Squash club maintenance/ improvement
Glass-back Wall - Marc confirmed that work will definitely begin on 24th March and may take 2-3 weeks to complete. Courts 3 and 4 will remain closed until it is considered safe to re-open court 4.
Members Feedback - Email received from Gary Butler regarding the lack of car parking spaces (taken by the Saturday Keep Fit group) when he arrived with his children for Junior Squash. ACTION Marc – to ask the Keep Fit leader to advise her group to park at the top of the drive.
Cleaning - Plumber has now replaced pipes in the Men’s changing room, therefore problems with urinals/toilets hopefully now resolved. Overall state of general cleaning throughout the club, particularly the Men’s showers, is dreadful and many complaints have been received. Committee agreed that if ST Council cleaning services do not improve, other cleaning companies should be approached. ACTION Marc – pass cleaning specification to Anita as she knows of a cleaning company and will gather information for next meeting. ACTION Marc – inform ST Council to vastly improve service or contract will be terminated.
4.5 - Club Executive Committee Feedback (meeting 10th March)
Current account £9,900. Reserve account £60,000
Outgoings: £2k Gas & Electricity; £2k VAT; £2k Corporation Tax; £1-2k expected for electrical work to secure certificate for insurance purposes; £1700 for new Function Room tables; £5,500 on bricks and concrete for new patio.
Refurbishment of cricket steps underway.
Wedding arranged for July over 2 days. Discussion over Club charges owing to increased staffing costs from April.
Beer prices going up as staff wage costs rising.
Grass cutter needs further maintenance, considering outlay of £6k for second hand cutter.
Discussed the need to get rid of two old containers so that squash can get a new, secure container.
John Kilner and Chris Ellison to approach Willy Barton about removing his container and van.
5 - AOB
Mick asked for an update on the position of the Teams. Marc reported that it is likely the First Team will be relegated from the Premier Division. Second Team will remain in current Division. Third and Fourth Teams also being relegated. Mandy asked that it should be recorded in the minutes how proud the Committee is of the First Team who have played so well to get into the Premier division, and that the team should not be too disappointed in their relegation. The Committee asked Connor to relay this to his team.
Connor also asked if Marc could ensure the First Team home night remains a Thursday.
Connor raised a matter about other clubs using squash levels in their internal leagues and whether we should consider it too. ACTION Marc – to discuss this with the Wazygoose administrator.
Ian raised the matter of an Archer who wants to play squash as a guest. Kevin reiterated the rule of a maximum of 3 times before joining as a member and gave him the current pro-rata membership fee and key costs.
Date of Next Meeting – Tuesday 15th April 2025 7.15pm
