2024 AGM Report
The 2024 Annual General Meeting for Henley Squash Club was held at the Bull on Bell Street on 14th November. Traditionally, AGMs are not very well attended, so this year we decided to up our game a bit and have it at a decent venue, with buffet food, and to include the prize giving for the 2024 Handicap Tournament. Thanks go to Peter Rivers for organising the venue – there was a splendid spread of food and we attracted several members in addition to the ‘usual suspects’!
The meeting commenced with the trophy presentations. Full reports on the Handicap Tournament can be found here and here. The overall winner was Barry Carson with Peter Rivers winning the Plate. Other category winners were Alistair Robbie and James Mortimer. The ‘to-keep’ ceramic goblets were kindly made and donated by former club chairman David Wright, who can be seen tucking into the food above!
Sponsorship and Fundraising (input by Jim Reay)
We have been working hard to retain our existing sponsors, and attract new sponsors in 2024. As you will have seen from the updated advertising boards on the courts, we have continued our excellent relationship with Invesco, and we are grateful to them for their unwavering annual support which has helped the Sunday junior programme to run year-on-year. They have been joined as a main sponsor by Zzoomm, the Internet service provider (via Fibre Broadband), who have agreed to a 2 year sponsorship package.
Our thanks go to Mercers solicitors, TMS3, OSRA, and GLL Better for company contributions, as well as Tom Moore, and Roger Booker for their individual contributions. We really couldn’t run the club without your financial generosity. Thank you.
In addition, we are seeking further financial inputs to allow us to run the Gillott’s initiative (see later); and so far grants have been applied for from SODC via the Councillor Grant Scheme; Tesco (via Groundwork UK), and England Squash (Phil Hancey fund). Other ideas for funding sources, whether Sponsorship/advertising or Grants are always welcomed. Please let Jim Reay know any ideas whatsoever…
The increased Press releases (Henley Herald, Henely Standard) by Steve Dance helps give our sponsors exposure and community goodwill.
One idea shared on the night was the idea of creating a ‘Sponsor’s report’ which shows where the money goes, and the impressive outcomes. This is helpful for persuading the existing sponsors to renew, and can be a helpful reference material when engaging new potential sponsors. Another is to offer a different kind of value proposition for sponsoring firms, e.g. a special coaching day for employees keen to try squash.
Gillott’s Initiative (input by Jim Reay)
There has been an obvious opportunity to encourage children from Gillott’s school to play Squash at Gillott’s Leisure centre. After some persistent follow-up, Jim Reay and club coach Adam Edge met PE staff in July 2024 for an on-court squash taster session. The teachers thought that a regular squash club for the schoolchildren would be a good thing, however rather than just appeal to kids who already may know what squash is.. they wanted to make EVERY STUDENT try squash as part of a PE lesson (equality of opportunity).
All year 7, 8 and 9 students (ages 11-14) will try squash for 1 lesson as part of their PE curriculum. As the year groups rotate between indoor and outdoor sports, this is always at irregular times on different days. In total will we reach c. 500 children before spring 2025.
So far since September over 290 unique students experienced squash as part of their PE lessons (the rest will be in January and February 2025).
Since October 2024, we have run a lunchtime squash club on Thursdays from 12.45-13.15 with increasing numbers each week (it was 19 kids this week!!!)
I thank all those who gave equipment at our appeal in September – we had over a dozen racquet donations.
I thank the Leisure centre (esp. Jenny) who volunteered to give very discounted court rates.
I thank Simon Stone – whose company (TMS3) sponsorship helped start this journey in 2024.
I thank the club to take the financial risk to try this.
I thank the two coaches – Adam Edge and Brad Murray (Beaconsfield) for their dedication and flexibility to make this work at really odd and disjointed times.
The cost for this is not negligible at between 2k and 3k GBP per year, we will need to find funding to continue this. I will ask the school for a contribution in the next academic year, I have applied for 3 grants already, but the club will need to continue to find sponsorships to cover costs.
This is proving so far to be popular. An afterschool club, and possibly a juniors tournament, are all possible and likely next steps. We really need a volunteer or two to help this area continue or grow.
Henley College (input by Jim Reay)
With over 2000 students aged 16-19, this should be a source of Squash players. I was lucky enough to be in a meeting with the deputy head, and he put me in touch with Ty Sterry (Head of Sport & Careers).
Starting 15th January 2025, they will offer Squash as an “Enrichment activity”. They will bring 12-16 student to courts, with a supervisor/sports teacher, to play from 11.45-12.45. They will book their own courts. This will run as a trial until Easter 2025.
All the club needs to do is offer a) loan of equipment e.g. eye wear and racquets and b) provide a volunteer who can advise them on the rules of squash (as their PE teacher may not know them).
How can we provide them with a volunteer (or two), in order to help them have a great experience and fall in love with the game? The idea suggested here is to create a ‘rota’ where we can take turns, with Harry Carr and David Wright both volunteering (so we only have another 12 or so weeks to fill so plenty of space of other volunteers).
Membership (input by Duncan Nightingale)
Membership has been pretty stable (70-80) since COVID. But not quite recovered to pre-COVID levels (90-100).
Since 2010 there have been 275 members of Henley Squash Club. We churn approximately 14 members a year – more than one a month. So vital to find new members just to stay still – to grow the club by one member in total, we need to find two new members!
How do new members find us? In order:
(1) Website
(2) Word of mouth
(3) Articles in Henley Standard etc.
(4) Leisure Centre
Internal League (boxes) (input by Duncan Nightingale)
Number of boxes (each of five players) in the League has been stable at 7-8 since COVID – the same level just prior to COVID. Looking further back to 2018, we were stable at 10 boxes.
Each month, some players opt out and others re-join. At any one time there are enough opted-out players to make up 4-5 boxes! Could do with a few more people re-joining and only opting out rarely!
Since COVID, we have had no Juniors make the transition to the boxes (and teams) which was common before COVID. Hopefully our Junior and School initiatives will take care of that in time.
Social Media (input by Duncan Nightingale)
The club now has accounts for X/Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Please follow, like, forward etc.
These really need pictures and video clips to come alive. Please send me as much as you can and I will post them.
Website (input by Duncan Nightingale)
The club website has had a number of updates in recent months:
(1) Making the website adhere to the latest security standards (https versus http). This is important and was overdue – some members had reported not being able to view the website because their browsers said it was not secure.
(2) A refresh to the colour scheme to coincide with all our new sponsors.
(3) Making the website responsive to being viewed on a mobile phone, rather than just on a desktop (ie different layout and larger fonts when viewed on a phone). This has been tested on an iPhone – feedback welcome from Android phones.
Any comments/suggestions about the website are most welcome!
Jim reported there is also a new website for Oxfordshire Squash.
Teams (input by Harry Carr and Steve Dance)
Harry and Steve gave a brief update about the teams. You can see a report about the team’s exploits over the summer here.
Currently we run two teams in the Oxfordshire league and one in the Berkshire Vets. We could do with one or two more players to make the Vets sustainable and to get to three teams in Oxfordshire.
External tournaments and Women’s Initiative (input by Steve Dance)
Steve congratulated Jill Campion on her continued successes at World, European and British over 65’s championships – see the many reports on these in the News section.
Steve also thanked Jill for her recent initiative to promote and deliver squash taster sessions for women.
Juniors (input by Paul Ski)
The Sunday morning Juniors session is run by Paul and club coach Adam Edge. Thanks to the support of our sponsors, it is provided completely FREE. Paul gave his apologies for not being able to attend the meeting, but submitted the following:
- Beginners class 10-11 and intermediates 11-12
- Adam and I coaching
- circa 20 regular players – approximately 50:50 girls and boys
- continue to support a diverse set of backgrounds including a Ukrainian family living locally
- equipment stocks are good with a few recent small additions (balls, goggles, grips) to supplement the equipment for Juniors and Gillotts classes
- could do with getting a better connection into the Oxfordshire region for tournaments and potentially funding
- costs in line with previous estimates
Finances (input by Peter Rivers)
Peter had already prepared full up-to-date accounts and these had been distributed to all members prior to the meeting. In summary, the club finances are almost break even (a small loss for the club year ending 31 May 2024). There is a healthy bank balance, but with the on-going plans to support our Juniors and Gillotts School initiatives, this could quickly be depleted without continued efforts to raise sponsorship.
Appointment of Officers
Steve Dance was confirmed as Chairman.
Duncan Nightingale was confirmed as Secretary.
Peter Rivers was formally appointed as Treasurer, handing over in recent months from previous Treasurer, Andy Ball, who was thanked for all his work in creating accounts over the last few years.
Jim Reay was formally given responsibility for ‘Sponsorship and Fundraising’, although he has already been performing these duties for several months!
Paul Ski, Adam Edge and Harry Carr were confirmed in their positions as Juniors Organiser, Club Coach and First Team Captain respectively. Steve Dance and Richard Little will continue as 2nd Team Captain and Vets Captain respectively.
The club continues to be grateful for the support of past chairmen Roger Booker and David Wright and confirmed them in their honorary positions.
We are looking for additional volunteers to take on Social, Communications and Welfare roles. It was suggested we outline job descriptions of what the roles require before asking members.
Discussion
Much of the discussion centred on the state of the courts at the Leisure Centre and difficulties in communicating with the staff there. Specifically: cleaning, heating, lighting, one of the doors, booking courts.
Steve undertook to take up these issues with the Leisure Centre staff.
Summary and Close
The meeting closed with a short ‘state of the union’ from chairman Steve Dance. Steve said the club is very active at many levels, financially stable and with a steady growth in squash activities. Members should thank everyone involved in making Henley Squash Club a great place to enjoy playing squash.
