EBU

EBU Shareholders' AGM Wednesday, 6th October 2010
By Barry Brelsford- Shareholder and Lancashire Secretary

Presentation of Dimmie Fleming awards to
David and Anne Gilling of Bedfordshire, Dave Harrison of Cambridgeshire and Hunts,
Mike Minting of Hertfordshire, Bill McCarthy of Oxfordshire,
Peter Langston of Sussex and Ted Bond of Yorkshire.
Geoff Bell of Cumbria, Anne Swannell of Gloucestershire
and John Derek Rue of Gloucestershire would receive theirs at a later date.

The Treasurer produced his annual report for 2009/2010.
He reported a surplus of £46,449, a marked improvement on the deficit of £47,900 envisaged in the budget. This was achieved by a saving of £69,500 on the costs of the Universal Membership Project as a consequence of the project work being carried out “in house”.

There had been a small increase in subscription revenue and funds had been sufficient to meet needs without recourse to borrowing.

At the end of August the net surplus is £13.6k below budget, a significant improvement on the position at the end of July.

AD Parks & Co. were re-appointed Auditors for 2010/2011.

After a heated discussion the Meeting then approved a Pay to Play Subscription Fee of 31p for 2011-2012 and an increase of £1 for individual members. Club affiliation fees were held at the same level.

Sally Bugden, Heather Dhondy, Jeremy Dhondy, Suzanne Gill, Michael Hill, Graham Jepson, Malcolm Oliver and Andrew Petrie were elected to the Board.
Sally Bugden was elected Chairman,
Andrew Petrie Vice-Chairman
Michael Hill Treasurer.
Barry Capal was appointed Company Secretary.
Frances Hinden, Neil Morley and Tim Rees were elected to the Law and Ethics Committee for three years.
Margaret Curtis, Philip Mason and Andrew Petrie were elected to the Tournament Committee for three years.
Heather Dhondy and Paul Hackett were elected to the Selection Committee for three years.

From 1st April 2011 licence fee for County Green Point events is £6-80 per table per session.

The number of Shareholders’ Meetings per year was reduced to two with the Lancashire shareholders voting against.
The number of shares which each County Association holds will be decided by the following formula. 1-500 1 share, 501-1200 2 shares, 1201-3000 3 shares, 3001- 4shares.
Thus Lancashire will be entitled to three shares again.

Andrew Petrie reported that the Charity Commission was having second thoughts about opening the door for all mind sports to become charities.

The dates for the Shareholders' Meetings in 2011
Wednesday, 13th April 2011, at the Royal National Hotel, and
Wednesday, 5th October 2011, at the Imperial Hotel.
County Chairmen’s Meeting on Wednesday, 29th June 2011, at the Imperial Hotel.

Report on the EBU shareholders Meeting Thursday 1st July 2010
by David Pendlebury - Proxy Shareholder - Lancashire

This is the second occasion I have stood in as Proxy shareholder for Lancashire as our elected shareholders were not available. I am no admirer of the EBU but have compiled these notes as faithfully as possible.

Once again I was impressed with Barry Capal the General Manager and thought that Andrew Petrie's work on the long and complicated Articles of Association was well done.



Pay to Play
Nationally 601 of the 823 clubs had affiliated (73%) Lancashire 9 of the 19 clubs affiliated (47%) 8 of the 39 counties had 100% affiliation.

A new scale of qualifying members per shareholder was to be proposed at the AGM as the EBU membership numbers had been increased by Pay to Play. The aim would be to keep the number of Shareholders to about the current level It was announced that the changeover was smooth.

However there were some reports of problems and slow response to queries, The General Manager stated that there was no prospect of extra staff at Aylesbury. Two staff at Aylesbury had retired and would not be replaced Shareholders were asked to refer problems to the Club Committee, particularly when lack of IT skills were the principal problem. Club visits would be arranged if all else failed.

Annual Business Strategy Review
The Chairman gave a verbal review with progress on all projects was satisfactory or very satisfactory. but the introduction of the National Grading Scheme has been delayed.

August English Bridge would reveal details of members voting rights but shareholders would have to await the details until the publication of the magazine.

Treasurer's Report

Figures were presented. Pay to Play fees would be increased 'Anybody who expects the cost will not rise will be disappointed'. Future Pay to Play fee proposals will be submitted to the AGM.

Sponsorship had been disappointing.

In response to a question which asked what the EBU were doing about making sponsorship more attractive to potential prospects, the chairman listed all the things EBU were doing for Duplicate Bridge

English Bridge Advertising Revenue - rates had been unchanged since 2004, but the practice of discounting had been discontinued, so income had been protected.

Charity Application Status Update This is ongoing with nothing significant to report but there would be further information at the AGM.

Reduced Meetings Schedule
This was not particularly well handled by the chairman and produced a fairly rambling discussion. Effectively the Board wish to reduce the number of annual Shareholders Meetings by 1.

There were very mixed views for and against.

Amongst the suggestions was that the bi-Annual Chairman's Meeting could be formalised and replace the missing Shareholders Meeting. Some Counties took a strong view that Chairmen were sometimes not the individuals who should be involved, and of course the Chairman's Meeting is a discussion forum only with no powers.

It was suggested that now that Pay to Play had been adopted, there was likely to be little change to the EBU, and fewer meetings could cope. A web based Forum which had been discontinued in the past due to lack of support was to be reinstated.

The objective of the item was to decide whether there was sufficient support for a formal proposal on the number and nature of future meetings to be put to the AGM. It was decided that there was.

Amendments to Articles of Association These updated the Articles with changes brought about by Pay to Play and tidied up some anomalies in the current version.

The status of 'Bridge for All' students caused some discussion and would be reviewed; otherwise the changes had been well thought through and were passed with little discussion.

Minutes of Various Committees These mostly covered technical matters and there was little comment.

Name of Association There was a suggestion from the floor that the name should be changed to The English Duplicate Bridge Association.

(From the floor it was explained that in discussions when the Gaming Act was amended, it was necessary to establish the EBU was involved only in activities which involved skill not chance, i.e. not Rubber Bridge).
There was no indication of whether this suggestion would be carried forward