Herts County Junior Squash

Herts County Junior Meeting 10.1.05

Present: Ray, Ron, Dave Sciberras, Dave Kerr,John Dixon

Apologies: Julian, Dave Richards, Jason Foster, Dudley,Simon,Steve

Happy New Year to all.

Financials
When Awards for all received we should have £6900 in the account. A letter was received from Awards for all advising they were 4 weeks behind with crediting accounts. It should be in our account by 1/2/05. Dave Sciberras will check.

Ron was paid £100 for Sept/Oct Administration fees.

Julian was paid £77 for the girls morning.

Inter County : all under control.

U19 on 30th Jan at Norwich (beat Norwich lost to Sussex)

U15 – again on 30th Jan Chris Thomas was standing in as team manager as Dave Sciberras was absent.

U13 – at Lee on Solent on 6/2/05

U17 at Oxford 6/2/05

U13 Girls are hosting at Cannons on 6th feb.

Good luck to all involved.

County Shirts – Jason Foster looking at costs. These have now been advised as £7.00 per shirt. Decision on this needs to be made.

Inter Club – All going OK. Still some overlap issues with other events in the calendar. Clubs must do there best to not cancel even if the teams are weaker than you would like. Inter club is about getting all club members to play not just those who already go around doing the tournaments. In some minds it should be more for those not doing the tournaments in order that they get some experience. The one fact that should be faced if this stance is taken is that the possible best club may not win the inter club league. From my view point the aim of the interclub is to involve as many players as possible and if this means not winning the league then so be it.

Coaching- Ron will speak with Steve Lloyd re setting up training days. We need to be more proactive in setting up training days for the u11 – u15 age group and covering players ranked 6-15. Steve should look at this and go ahead and arrange training sessions.
Training days for the top players should also be looked at in conjunction with the team managers

A training/squash tour was suggested as a possibility by Dave Sciberras. Guernsey do hold squash weekends and players can be put up with other families keeping the cost down. Something of this magnitude would also have to have parent funding.

It was also felt that some of the junior players could learn a lot from seeing a professional tournament. We should consider part funding a trip to a tournament.

Girls Squash - Training day on 12/12/04 had 15 girls attend each paid £6.00 towards the cost.

Julian to advise when the next training day is planned..

With AFA money need to consider how we can put this to enhancing girls squash in herts. We need to consider setting targets ie. achieve 4 girls in British Rankings, increase number in Herts closed by 25%, getting more to enter tournaments.

Julian and Steve should think of ideas to achieve some set targets.

Girls rep. on committee would still be very welcome. Anna Bradleys parents were a suggestion.

Awards for All - Ron to investigate squash wall and passports etc.

Once again we felt a rough split should be considered;

£500 – Elite
£750 – County
£1250 – Grass Roots
£750 – Girls
£500 – Equipment
£1250 – Coaching

All committee members should give some thought to the best ways to use the funds now available with the above as a broad outline.

Schools - Should continue with the £120 per school towards coaching if they can et pupils into the clubs. All efforts should involve a local club to ensure they can follow on if they find they want to continue.
Ron advised that in Broxbourne area St Cross School was showing interest and they would go to Broxbourne to be coached by Paul Allen.

P Nicol undertaking exhibition at Stortford 14.1.05. All tickets sold.

Next Meeting : 7/2/05