Minutes of the 40th Annual General Meeting of the CCBA held at Carnon Downs Village Hall on
Sunday 15 September 2024

Present 34 :
Liz Perry (Chair), Chris Bickerdike (Secretary), David Stone (Treasurer) - plus 31 other members.

Apologies 3 :
John Golding, Heather Holder-Powell, Heather Peers

The meeting was opened at 3.35pm during the tea interval of the Autumn Pairs event.

There were no matters arising from the minutes of the last AGM held in September 2023.

Chairperson’s Report

In her final report as Chairperson, largely due to the impact of Covid, Liz Perry reflected on her three years in the Chair turning out to be 7 years. She was pleased to report that F2F bridge numbers were continuing to improve post-Covid, and that online now gives aged, less mobile, and averse to driving-in-the-dark players the option to continue playing the game we all love so much.

At the table, the Cornish team finished a very creditable 12= out of 29 in the Pachabo Cup - the first time we have finished in the top half in anyone's memory. In the two major national qualifying events there were successes for Mick Robson and Jo Bryant in the Pairs, and by Richard Blyth, Geoff Jones, Ian Marriott and Paul Lindsay in the Teams. Jan Keast, Janet Heath, Heather Childs and Bill Adams won the final event of the year, the enjoyable Pivot Teams.

Liz finished by saying how she had enjoyed her term of office, thanking Chris and David for their support throughout, and wishing the new Chairman every success in the job.

Treasurer’s Report

As planned by David Stone, with no income whatsoever,  there was a deficit of £1060 in the year to end August 2024. This leaves a surplus of £8918 going forward. Again, there will be no entry fees charged for the coming year, and there will be no income from Pay to Play. A similar loss to this year is anticipated for 2024/5.

The motion to accept the accounts was proposed by Diana Coate-Bond and seconded by Jan Keast. The motion was carried unanimously.

Tournament Secretaries Report

Chris Bickerdike thanked the 27 people who had represented the county in the Western League during the last year, and invited anyone with an NGS of 9 or above to contact him if they would like to be considered for a game in the C team.

We intend to run six events again this season - 2 before Xmas and 4 afterwards. Four of these events will be F2F, with the two National qualifying events again online with Jeremy Child as director. The hybrid event was not a success and will not be repeated. 

The Liskeard teams event is on Sunday October 13 and the Falmouth Salver is on Saturday 18 January 2025. A teams of Four event will be run at Carnon Downs on Sunday 17 November. Entries to Chris Bickerdike.

Chris made the meeting aware that the EBU is running a new Nine-High Corwen event in 2025, in order to encourage less experienced players to play in national competitions. He will be contacting clubs in due course to canvass their thoughts on the best way to run the qualifying round within our county.

Election of Officers

Ian Marriott, who has been on committee for the last six years, was proposed as new Chairman of the Association by Liz Perry, seconded by Liz Williams, and the motion was carried unanimously.

At this point, before Liz handed over the meeting to the incoming Chairman, David Stone made a presentation of flowers together with a bottle of Liz's favourite tipple, thanking her on behalf of her committee and the membership for her stewardship of the CCBA during the past seven years.

With Ian now in the chair, the following persons were proposed by Janet Heath, seconded by Jo Bryant, and re-elected en bloc to serve for another year.

Secretary        Chris Bickerdike
Treasurer        David Stone
Committee        John Golding
EBU Shareholder    Chris Bickerdike

With a vacancy now existing on committee, Mike O'Neill, an experienced player, administrator and director with Bucks & Berks before his move to live in Cornwall late last year, was proposed by Chris Bickerdike, seconded by Bill Thomson, and was duly elected unanimously.

Any Other Business 

Laurie Burley asked if one of the events in the programme could be run as a Swiss Pairs. Chris welcomed the suggestion, saying that it would depend on enough pairs entering and that someone was familiar with the IT side of running such an event.   

Nothing else was raised so the meeting was closed at 3.58pm.

CJB 17/9/24