Sunday 9th November 2008
President's Report / Secretary's Report
I am pleased to announce that Southern Table Tennis has had what I consider to be a successful year without any major negative issues. The highlight of the year being that we are now debt free which should help greatly in ensuring that we remain in a strong financial position. I have also been very happy this year to see a couple of new people attending committee meetings and helping out with the running of the organisation. The spring and summer competitions have been well supported with a similar number of players as per previous years. It is only the winter competition which is causing some concern with the number of players slowly declining and clubs struggling to find volunteers to run them.
Our organisation relies very heavily on volunteers contributing their time to keep things running smoothly. I really admire the efforts of some of our long standing committee members and other volunteers who have for countless years being doing this bit for Southern Table Tennis with not many new faces joining them. So this year it has been great to suddenly have had 3 new people join the committee. Therefore I would like to thank Brooke COULLS and Steven HART for becoming club delegates this year and Jenny POOLE for taking on the recording secretary role. I would also like to say a special thanks to Wally SCHMIDT who for many years has been running the Tuesday and Friday daytime social sessions but decided during the year to hand over this task to Don LUGG. We really appreciate the devotion that Wally had to running these sessions and making them the success they have been, I hope that he new enjoys getting back to just playing table tennis.
Although this past year has gone without any major problems there are some issues which we have been able to identify and which we need to begin to address. The most pressing issue is with the survival of the clubs which take part in our winter competition, the clubs are finding it harder to find volunteers to run them and at this stage we may only have 3 clubs next season. Hopefully we can come up with some solutions for this at today's annual general meeting. The other issue which I believe we need to tackle is in promotion of our sport in the southern area so that we can increase the participation numbers in all of our activities. For many years now we have relied on word of mouth and events such as after school care programs with limited success and it is time to find other ways of promoting ourselves.
Finally I would like to ask all those that do participate in table tennis at our venue to consider what you can do to help our organisation prosper. This can range from actively participating in the running of Southern Table Tennis to just doing your bit in welcoming new players to our venue and encouraging people to have a hit.
Marcel Storken,
President
At last years AGM 'succession management' was introduced as a discussion item. Unfortunately we did not come up with any magical answer to address the problem and even worse, with the resignation of both Jo Storken and Helen Berry, the Executive Committee held its first meeting without either a President or Recording Secretary. Many thanks to Marcel Storken who stepped up as President and Jenny Poole as Recording Secretary.
As we approached the 2008 Southern winter season the Executive learnt that the Reynella Table Tennis Club was unable to attract Committee members and thus after many years of operation unfortunately this Club folded with its players being picked up by other Southern Table Tennis Clubs. It is noted that other clubs are struggling to maintain / attract volunteers.
Despite these initial hiccups, life went on at Southern with the full range of services still on offer. On reflection there certainly were some positivies which should gain a mention:-
| ü | I am pleased to advise that our loan associated with the year 2000 building extensions has now been paid. This has allowed Southern to now commence addressing outstanding maintenance issues with the replacement of fluro tubes and floor resurfacing in the playing area having already been addressed. |
| ü | Southern was successful once again in obtaining Recreation and Sports Active Club Grant funding to enable the chairs down the centre isle of the playing area to be replaced. |
| ü | New blood to the Executive Committee was introduced through Youth and Friends Club Delegates in Steven Hart and Brooke Coulls |
| ü | After the need for a Special General Meeting to introduce further amendments to the Constitution, the modified Constitution has been formally registered and adopted. |
| ü | Southern registered its own web site domain name and organised for its set to be hosted. Southern's web 'URL' and new email addresses have been widely communicated. |
| ü | In recognition of clubs in-ability to find fill in players to cover team vacancies during the winter season, the 'temporary permit player' listing was eatsblished which each club could access to cover team vacancies during the minor round. This proved successful. |
At this years AGM the future of the current winter competition format has been listed as a discussion item. Be it this or the topic of 'succession management' both relate to find people to step forward as volunteers to assist with the management of table tennis at Southern. Please give it some thought as the outcome is directly related to the future well being of South Table Tennis Incoporated.
Maurice Quinn,
Secretary