Minutes of the Management Committee Meeting held at Ripley Castle - Monday, May 09, 2011

Meeting opened at 19.30 with Sir Thomas Ingilby in the Chair

1. Committee Members Present
Graham Hyde (GH), Tony Whittaker (TW), Sir Thomas Ingilby (SIRT), Bob Skaith (BS), Eric Houseman (EH), Ian Sunderland (IS), Roger Deakin (RD), Tricia Heard (TH), Martin Blackham (MB), Alex Houseman (AH), Steven Coombs (SC)

2. Apologies for Absence
Ben Drummond (BD), Ken Coad (KC), Anton Lodge (AL), Justin Park (JP), Peter Crack (PC), Bill Kitson (BK), Paul Ellis (PC), Chris Newton (CN), Isabel Peel (IP)

3. Minutes of the meeting held on Tuesday 22nd March 2011
have been circulated and were accepted as a true and accurate record.

4. Matters arising
None

5. Correspondence and Secretary’s Business (TH)
 Update League policies on website – to include contributions to Level 1 and 2 courses
 Studley Royal have applied for financial assistance for coaching and been approved for 4 places of League contributions
 Some clubs were not interpreting the rules around bowling restrictions when weather affects play before the start of the game. Some players were reading the directives incorrectly. A reminder will be sent to the umpires of the rules.
 Northallerton Wolves are playing their home fixtures at Thorpe Perrow.
 Harrogate's new pavilion will be ready for the end of May in the meantime no facilities exist including showers and changing facilities
 Ken Coad sent an acknowledgement message for the card the Management Committee sent.

6. Treasurers Report (BS)
 Current account £4,374.56 Deposit account unchanged at £341.00
 Most items are up-to-date apart from the one to Lords International
 All club invoices will hopefully be going out this week
 All junior teams apart from Glasshouses have paid
 5 companies have paid to advertise on the web site

7. Umpires Report (GH)
 Practice bowling rules were clarified to the Management Committee
 Recent reports received about over aggressive appealing and over officious umpiring. Any matters will be passed to the Disciplinary Panel.

8. ACO North Yorkshire Branch (GH)
 Barry Canham and Graham Hyde attended a YCB ACO meeting recently and found it to be run in a less than ideal manner. Clarification was sought for the new local branch about processes for applying for courses which will be followed.

9. Cup Competitions and Evening League (IS)
 Peter Bentley Cup Preliminary round completed.
 Wath Cup starts tomorrow night
 Peter Bentley Cup 1st round nextThursday
 Thirsk 3rds have conceeded their fixture in the Peter Bentley Cup already.
 Evening League – first round last Wednesday. Sharow have asked to change some fixtures round due to none availability fo their ground
 Lofthouse are struggling early to fulfil.
 Glasshouses have entered but are struggling.

10. North and West Yorkshire Cricket Council (IS)
 All quiet, nothing to report
 Anne Coe Secretary of the Craven District was asked by IS to keep him informed and aware of changes.
 TS had details of a meeting at Cleckheaton CC last week at late notice. TS asked for the minutes.

11. Ground Committee Report (BD)
 Met last month to sort out pre season ground inspections. They should now have been completed. Next meeting at Masham.
 4 ground marks queries, 2 resolved, 2 pending.

12. Child Welfare (IP)

Following Graham’s email of 14 April, copy attached, my further thoughts are set out below and can I suggest the topic be placed on the Agenda for the meeting on Monday.

At recent League Management meetings I have got the impression that either the current League policy is not clearly understood or to the extent that it is there is a feeling in some quarters that it is unnecessarily complicated.

1. The League’s Responsibility
It is clearly right and sensible that we pass on guidelines, regulations and directives to clubs that we in turn receive from the ECB or YCB. Should we not do so then in the event a claim is made against a club involving a junior player then the league could find itself drawn into any proceedings and in terms whereby some liability may attach to the League.

If the clubs fail to follow anything that we pass on then either that may result in some disciplinary action, which the Management Committee would instigate, or the club involved may be faced with a civil claim which it would be its own responsibility to deal with and which should not affect the League as such.

2. The Current Position
I deliberately referred to “the current policy of the League” in the statement referred to in the attached email.
This in distinction to the matter being one relating to our rules and constitution.

In the former case we retain flexibility as a committee to amend policy at any time as we see fit. In the latter case any proposed change to the rules and constitution would be a matter for an AGM or EGM.

3. Options
3.1 As a committee we can simply leave matters as set out in the statement in the attached email. (Although committee members have been circulated with the YCB email from Ian Chappell of 15 April I presume that as yet the clubs have not been notified of this email?)

3.2 If there is a feeling on the committee to liberalise the current policy then, apart from bearing in mind what I say above as to this not being a rules and constitution matter but a policy matter over which the committee has complete discretion, the following should be borne in mind:

• We have adopted as a policy a number of ECB guidelines, regulations and directives, not to mention a code of conduct. All of which touch upon junior players in open age matches.

• Whilst it is clearly arguable that a guideline is just that, and may or may not be followed and is capable of being amended by the League, the way the ECB guidelines are phrased seems to me to be making them almost prescriptive and in any event the Fielding Regulations, which are a step up from guidelines, make it plain that a junior “under 12 at midnight on 31 August in the year proceeding the current season cannot play in open age cricket, with or without explicit written consent”. A regulation I put in the same category as a directive, namely there is no wiggle room. The code of conduct as it relates to junior players really does not add anything and it is really an expression of good intent.

4. Conclusion
Although I am all for cutting down bureaucracy where we can and trusting to the good sense and goodwill of clubs, I have reluctantly come to the conclusion that as we are tied into the ECB we will be running a risk as a league if we did not follow the ECB’s lead in terms of junior players in open league matches and pass on the ECB guidelines, regulations, directives etc and adopt them as the league policy.

There is some flexibility within the guidelines for leagues to draft a policy by reference to general guidelines but whether we would eventually come up with any different policy, or if we did it would be worth the time and effort I am not at all sure.

In short, I would recommend we left the policy as it is but in future may scrutinise guidelines, regulations, directives etc more thoroughly than we have in order to see if there is any way in which they might be modified from a one size fits all approach to better reflect the circumstances of our league.

IP's concerns were around breaches of this directive. Should go to disciplinery panal and give them the power Perhaps the bottom two divisions could be exempt from these directives. Definition of recreational cricket?

League to leave things as they are.

13. Disciplinary Committee (JP)
 There is nothing outstanding to report
 Outstanding issue with Dacre Banks not registering an overseas player as a ROC Shane Wells

14. Junior League Representative (PE)
 No report

15. Six a Side Junior Indoors (BK)
 The Finals on 9th April were a culmination of a very long winter. Play lost to snow was an unexpected problem along with building work at Boroughbridge High School. However, on this occasion it was good to see different teams in the finals along with the larger successful clubs.
 The under 9 age group was won by North Stainley A, beating Harrogate by 9 runs.
 The under 11, Studley Royal A beat Harrogate A by 4 runs.
 The under 13, Knaresborough beat Harrogate A by 47 runs.
 The under 15, Harrogate A beat Beckwithshaw by 8 runs.
 The under 17, Knaresborough beat Pannal by 5 wickets, where all six Pannal batsmen were run out.
 With two venues, all the age groups were able to play full leagues and the standard of play on the day was excellent. All the coaches have been more involved than before and hopefully, next season we will have more help from other umpires. We already have one volunteer who is spreading the word on our behalf.
 Tricia has been a great help throughout, scoring at Pateley Bridge virtually every week.
 Ben Drummond has updated the web-site on a weekly basis and has also added the performance tables, for which he deserves our thanks.
 Sir Thomas kindly agreed to present some of the trophies, and although his stay was somewhat abridged by his film crew, we would like to thank him for taking the time to attend. Without the support from the committee, the Indoor would not be possible and our thanks, as always, are extended to them all.
 Both venues have now been reserved for next season.

16. League Representative Side (AH)
 Have a Captain, Olie Uffndall.
 A meeting took place with a squad of 22 players identified.
 Wetherby league first match, 3 cancellations already with a proposed date of 29th May.

17. Any Other Business
 Spofforth have been contacted about playing in the league and are enjoying things.
 Little Ribston have also been contacted are enjoying the Nidderdale league.

18. Date of Next Meeting
 Monday 4th July 2011 at 7.30pm at Ripley Castle

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