AGM 2016 Report

Report from last night's  well attended AGM:

Peter Wright has decided to stand down as Chairman after eight years in the post. A new Chairman will be elected at the next Committee meeting.

 Ray Dawson stated that the club had reduced its Debt (Gearing) by almost half since 2012, from £2.5 million to £1.4 million, and the turnover of the club had doubled since 2010 mainly due to income from Test Matches. Although Nottinghamshire were budgeting for a big loss in 2016, when there is no test match, the club also budgets over cycles and for the four year period covering 2013 – 2016, the club expects an overall profit for that time period.

The Chief Executive stated that the capacity of Trent Bridge is 17,000 and that there were three potential options :-

1. Replace or update the William Clarke Stand,
2. Replace or upgrade the pavilion,
3. Update the media facilities in the Radcliffe Road Complex.
    She stated that outside of London, no Test match ground has been able to sell more than 17,000 tickets for any test match other than an Ashes test, and given that under the ground staging system, Trent Bridge will not stage another Ashes test until at least 2023.
    Trent Bridge had been voted the best ground experience for the seventh consecutive year. When the William Clarke Stand was looked at in 2011, it was stated that it would have cost £3 million then to increase the capacity by up to 1,000.. Four schemes have been looked at to improve the pavilion two of which would have included knocking it down and the costs were between £12 million and £22 million. The current economic climate of local government cuts and austerity meant that it would be difficult to find the funding for such schemes, and it would lead to repayment costs of £1.5 million for 20 years.
   The club could not afford it, so will update the broadcasting facilities in readiness for the next bidding processes that cover the period 2020 to 2022. The club will also look at whether it can upgrade the pavilion in phases at an affordable cost
    There was a discussion on the state of the game and how Test Match cricket was struggling with the attendances at the Boxing Day test in South Africa being very poor, and they were equally bad in the West Indies, and both countries had their crowds swelled by a large number of England tourists. 20/20 cricket is expanding and the success of tournaments in India, Australia and West Indies and even the recent Pakistan tournament mean that the game's priorities are also changing. England struggles because 20/20 cricket is not shown on Terrestrial Television. In fact last time that cricket was on offer the terrestrial companies did not even bother to bid, as they saw the costs of staging it too great, and in 2015 when Joe Root was cricketer of the year he could not even get in the top 10 for the BBC Sports personality of the year due to the lack of cricket shown on the BBC.
    There was a discussion on the proposals for the Domestic Cricket structure for 2017, with the possibility of increasing the number of 20/20 matches to 16 and reducing the number of matches in the ‘Specsavers’ County Championship to 14.
   Further information will be released after the next meeting of the ECB. The Nottinghamshire Committee will then meet to discuss and make recommendations before a vote is taken.  
    She also stated that the demand is now for Digital improvements so Nottinghamshire were exploring the possibility of showing clips and or highlights via streaming for fans to view on tablets etc., so Nottinghamshire may be looking at producing a digital style programme.
   The Director Of Cricket stated that the performances in the Championship during the first half of the season were not good, but the season turned on three things, namely the return from injury of Chris Read, the emergence of three young bowlers in Ball, Wood and Hutton, and the appointment of Peter Moores.
     The club were disappointed with the failure to qualify for the 20/20 Blast Quarter Final for the first time since 2009, and that the tactics will change with overseas player Dan Christian poised to bat further up the order to maximise his talents.
    A second overseas player for 20/20 may be signed subject to availability but it is near impossible to get a 20/20 specialist to sign for the whole of the 14 match series due to competitions taking place elsewhere around the world.
     He was also praised the efforts of Paul Franks and the second eleven for winning the second eleven championship for the first time since 1985. He was also pleased in the number of England cricketers the club has developed and praised Jake Ball for his standout bowling performances for England Lions in the winter against Pakistan.
     Jackson Bird will be the overseas bowler for the first ten championship matches, and then the club will review what type of overseas player may be required for the last six matches, but it does need to be factored in that two of those last six games will be at Scarborough and Taunton. He will not play in white ball cricket.
   Paul Ellis was appointed to the Committee to replace the retiring David Beaumont who was thanked for his efforts and especially for his work on the Heritage Project.
    Peter Wynne Thomas was appointed as the next Club President and will replace Ian Hepburn. P. W-T then gave a speech which gave reference to the number of cricket grounds in Nottinghamshire being on a decline going from 170 to 123 in the last fifteen years, and stated his intention to help stop this decline.
   Enid Bakewell the former England ladies cricketer was elected as a Vice President of the club.
    Any Other Business
     The Nottinghamshire Committee were attacked by one irate Nottinghamshire member for holding their tribute to the late Clive Rice during the Trent Bridge Test Match, rather than holding an additional proper tribute during the first Nottinghamshire home match after Clive’s death. The answer to this question given by the committee member did not appear to reflect the feelings of the audience.
    A question was raised yet again about the poor facilities at Lady Bay for the Second Team, and are there any proposals to improve them. It was agreed that the facilities are bad but there are no immediate plans to change things.

JAG