Annual Report 2020/21
Annual General Meeting 2020 The meeting was held via Zoom Conferencing Wednesday 25th November 2020 Apologies for absence: Hugh Antrobus, Louise Barnfield, Edward Buck, The Earl of Buckinghamshire, Jeremy Bushell, David Godfray, Ian Goulty, Nick Hamilton, Mike Hayes, Mark Howard, Roger Pilgrim, Luke Readman, Bernard Weatherill QC, The Marquess of Zetland. 1. The retirement of DM Norman, President of the Association, having served a third period of three years in accordance with Article 5.5 was noted. The Board’s nomination to re-elect DM Norman as President of the Association for a further period of three years in accordance with Article 5.6 was approved. Mr DM Norman warmly welcomed everyone to the first virtual AGM in 113 years and said it would prove to be the Association’s finest. He reported the Chief Executive Mr CS Davies would choreograph questions later in the meeting and thanked the T&RA for putting together a virtual AGM as a result of the social distancing restriction regulations imposed by Covid19. 2. Notice of the calling of the meeting. The Notice was issued in September 2020 and promulgated to Members along with the Annual Report. The authority for charities to hold their AGMs electronically was granted by the Corporate Insolvency and Governance Act 2020. 3. The Minutes of the Annual General Meeting held at The Queen’s Club on 27th November 2019 were proposed by Mr H Johnsen, seconded by Mr D Sheperdigian and approved unanimously. 4. Matters arising from the Minutes There were no matters arising not covered later in the meeting. 5. To adopt the Annual Report for 2019/20 by the passing of Resolution 1 in the Notice of Annual General Meeting. Mr David Watson welcomed everyone to the T&RA AGM for the year 2020 and made the following statement: It’s my pleasure to welcome you to the first, and hopefully the last, T&RA AGM exclusively by zoom. The playing season, which feels a lifetime ago, was brought to a premature conclusion in March this year with the imposition of a national lockdown. Whilst little comfort now, we were fortunate in having a winter season such that most major events were completed before Boris confined us to barracks. There were however sad cancellations of the schools Rackets doubles – for the first time since the war years (1942, to be specific) - denying those in their final year the chance to shine. The schoolgirls’ singles were a further victim, temporarily denting the huge growth in this area: Ladies Tennis Opens; British Open Rackets Doubles and a number of other events were sadly cancelled ; (Tennis) Men’s World Challenge was the most notable casualty. Even so there were significant achievements in the first half. Rackets Tom Billings fulfilled his determined ambition in taking the World Single Rackets title vacated by James Stout, with Tara Lumley and India Deakin winning the first ever Ladies World Doubles. Tennis We were delighted to see Camden Riviere return to full fitness and performing in imperious style taking both the singles and doubles events at Queen’s. Sadly, though, these all feel a long time ago. Post lockdown, the T&RA has been active in advising clubs and schools on rules for safe return to play and despite the huge frustrations we all share with the illogicality of the
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Patron HRH The Earl of Wessex KG KCVO ADC
ruling emerging from Number 10, we have been grateful for the support and careful adherence and patience shown by all. I must reassure you that we have been aggressively and intensively lobbying for permission to return to safe play and progress has been made. However – all is not gloom and doom! At the start of lockdown, we reached out to all clubs and schools to offer advice and assistance wherever needed. We were acutely conscious that the suspension of play and income could pose significant risks to our facilities and all those employed in the games. After a period of initial uncertainty, government support and the careful stewardship by Club Boards coupled with creative generosity from members and professionals alike, has ensured that no redundancies have been necessary. We have been pleased to support and protect the employment of some trainees, whose career ambitions will hopefully thus only be delayed, rather than lost. Finally, I wanted to share with you work undertaken by the Association against our strategic agenda: I) Improve the pipeline of professionals in Tennis and Rackets Given my clear statement of strategic priority and focus on developing and enhancing the professional ranks, you will forgive me for dwelling on the Investing in Professionals (IiP) initiative, led by John Whiting on behalf of the Tennis Committee, and the recipient of this year’s Volunteer of the Year award – the Maltby Salver. This programme which aims to recruit and train four new professionals a year for perhaps all of the next decade has benefitted from intense support from some 40 volunteers working in teams on Attract Recruit Retain. The professional community has played a big part in this too and we are now offering the higher-level training courses and opportunities to all professionals to encourage them to develop a broader skill set and increase their value to their profession and beyond. This is an exciting programme and I wanted to thank all those who have contributed so generously both time and money to bring it to fruition. We will be giving regular updates on progress in newsletters and other social media. Given the similar issues amongst our Rackets professionals, it is our aspiration to establish a similar scheme to Rackets in future years and early discussions have been positive with the RPA. II) Grow participation in particular through attracting and retaining youth and through enhancing or building new facilities In terms of our physical assets: - The rebuilt Rackets Court at Harrow was commissioned and is in active use. - I hope that many of you watched the time lapse photography of the daring replacement of the Bickley floor at Moreton Morrell which has proved a triumph. - The Hyde have secured their freehold and moved to charitable status to protect court for the long term. Sadly, at present, we don’t have any new courts in prospect in the UK (although we are all impatient to play Bordeaux and we wish every success to our colleagues in Sydney, Washington and Charleston in their endeavours). In association with the Dedanists’ (Foundation and Society), a wide range of youth Tournaments and training events have been delivered and the enthusiasm for the Real Tennis among the younger generation continues to grow – even so with an average age of 53 we need to work hard on our demographics. In Rackets, the Noel Bruce had record participation and the Schools events now benefits from a full range of girls’ events at the same time. We have also been working with the Rackets community to boost participation and consider ways to help the youngsters with the escalating costs, so they continue to play when they
