1. Chairperson welcome and open meeting
Janine Kennedy welcomed everyone to first official AGM. Thank you for giving up the football and tennis to join us.
2. Chair annual statement and report
Welcome to our first official AGM as a club. Thank you for taking the time to join us in reflecting on our last year and planning our next year together as a club.
Our purpose of tonight is to highlight the progress and achievements of the club over the last 12 months, elect the committee for the following year and make any changes to our constitution.
Our agenda for this evening is to provide a report from each of the chairperson, treasurer and secretary. Followed by election of committee members for next year and then formalise the constitution. The meeting will close with a talk from Andrew Plenty from Cornwall FA.
We elected our committee just over a year ago. Since this time we have had a couple of changes to our committee structure. We now have a lead coach, Ashley, 2 new welfare officers Hannah Martin and Caroline Moyses who have replaced Nick Hodges.
We have 2 new additions to our team who will become more actively involved this next season within the club. Teresa McCormack is our new Fixtures Coordinator and Gary Jago is our volunteers coordinator.
We are extremely lucky to have such a strong and dynamic committee who do a lot of work behind the scenes to keep our children safe and ensure they have fun.
We started with one team 2 seasons ago, entered 6 teams last season and will now be entering 8 teams into the Kernow Youth League this season from U8 through to U13. Our plans are to have an U9 development team starting and also have our first girls team developing.
We have many highlights of this year to celebrate:
The Harriers U11s winning the championship trophy in their first season together as a team.
Harriers winning an award for recognition of sporting behaviour for Kernow Youth League.
Ashley winning “community hero of the year award” through Harbour Lights.
A new website about to be launched.
Various grants.
Winning the green tokens at ASDA.
Several sponsors who have helped provide kit and equipment.
We are also very grateful to MC sports, who has provided all our kit, trophies and various donations and raffle prizes throughout the year.
Our aim is to use some of this money which we have been awarded towards the training of new coaches and new equipment for our growing numbers of children.
This season has been both successful and challenging in terms of the weather not being kind to us. This has meant difficulties in playing all of our matches due to the state of the pitches, late cancellations and rescheduling. Teams have had to contend with every condition - rain, wind, sun, snow and hail.
We had to reluctantly cancel 4 months of community football due to the horrendous weather conditions and state of the pitch at Tregenver and Posers. We were fortunate to be able to use the 3G pitch at Penryn.
Out of the challenges, one common thing that has continued to impress me has been the way all the coaches work together as a team - supporting each other at every opportunity.
The coaches have had a few meetings together and are a good support network for each other, but have also benefitted from the expert guidance of Dave Lea from Cornwall FA who has been to training sessions and Saturday morning community to offer advice and guidance.
This level of commitment is shown to the children not only within community but also within the teams. Coaches make a huge sacrifice for this club on a voluntary basis. They all attend weekly training sessions, matches, tournaments, community sessions on a Saturday. All to ensure that the children have fun, enjoy football and develop their skills and confidence.
For our club to continue growing, there needs to be an annual recruitment of coaches and volunteers. We ran a successful Step Into Football workshop in January this year organised by Cornwall FA. We had 15 parents from our club attend and all thoroughly enjoyed it. As a result of this, 5 of those parents are now actively helping with assistant coaching on a Saturday morning or as part of a team. We are looking to run another workshop next year and looking into running a Level 1 coaching course more locally.
Looking forwards to our next year, we have been working very hard as a committee to help resolve some of our challenges for the forthcoming winter months and ensure that we can continue to play football all year round. We have had several meetings with Falmouth school and Plymouth Argyle who are also keen to use the new 3G pitch on Saturday mornings.
PA will be operating all year round on Saturday mornings from 9.00-10.30. But the great news is that they have been very kind in offering us half the use of the 3G pitch when Tregenver is unplayable on due to the weather. We are very grateful in accepting this offer and will be in regular contact with them about these plans. In return we have offered to promote all their roadshows and after school activities.
We are also working closely with Falmouth School to try and resolve the ongoing issues with using Tregenver hut and field. We don’t have any definite news yet but we are hopeful that the motions we have in place will soon be finalised and we can then share this information with you.
3. Secretary annual statement and report
I want to reiterate Janine’s comments and thank the committee, coaches and parent volunteers for all their hard work over the last year. I would also like to give a massive shout out to all the children who come to community every week, play football, have fun and basically make this club what it is!
The club has successfully been affiliated to Cornwall FA for the second year running, and we’ve been awarded our Charter Standard, which opens up a huge support and funding network from the Cornwall FA.
At least 50% of our coaches are now members of the Licensed Coaches Club.
We registered 6 teams with Kernow Youth League last season and a total of 73 players. As Janine said 8 teams have just been registered for this next season and I am about to start registering the 94 players from those teams!
This last year has seen the number of children in our club grow to 154 but also a waiting list has been steadily growing to over 50 children wanting to join. This is a clear indication of the success of the club as a whole.
Over the last couple of weeks we have opened the waiting list to the younger age groups and admitted 22 new very excited children!
The committee meets monthly to discuss the development of the club, access to green spaces, funding opportunities, updates from committee members holding different roles, and to make sure that all members of the club are safeguarded and abide by the fundamental principle of youth football: respect! We do our best to keep Falmouth Community Youth Football fun, free and fair!
4. Treasurer annual statement of accounts
Please contact treasurer or secretary if you would like a copy of this document.
5. Election/re-election of committee members
Proposed committee member nominees:
President – Arno Canale
Chair – Janine Kennedy
Secretary – Penny Hodgson
Treasurer – Lu Luckett
Welfare Officers – Caroline Moyses and Hannah Martin
Press and Parent rep – Helen Allies
Head Coach – Ashley Blakely-May
Initially put in place 1 year ago with a few changes since including the head coach and the 2 new welfare officers.
Block vote:
Agree: 12
Disagree: 0
Abstain: 0
Proposed committee members successfully elected to committee of 2018/19.
6. Confirm final draft of Constitution
Proposer: Dave Hodgson
Seconder: Gary Jago
7. AOB
None raised.
8. Chair close meeting and introduce respect talk.
Andrew Plenty - Respect Lead Officer and FA Charter Standard Coordinator for Kernow Youth League, presented a talk entitled “Unite The Game”.
