Jed - Mens 2 captain
Mens 2 kicked off the Croakers league season tonight at home to Trinity 3 and what a start it was! A terrific 5-4 victory against tough opposition. Awesome effort from Raj and Mo who won all 3 and some great play from Raheel/Russell and Pete/Rahul who each won the crucial single game each. Special thanks to Russell who stepped in as a last minute replacement for me and did a great job.
Well done again everyone and looking forward to the next one.

Dani - ladies captain
First Ladies away match against Leicester central and we all smashed it with a 6-3 win! Well done to all the ladies that played and great start to the season! 👏👏👏
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​Andy - mens 1 captain
Mens 1 started their season tonight with a hard fought 6-3 loss to Loughborough, it was a good match with a lot of close games and 5 rubbers going to a deciding 3rd game.

Thank you to James and Tehseen for picking up 2, Sherwin and Alex for picking up a single and Raj with myself.

A PDF of this information is available on the Croakers Badminton Home Page

1. ATTENDEES - Jed, Andy, Fran, Tim, Steve, Tehseen, Daegan, Dani, Carl, James, Kate, Alex N, Alex L 

2. APOLOGIES – Colin, Raheel, Lin, Ian J

3. MINUTES OF 2023 AGM

    • Accepted as no issues and a true record.


4. REVIEW OF YEAR
  Financial Review

• At the start of the financial year we had +£2406.98 in the bank, during the season        our incomings were: o £2928.00 from guests fees, (an increase of +£140 over previous year) this included the summer pay as you play period, occasional guests fees from Thursdays, a good result considering we didn’t have the additional Monday court this year. o £4565.00 from Membership fees, (an increase of +£431 over previous year) this was a total of 31 members and 3 pay as you play members o £954.00 from match fees (a decrease of -£879 over previous year due to reduction in match fee cost by 50%) o £200 in Miscellaneous incomings from the LBA presentation night (a decrease of £642 over previous year due to no coaching taking place) o A grand total of £8647 incomings (an overall decrease on the previous year of £950) 
  

Our outgoings were: ​ 

• £4952.30 in court costs (an increase of +£1011.60 over the previous year)
  
•  £3455.00 in shuttle costs (an increase of +£1253.33 over the previous year)
  
•  £400 in LBA costs (a decrease of -£240 over the previous year)
  
•  £630.00 in BE costs (an increase of +£74.50 over the previous year)
  
•  £296.41 in Miscellaneous costs (decrease of -£671.57 due to no coaching), this was made up of £200 for LBA evening, £38 for purchase of case and padlocks and £58.41 on website costs
  
•  A grand total of £9733.71 in costs (an increase on the previous year of £1427.86)

Meaning we ended the season with the account showing +£1320.27, a decrease of £1086.71 with a 0 discrepancy, so every pound owed was paid. This compares to the previous year where the end of year showed an increase of +£1291.15

Saying this we there are two things to take into account, firstly the previous year we made a considerable profit which we were not meant to make, so knowing that court costs were increasing we also reduced match fees to balance out the profit made. Secondly whilst it looks like a £2000 swing from a +1k to a –1k we need to consider shuttle stock. At the end of the previous year I do not have exact figures, but know we did not have a lot of shuttle stock and had to do a £1125 order at the start of the season, at the end of this season we had 34 tubes of shuttles or approx. £800 worth of shuttles. So that brings the deficit last year to approx. -£286.71 

So far this year the account is showing as +£2034.27 (a decrease on last year of -£265.70) with a discrepancy of -£0.00. To come off this figure are August court costs. We also have a stock of 15 tubes of shuttles and will need to purchase another 75 tubes to get us through the upcoming season which will cost approx. £1762.50 but overall I feel we are in a good position.

It was mentioned from Jed, and the club a thank you to Andy for the continued hard work he has done to look after the club finances.

Season review​

• Mens 1 – Mens 1 finished 4th in the league this year which I feel is a great result after getting a free promotion last year. We lost the first 5 matches of the season but then won the last 5 matches including 3 against teams who were in higher leagues than us last year which is a great result. We will have only lost out on 3rd place in the league by a handful of rubbers. I'd like to say a huge thank you to the team.
  
• Mens 2 – Strange year winning 3, losing 3 in a league of only 4 teams, including winning against the team who won the league, but losing against the team who came bottom. Finished 2nd in league
  
• Mens 3 – Good season doing well, also finishing 2nd in league on same amount of wins as the league winners Trinity. • Mixed 1 – Didn’t win, didn’t lose, also came 2nd in league.
  
• Mixed 2 – Fantastic season winning the league and getting promoted winning all matches bar one.
  
• Ladies – Also finished 2nd in league so didn’t go back up but had a whole team for the whole season which was positive.
  
• Hall – Decision was made at the start of the season to stay in the higher league and in Frans words were “shat on”, won two games against the team that finished bottom of the league. 
  

Social Activities 

• Xmas badminton session with food which will continue.

5. COSTS/MEMBERSHIP FEES 2023/24
The following points were not discussed and are carried over from the previous year:

• To maintain reasonable playing time, membership numbers to be capped at 32. However, the Committee would have the discretion to consider new applications on a case-by-case basis.
  
• Members cannot play competitively in the leagues for other clubs unless permission is given by the Committee at its discretion. 
  

There was a large discussion about a required change to the home match location due to not being able to play at Rolleston on Mondays for the upcoming season with various options being discussed and how that would affect match fee costs. It was agreed on a vote that match nights would change to Wednesday nights at Rolleston and therefore Membership and Match fees would stay the same as the previous season detailed below:  

• Membership fees will be £150 covering the season 1 September 2024-30 April 2025, and includes the cost of BE and LBA registration.
• To incentivise early payment, the membership fee of £150 must be paid by the end of September 2024 otherwise players will be liable for club membership of £140 from the start of October and £6 per session played in September.
  
• Fees will be pro-rated monthly thereafter for new joiners.
  
• For anyone wishing to make a membership payment plan, arrangements can be accommodated on a case-by-case basis. However, a minimum of £37.50 must be paid as a first instalment to cover registration costs. Please speak individually to Andy.
  
• £3 for matches, £6 for guests and Pay & Play sessions. 
  
• Wherever possible, payments should be made electronically to the Clubs bank account.
  

6. TEAMS & PLAYING ACTIVITIES ​

It was agreed after discussion that the club would continue with the 2nd mixed team for the upcoming season, and the following captains were retained/appointed:

Team -  Captain
Ladies - Dani
Mixed 1 - Kate
Mixed 2 - Steve
Mens 1 - Andy
Mens 2 - Jed
Mens 3 - Tim
Hall League - Fran

• From September, all club playing activities will continue to take place at Fullhurst College between 19:00-21:00, with first club night Thursday 5th September. 
  

• It was agreed that home matches will be played at Rolleston on Wednesday nights 19:00 21:30 from October to April. The cost of the 2 x courts is £75 due to the need for a janitor to go home and come back to let us in and then to come back to lock up again. This reduces to £50 if we get someone there from 17:30 so the janitor only has to come back to lock up. It was agreed that Fran’s friends would be able to continue to use this 1.5 hour session so that the use of the hall is at the cheaper rate and that it would also be put out free to club members who would need to provide their own shuttles.

7. COMMITTEE POSITIONS:

• The following positions were duly nominated and appointed:

 Chairman - Jed
Match Secratery - Fran
Treasurer / Club Sec. - Andy
Social Cimmittee - Alex N. / Lin
Website Admin - Daegan / Tim

•  It was mentioned by Jed and the club, a thank you to Colin for his work as Match Secretary over the past seasons and thank you for agreeing to attend the LBA fixtures evening and help support Fran in her new role.
  

8. ANY OTHER BUSINESS

• It was noted that the website needs updating, Daegan has updated the Match Secretary and match location details, but further work is required.

It was agreed as per the previous year for the Ladies to have an exclusive court on one club night to try out pairings in preparation for the season. This is for the team captain to organise. ​

We have a few guest spots available on 13 July, as some of the regular club members are on holiday.

We're currently playing at Brockington over the summer, from 7:30pm-9:30pm. If you're interested in coming along please contact Raheel or Andy - details on our Contact us page.

Due to the recent high attendance on club nights (Thursdays), we are temporarily having to suspend the option for guests to play at the club.

Although we are sorry to have to do this, as we always like to welcome people to the club, we have to put our paid up members first and ensure that they get court time. It is a sign of the success and popularity of the club.

We will of course keep this under review and assess what option we have going forward

​Thanks you as always for your support and interest in playing at Croakers

Apologies to all those who turned up tonight at our new venue at Ellesmere College and did not get to play. 

We have got to the bottom of the issue which has been resolved and club night will resume next Thursday 19:30 - 21:30 at Ellesmere College.

Thank you and apologies again.

Thursday was the last time we'll play at Brockington College, so we've added a few photos of the last club night to the Gallery. Thanks to Caroline for the photojournalism!

From 2 September we'll be playing at Ellesmere College. See the Contact page for directions.

Our last club night at Brockington will be on Thursday 26 August.

Home matches are normally played on a Monday evening from 7:30 pm and from October 2021 will be played at Ellesmere College.

From Thursday 2 September 2021 onwards we will be playing at Ellesmere College:
40 Braunstone Lane East
Leicester
​LE3 2FD