Minutes of the February General Meeting

Held at Martin Greenidge's house, Friday February 11th.

Present: Kelly Dunagan, Lalit Sharma, Julia Vann, Masud Zaidi, Philip Lynch, Martin Greenidge, Alex Khan, Asif Siddique, Sandy Gage.
Apologies: Noel Emmanuel, Imran Ahmed, Tony Hart, Barry Harwood

During a preamble and discussion, club president Kelly Dunagan announced that a selection committee, consisting of the two league team captains, Noel and Alex, and himself as overseer, would undertake to meet at appropriate intervals during the season to handle all matters of Corinthian and Casuals selection.

Meeting formally convened at 8.15pm.

Reading Of The Minutes
Philip read the minutes of the previous meeting from January 17th.

Matters Arising
Martin asked about the arrangements for the San Francisco tour as mentioned in the minutes. Julia then filled in some details regarding our prospective opponents: Marin, and a pub team called the Pig & Whistle, which comprised largely of former members of Golden Gate CC. Both proposed matches would take place at Marin's ground. Martin emphasized that we should make special efforts this year to fulfil our obligations on this trip, having cancelled at *very* short notice 2 years ago. In his words, fences needed to be mended.

A motion to accept the minutes was proposed by Julia, seconded by Martin and carried unanimously.

Secretary's Report
Julia had already covered some aspects of the San Francisco tour. She announced that two new applications had been received prior to the meeting: one from SANDY GAGE, whom we were pleased to see attend, and Australian MICHAEL RAHER. She also reported news that Peter Eaton, the English first-class groundsman who had helped lay out the new wickets at Woodley, had died suddenly. Kelly enquired how the newsletter production was coming along; to which Julia replied that about half were now being sent by eMail, reducing the necessary costs. Furthermore she now had the ability to send pictures in the eMail version.

A motion to accept Julia's secretary's report was proposed by Martin, seconded by Philip and carried unanimously.

SCCA
Julia reported that she, Martin and Kelly had attended the SCCA's AGM - and that it had been a disorganized mess. Neither voting nor constructive discussions took place, not even regarding the upcoming season - except that it would probably begin in late April. As usual, money was argued over and an inordinate amount of time wasted in reviewing the Australia 'A'/India 'A' tournament a few months earlier. Kelly concurred with all Julia had said, adding his own observation that the SCCA was in truly bad shape; and that this implied that a very difficult time lay ahead for the league. Lalit asked if our representation at the meeting had managed to raise any of the issues which were causing concern - particularly that no format for this year's competition had been agreed upon and that the SCCA's handling of money was thought to be suspect. Kelly answered that he had tried to raise these matters, but it they had apparently fallen on deaf ears.

Captains' Reports
Corinthians: Noel was absent due to work commitments. Julia reported in his stead that Noel planned to phone as many prospective players as possible in the next few weeks; and that usual net sessions were planned.
Casuals: Alex reported that a net session had also been planned for Sunday 13th, and would hopefully continue on successive Sundays, to help accommodate Casuals players who had work commitments on Saturday mornings. He announced he had 17 names in his base roster. Kelly reiterated that any and all net sessions were to be regarded as club practices and not delineated by teams. Alex also planned to distribute and collect back in a number of application forms. Kelly commented that the club's practice in future would be to solidify the application process and bring it back into line with the requirements set out in the bylaws - and that in particular, an assessment subcommittee would be convened. This would comprise Masud Zaidi, Lalit Sharma and be chaired by vice president Martin Greenidge, who would assume responsibility for presenting all applications at meetings in future. Finally, Alex reported he had been reassessing the Casuals kit bag and would be making a request for some more equipment.
Occasionals: Kelly announced that Trevor Roper, although so far unofficially, had welcomed the Occasionals' application to join the LASCA friendly league. The commitment would likely be 1-2 games per month, perhaps 7 games in all, starting in April. These would likely be at the Erwin Park ground in Encino. There would be a $300 joining fee, plus (probably) a nominal participation fee. The league has its own kit and scorebook. Lalit, as Occasionals' co-captain, reported that we had perhaps 6-7 genuine Occasionals on our current roster, and that perhaps more potential social league players should be contacted. Kelly reminded the meeting that 2 games were already set for March 12th. (vs. BritDom) and March 18th. (vs. Victoria); and that there was a further possibility of playing Pioneer (if they can get their ground) in the last week in March. West Covina and Lions had similarly been approached, and no response had yet been received. An important footnote: We needed to provide a trophy for the upcoming BritDom match, for which we needed a name! (Thinking caps on, everyone..)
 
Treasurer's Report
Lalit reported only a small amount of activity. We began the month with January's closing balance of $64.09 (as reported at the 1/17 meeting) which had increased to $153.09 at 2/11. Masud had paid playing membership; Barry McClelland had paid associate membership; and some outstanding banquet fees had swelled the balance.

A motion to accept the treasurer's report was proposed by Martin, seconded by Alex and passed unanimously.

New Business
Bylaw Change: Masud Zaidi had presented a proposed change to bylaw Section I.9., which stated that:

"A quorum for any meeting shall consist of seven Members who have voting
privileges under Bylaw III.1."

As Masud explained, conducting the club's business had proved again and again to have been very difficult over the last twelve months, owing to our requirement to have a 'quorum' of seven voting members at a meeting. He proposed instead that we should amend our requirement so that:
 
"A quorum of any meeting shall consist of the majority of the officers of the
Club Executive described under Bylaw Section II.1."

Since there are a total of 5 members in the club's executive committee (president, vice president, treasurer, corresponding secretary and recording secretary) a quorum will consist of any 3 members of the executive.

Lalit queried the origin of the 'seven' figure as it had been adopted into the bylaws; Kelly commented that it appeared nonsensical and arbitrary, since, apart from anything else, it appeared not to take the executive committee into account at all. He felt that this was a positive amendment since the quorum was now definitely linked to the elected officers of the club. Julia commented further that there were probably many such loopholes in the bylaws which needed to be tightened up; to which Kelly responded that this was a future project, perhaps to be presented at the AGM.

The amendment was formally proposed by Masud Zaidi, seconded by Philip Lynch, and was passed unanimously.

Membership applications: Under the new guidelines as outlined earlier by the president, that membership applications needed to be screened by a membership committee and presented through the vice president, no membership application forms were presented at this juncture.

Web Site: Lalit had done a great deal of work on setting up a website for the club's use, and distributed amongst those present some page layouts. The site's provisional address is:

http://home1.gte.net/lksapr/home.htm

So far, allowance had been made for such elements as: a list of the executive; reports and minutes from monthly meetings; club history; bylaws; captains; tour news; fixtures (as soon as they become available); and even some photographs of the more handsome ones among us! In future, he suggested we could include stats, which Philip promised to provide. Kelly had already provided a good logo. While it was also suggested we could post ALL members names, Kelly recommended that we should at least request a written 'release form' of sorts before this was undertaken. Alex, and some others present, expressed some concern as to how much of this sort of detail should be displayed, and it was agreed that perhaps this was not after all appropriate. Masud suggested we should provide an application form for posting on the site (which Philip again promised to supply.) Philip also made the point that we should try to ensure that our own site should be linked from other cricket-related sites if possible. Lalit went on to say that he had done some additional research into registering the site under a more user-friendly name, such as:   www.corinthiancricketclub.com.  Registering this name would cost $35 per year; however, the current site was somewhat restricted in available space (some 5mB). His investigations had revealed that a larger domain was available (some 12mB) at an additional $100 per year. Philip commented that, while this was an excellent idea, this money had not been budgeted for; whereupon Kelly mentioned that he felt he could acquire sponsorship of the site to cover this expense. Given this contingency, a motion was proposed by Martin Greenidge, seconded by Alex Khan, to register the new name at the larger domain, and was carried unanimously. Kelly thanked Lalit for all his hard work on the site, and this was warmly endorsed by all present.

Voting rights: Julia reported that at least one associate member had queried why they are not allowed to vote under the current club rules; in effect, she said, they pay $25 per year for the newsletter and nothing more. Lalit responded that, since this was a cricketing club, decisions should be left in the hands of cricketers alone. Julia made the point that some associate members were former cricketers, and therefore had some basis of knowledge upon which to stand. Lalit asked why they did not come to meetings, to which Julia responded that it was precisely because they didn't get to vote. Martin concurred to some degree, mentioning that the club still had to operate and decisions still had to be taken regardless of whether any cricket was being played. The answer, Lalit suggested, was that associates should apply to serve as executives, and thereby get voting rights: on this basis, we should encourage them to take part more.

Tour: The trip to Phoenix, Arizona, was due in the next three weeks, and six Corinthian members had committed to attend. It was agreed that more players were needed, and it would be prudent to invite other cricketers from outside the club. On this basis, Kelly would approach BritDom.

Golf Tournament: Was now definitely booked for November 11th.

Sandy Gage: Although, as defined earlier in the meeting, membership applications would be required to be given fuller scrutiny by way of a membership committee this year, Lalit suggested we should take the time on this occasion to consider Sandy Gage's application, which had been received with dues, since he had made a worthy effort to attend the meeting. An American, Sandy had learned a little about the game from seeing it played at UCLA, and was keen to play social cricket. After a brief discussion in camera, his application was proposed by Julia, seconded by Masud and was accepted unanimously.

Other membership business: Alex had asked about the status of Arshad Khan and Hashim Kamdar, whose applications had been approved by executive vote in September and who had paid pro-rata dues for the 1999 season. It was affirmed that they had been accepted as members, so no further application as such was required. As a formality, Julia proposed their full acceptance as permanent members, Alex seconded, and the vote was unanimous. Kelly's membership was also raised: strictly, he had presented the resignation of his playing membership (though not club membership) early in 1999. Therefore it was recommended that an 'upgrade' vote should be taken to reinstate his playing membership, as required by the bylaws. His playing membership was proposed by Lalit, seconded by Philip, and carried unanimously.

The next meeting was suggested for Monday, March 13th.,  at Julia's house.

This busy meeting concluded at 10.15pm.