Okehampton Otters Swimming Club, Annual General Meeting (AGM) Minutes

The following minutes have been produced from the meeting of the Okehampton Otters AGM held Wednesday 30^th July 2025, 18:00-19:00 virtually via Teams.

Participants:

Current Committee

Interim Chair – Craig Boxall                                                     

Treasurer - Jo Burrow                                      

Secretary - Jude Boxall

Head Coach - Matthew Henry

Competition Secretary, Club Records –Jenni Henry

Systems Officer - Kat Barlow

Competitions & Administration – Derek Grenardo - apologies

Finance Officer - Phillipa Daw

Disability & Discrimination Officer – Jon Randall

Gala’s – Tom Biddick

Welfare Officer - Allyson Bales

Parent – Omar Arafa

Parent - Michelle Hess

Introduction:

Craig Boxall (CB) thanked everyone for coming and introduced himself as Interim Club Chair. Craig reminded all of the agenda.

Item 1. Interim Chairperson’s Welcome & Report:

Any outstanding actions from the previous EGM have been actioned.

There was a delay in this meeting occurring in line with the changes made following the EGM, this was discussed and agreed with Swim England and agreed to allow changes to be implemented and time to review where the club is now positioned. Future meetings will follow annually. As a club we are constitutionally sound with 8 committee members and a Welfare Officer.

The chair read through his report which outlined where the club has come from to where the club is now and future plans for the club. The chair thanked swimmers, coaches, committee and parents for their support of the Club. The committee, coaches, team managers and officials have all worked extremely hard to maintain stability whilst seeking to gain more pool time. We have taken more children to Devon County Championships 16 swimmers with 67 female individual entries and 56 male individual entries; and South West Regional events 15 swimmers in total and had/have 5 children at English and Welsh Nationals which is a fantastic achievement for Okehampton. There is a clear plan for the next year which includes the Arena League for team swimming an event that has so far eluded Okehampton.

CB explained that we are attempting to grow as a club generally, with our first licenced meet planned for September. CB invited input or questions from anyone within the Club either at the AGM or at any point in the future.

We have lost some junior swimmers this year in line with pool time changes and their other activities, however our competitive squads have continued to grow.  We plan to contact local schools and reach out to local social media groups to ensure that we can engage our community groups, which is in line with Swim England’s vision for swimming. We also plan to continue to monitor the sessions offered to swimmers and how easy it is for them to access the times on offer. As a group the committee has continued to meet monthly which has helped with decision making and being aware of club numbers.

Fundraising is really important for us as a club and an area we have not necessarily achieved in, we need all members to support the club in this area to raise funds for the club, attending galas is expensive and we need to raise money for this and for equipment.

The chairs full report will be shared with parents and placed on the website, minutes from this meeting and all AGM’s can be found on the website as can the clubs constitution.

Item 2. Treasury Report – JB & PD

PD highlighted this year’s funds, over the year she has concluded that we insufficient income to manage the average spend with a significant overspend, in particular there is a challenge with away galas. We are currently using our reserve fund which is not where we would like to be. In line with the rise in pool hire etc we will need to increase the fees this year. The suggestion that has been agreed will be 10% for 3 sessions and below; and 15% for 5 sessions and above. The differences in increase in fees link to the fact that we did not quite get the fees right last year. We will also need to increase the charge for attendance at galas.

Item 3. Head Coach update – MH

MH plans to give a season presentation for swimmers and their parents to consider the expectations for the season ahead. We have had a number of swimmers joining the club that has shifted the performance of the club. There is a longer-term plan to get the club to where it needs to be and moving forwards. We will be entering the arena league for the first time, this team event will be positive for the club, it is a fun team spirt event and one enjoyed by swimmers. The competition calendar is out, this will see swimmers again entering the Swim Wales Winter Championships, which is a positive event for swimmers, they use age groupings which differs to the English Nationals, we will have about 20+ swimmers eligible to compete this year. Land training is important for swimmers and we will be looking to introduce this on either a Friday or a Monday, information on pre and post session stretching will also be available to enhance performance and recovery.

Item 4. Committee appointments - JF

There will be no more than 8-committee members in line with the club constitution, alongside this the committee can choose to have up to, but no more than 4-co-opted members in line with the club constitution. These members do not form the committee and often occupy important roles for the club, whilst not being committee members, they do have the option to vote, these roles will be considered at the committee meeting.

We thank PD who is stepping down from the Finance Officer role, this role will be replaced by a communications role to support the club in sharing its successes. The Welfare Officer sits outside of the committee and will continue to be held by Allyson Bales.

Item 5. Club Support Roles & Welfare

Welfare Officer - AB

AB gave an update on the Welfare role, she shared the importance of children being reminded not to use their mobile phones in the changing rooms in line with Swim England and Wave power, adults’ poolside also need to be aware of this. AB will flag any issues she becomes aware of to the committee for addressing. There should only be adults’ poolside with the correct Swim England training or safeguarding training specific to the role they are occupying. 

There are a number with outstanding safeguarding training which will need to be completed before volunteers can continue in a role.

Systems Update – KB

Team Unify is now live with all parents’ details etc updated. Will now look at the system to see how attendance can be monitored.

Need to consider how results can be exported for Hytek entries rather than this completed manually, may be worth speaking with another club to see how they managed this. Some parents have shared they cannot join events which has been resolved by KB. Entries are currently accepted from swimmers over 18-years, although the swimmer can have secondary access to look at events.

Item 6. AOB

MH confirmed that Masters are considered to be swimmers over the age of 25-years.

CB thanked all for giving up their time and attending the meeting in addition thanking the committee for all their hard work over the last year.

And finally, thank you to our swimmers, parents/guardians, coaches, volunteers, you are all unique and do an amazing job to support the club and achieve in its successes.