Squash Committee Discussion Starting
11 June 2008
‘Virtual’ General Meeting - Debate
Conducted Mostly by Email.
Web Version
Minutes of proposal for increase in price for squash game following
initial proposal at AGM 28 April 2008:
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Final Outcome |
The consensus VGM proposal to raise the
squash fees was raised again at the AGM (2007-2008) of 21 May 2009. The debate that ensued culminated in a proposal to raise the total
fees to £3.00 for a game (£2.00 for lights and £1.00 booking sticker) with
immediate effect. There was a counter proposal to have an interim price increase to
£2.50 for a game (£2.00 for lights and to retain the 50p booking stickers)
with immediate effect, but to reserve the right to raise the sticker fee by a
further 50p (to £1) at any time in the future deemed appropriate by the
Squash Committee. The counter proposal was carried unanimously by all attendees of the AGM. The full AGM minute will be
available in due course via this link (click here). |
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Email debate begun 11 June 2008 (click here for Initial
Proposal made by email)
Thread 1 (click here for debate on Thread 1)
Thread 2 (click here for debate on Thread 2)
Thread 3 (click here for debate on Thread 3)
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Following responses from six committee members on the first rounds of
debate, here is the consensus opinion: Increase lights from £1.00 to £2.00 per 40mins. Retain booking stickers at £0.50. Price increase to cater for insurance cover and future expenditure as
in Initial Proposal (click here to see). Price increase to take place after court playing walls redecorated. |
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From: Jon Gear To: Squash Committee Subject: Re Squash
- Price Increase Proposal >>> Jonathan Gear 12/06/2008
10:31 >>> From what I understood the meter
would be difficult to change, although I do like Marks suggestion of 50p per
15 minutes. I would also like to add that I don’t think
we should initiate the price rise until the court has been redecorated. Perhaps with the opening the price rise
can come into place and players will get a better idea of what the extra cost
is going towards and it will be accepted better. I don’t see a problem with
increasing sticker prices. Jon |
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(Counter
proposal) |
From: Mark Sydenham To: Steve Edwards CC: Squash Committee Subject: Squash
- Price Increase Proposal - Mark's Thread >>> Mark Sydenham
12/06/2008 10:59 >>> Hi Steve Sorry I skipped over the bit that
said "I propose that this is all put on the light charges". £2 for 40 mins and 50p per sticker seems reasonable for
now whilst we
look into modifying the meters etc. Presumably the new air con unit
will come with a 5 year guarantee so we won't need a service contract until
this finishes. Mark From: Steve Edwards To: Mark Sydenham CC: Squash Committee Subject: Squash
- Price Increase Proposal - Mark's Thread >>> Steve Edwards
12/06/2008 10:28 >>> Dear Mark, Thanks very much for reply and
responses. Just to clarify matters regarding
the meter. With my proposal, the meter we
have will continue to function as it is with pound and 20p coins for the time
being. The trip switches inside can be changed to give 20mins per pound and
4mins per 20p as kinldy pointed out by Neil earlier. I will investigate the possibility
of modifying the coins the meter can accept if there are still companies out
there that do this. With regard to your other
proposals, I think I'll just hang back, watch and listen as I have already
had quite a lot to say ! Thanks, Steve cc Squash Committee From:
Mark Sydenham To:
Squash Committee Subject: Re Squash
- Price Increase Proposal >>> Mark Sydenham
12/06/2008 10:16 >>> Steve This is all very reasonable,
excepting perhaps the painting which we all agreed we thought was a little
high but if that is a true reflection of market costs then so be it. I agree with the charge increases, both sticker price and lights
but it may be worth reminding us what the lights will cost and the
denomination the meter will take. We could modify the slots to 45 mins
each to offset the increase slightly. This will still give us 4 lunchtime
slots from 11.45-2pm and may give us time to finish one of our games (or at
least finish each other off). We could
do 50p per 15 mins and £1.50 for 45 mins (or you could do 50p for 10 mins, £2
for 40 mins and keep the sticker price the same). This all depends on whether we can
still modify the meter or not. If not then we will incur another cost for a
new meter which may cause us to rethink? Mark |
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From:
Neil Goddard To:
Squash Committee Subject: Re Squash
- Price Increase Proposal >>> Neil Goddard
12/06/2008 08:59 >>> Thanks Steve I took a straw pole after the AGM
and most
people I spoke to were happy with the proposed increase so that's fine
by me. If we go forward
with that it might still be worth adjusting the light box so it takes £1 and
50p, because 20p would only give 4 mins of light. Cheers, Neil |
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11 June
2008 |
From:
Wing Chau To: Squash
Committee Subject: Re Squash
- Price Increase Proposal >>> Wing-Chau Tung
19/06/2008 11:40 >>> Hi, I also agree with what's already
been said. Chau From:
Chris Stott To:
Squash Committee Subject: Re Squash
- Price Increase Proposal >>> Chris Stott
19/06/2008 11:31 >>> Hi Steve, I agree with your proposals. Chris From:
Louise Johns To:
Squash Committee Subject: Re Squash
- Price Increase Proposal >>> louise Johns
19/06/2008 11:27 >>>Steve I agree with the proposed price increase and think its logical
to put it all on the lights. I also think Jon's suggestion of
increasing the price after redecoration is a good one. When the time comes, it will be
important to clearly explain to players the motivation behind the increase -insurance/air
con, plus the big fact that prices have not been raised for 10 yrs. But I'm
sure you were planning to do this anyway... L From:
Steve Edwards To:
Darcy, James Divoli, Antigoni Edwards, Sandra Gear, Jonathan Goddard, Neil Gunn, Lionel Johns, louise Roberts, David Robison, Laura Stott, Chris Sydenham, Mark Tung, Wing-Chau Webb, Emily Subject: Squash
- Price Increase Proposal >>> Steve Edwards
11/06/2008 23:33 >>> Dear All, Sorry for the delay in getting
this debate going as promised, but here we go ! We have agreed to raise the price
by 50p to cover the proposed insurance cover. After considerable reflection of
committee members views - both at the AGM and afterwards, I am formally
forwarding the same proposal I made at the AGM. I propose a total of a £1.00 increase on the current charge of £1.50.
Total new charge would then be £2.50. My basis for this proposal is
still as presented at the AGM (see attached draft AGM minute on just this
matter). Essentially we have an expected
expense of £3-5K for a new dehumidifier in the next 12-18 months. We need to decorate the court. I
wasn't sure of market costs when I presented at the AGM. But I have a quote
for just stripping and painting the front wall for £3K (see attached). I was
shocked at this quote, but it possibly proves my point that tradesmen are
expensive. We have kept maintenance costs to a minimum in the past because of
reliance on voluntary help. We can't bet on this in the future, and
eventually we will have to pay market rates if working parties are not a
viable alternative. We also need to attend to the roof
which leaks and is known to have poor areas in need of attention - full cost
for repairs as yet unknown. Last quote was over £1K for patching back in
2005. By putting up the cost by a £1.00
with 50p to cover insurance, we will add approx £500 pa to our reserves. I suggest this is all put on the light charges. This I believe is a prudent move
and gives us a bit extra future-proofing. I would really like to have a
maintenance contract on the air con unit as this is a potential bottomless
pit of expense once the warranty has expired. This future proofing is also long
overdue as we haven't put the price of squash up for 10 years. We should ask
ourselves if we are doing a good job for future members if we don't plan for
the future, whilst keeping in mind our constitutional obligation to give the
best value for money. Whilst mulling this over - it
occurred to me that if we set a financial reserve limit or capping to how
much money we have in the bank of say £20K, then we could always take a
'holiday' if we ever reached this threshold and even reduce the price of a
game if we ever get there. If we want a second court I would suggest a cap of
£40K - just arbitrarily for the moment. This is all up for debate. What I
suggest is if there are counter proposals then committee members should make
them and then follow the threads of the proposal that appeals to them, and we
can see where we end up ! Happy debating ! Steve Attachments \ Squash Court
Front Wall Painting Stripping Quote 060608.PDF (Available from Squash Archive
on request) \ Squash Price Increase from AGM
24.04.08.doc (click for link) |
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Squash
Price Increase from AGM 24.04.08.doc |
Draft minute on AOB (AGM 2007) 6. AOB
(i) Steve asked the
committee for consideration
of raising the cost of a game of squash for four reasons: a) Provision
of a new dehumidifier. Quotes are awaited - but estimates based on informal
chats with Tech Services are £3-5K. This time it is proposed to factor in a
maintenance contract and annual costs so that there are no more surprises ! The
type of dehumidifier will be much greener and more efficient as technology
has moved on since the 1970’s when our current TSC15 was designed. The unit
will have one temperature control box and the temperature will simply be
chosen once. There will be no winter or summer mode. The unit will be in two
parts similar to those seen in our newer labs (fan / blower unit inside with
compressor and coil unit outside). There
are a few specifications which will be circulated to committee members for
approval. It is proposed to mount the blower unit on the balcony wall or to
the sides of the balcony. b) Provision
of member-member insurance liability indemnity and personal accident/injury
insurance cover. Steve
circulated a document (24.04.08) by email from a company that Mark had kindly
sourced. The
company was Perkins Slade Ltd of Birmingham and offered a squash specific
package consisting of: · Civil Liability Cover - Administered
through Perkins Slade via Royal Sun Alliance and Insuresport Mutual (50:50
single policy joint indemnity) · Personal Accident - Provided by Ace
Europe Ltd. Jon
had kindly digested the documents and estimated that the total remittance per
player would be around £6.50. [Note
post meeting: this has been rechecked and is roughly the same as Jon’s
estimate: civil liability - £340/80 = £4.25 and personal accident = flat
rate £2.50 each. Total estimate £6.75 for the highest level cover per player. It
was therefore estimated that to cover all 80+ players the club would need to
spend around £540 on the policies. The
full detail of both parts of the cover are listed in Appendices 4 & 5
respectively. In brief they are as follows Civil
Liability: Includes public liability (third party injury or damage to
property), professional indemnity (losses e.g. financial from errors or
omissions), products liability (third party problems associated with goods
supplied or sold by us), directors and officers liability (committee insured
against wrongful acts), abuse (damages insured for any abuse suffered by
players - separated questionnaire). Total cover up to £5M (lower £2M level
rejected). Personal
Injury: death benefits (within 2 years £5000), physical loss of limb function
(up to £50000), loss of sight (up to £50000), loss of speech or hearing (up
to £50000), loss of ability to work (up to £50000), dental expenses (up to
£500), broken bones ((up to £200), hospitalisation (£30 per day up to £750),
convalescence. As
a result of these discussions the committee debated whether an up-to-date
membership list had to be complied and then maintained. The committee hoped
that a list would not be necessary due to the work needed to administer such
a list. the insurance broker would need to be consulted ACTION
SE. There
was unanimous agreement that raising the cost of the game by 50p was
completely justifiable in order to finance this increase in club expenditure. c) Planned
expenses as well unforeseen/unexpected bills. Steve
pointed out that working parties might not be the way forward as it wasn’t
easy for people to give up their time especially as the court might need
quite a few expensive repairs in the future: For
Example · roof repairs - still outstanding and
possible cost (base on quote) around £1000 · front wall stripping - need a
professional company - cost awaiting · painting and decorating rest of court -
possible work party or company cost awaiting court
is now over 30 years old - so possible further expenses · floor replacement / repair - it’s not getting any younger ? d) The fourth reason maybe turn out to be
“pie in the sky”, but as a section we have always said that it would be nice
to have a second court. Standalone or Banbury style courts might become
available in the future (e.g. Ron Nye pers.
comm.) and it might be possible to pick one up cheaply. If coupled
together with our thoughts and request for provision of land, it could be
possible to join a new court onto our current one. This would allow us to
play matches with other clubs and offer more court time to staff should the
peak slots become harder to book - compare 199x when we had to queue for
courts the day before - sometimes over five people in queue. In general the chairman thought that it was prudent to start
thinking in terms of having to pay people to do remedial work. So even though
financial reserves were quite high at the moment (see section 4 accounts), he
thought it was best not to dig too deeply into them as it would be imprudent
to find we were unable to pay a large bill if reserves ever became depleted. The chairman proposed a blanket £1.00 rise in a game of squash.
This could be levied on the stickers and lights equally. Or entirely on the
cost of lights. By placing the cost on lights it would mean that stickers
remained at 50p - which is a nominal charge. If stickers were increased by 50p it was suggested that
players might be inclined to start peeling off and attempting to reuse them.
This would mean more policing and the chairman was keen to avoid this. The
50p stickers are for booking and we have always tried to keep this at a
sensible charge so that if slots were missed then not much money was lost, on
the other hand if they are too cheap then there might be a tendency to book
indiscriminately. One benefit of putting the price increase on the lights is that
everybody has to put money in the meter in order to play. No play no fee. The
chairman thought this was preferable. The price of squash has to go up by a minimum of 50p in order to
cover insurance costs. the insurance cost will inevitably increase and other
cost could appear. So the chairman proposed putting the price up to £2.00 for
lights and 50p for stickers. There was a feeling that this was too much and that the split
was not entirely agreeable. So the chairman proposed that a decision on how
much and how to make the split be decided after the AGM - either by email or
direct meetings. A proposal was made to ask committee members to circulate
the proposed price increases and to canvas opinion on what was thought to be
reasonable. Background
from Chairman’s notes Pre AGM: Each 50p additional charge would raise approx £500
in annual revenue. So
chairman proposing that in principle a price increase should be considered
prudent and be sanctioned by the committee. However a suitable consultation
period should be set before deciding what the price increase should be. The
options we have are: £0.50
increase - this could simply go on the price of stickers £1.00
increase - this could go 50/50 or just
on the lights £1.50
increase - this might work best as £1.00 sticker and 2.00 lights. It would be
preferred to keep the stickers cost as low as possible as this is a harder
system to control - e.g. reusing stickers. This problem might increase if we
decided to charge more for stickers. History [This section was updated
24.07.08 from updated AGM Minutes - Original note sent to Committee members
11.06.08]: Lights: 1976
- 1982 £?.?? 40min 1982
- 1988 £0.40 40min 1988
- 1998 £0.50 40min 1998
- 2008 £1.00 40min Data
from archive 24.04.08 Stickers: 1976 - 1984 £?.?? per sticker 1984
- 1993 £0.30 per sticker 1993
- 2008 £0.50 per sticker Data
from archive 24.04.08 1993
Agreed to keep stickers at 50p 1993
Agreed to raise lights to £1.00. Ratified in 1994 and then implemented in
Mar/Apr 1998. All prices have been the same since then. |
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