BGA Council Meeting 2021-11-10

Held at: ZOOM conference call

Meeting started: 19:30

Present:

• Andrew Ambrose-Thurman (AAT)
• Mohammed Amin (MA)
• Toby Manning (TM)
• Stephen Tweedie (ST)
• Richard Wheeldon (RW)
• Colin Williams (CW)

Note - actions raised during this meeting and action updates are recorded on the outstanding actions list rather than directly in these minutes

1) Apologies

Apologies were noted from Peter Rootham-Smith.

2) Previous Minutes

One minor correction was noted and will be actioned.

3) Governance and Incorporation

The Council discussed the papers from the Governance Committee. It was agreed that a shell CLG should be set up under the name 'The British Go Association' to ensure any admin difficulties in the setup are cleared before the AGM.

There was discussion on how to make the transition for members as smooth as possible, the Governance Committee took an action to discuss how best to present this to members, including investigating whether an e-mail signature is sufficient.

The Governance Committee will prepare further material for members, to be shared with Council before sending it out - which is targeted for early in the new year.

4) BGA Policies

CW presented the work that had been done on reviewing the policies. Council agreed that the work was useful and should continue.

TM and CW will select a small number of relatively inconsequential policies, and issue them to the Council for review and sign-off. They will then be introduced to the website to obtain members feedback on the new format.

5) Committee Chairs

It was agreed that ST will become Chair of the Technical Committee, and CW Chair of the Tournaments Committee. This to be announced as a news item on the website.

6) British Championship Qualification Criteria

The paper issued itemising the new criteria was discussed and agreed.

CW is to add a clarification on what constitutes a British passport, and then re-issue to Council along with a new draft of what the full rules will look like. This will then be agreed by e-mail.

7) Culture / Volunteers Presentation

There was a discussion about how best to handle this event and who to invite.

ST agreed to produce with AAT an invite letter for the session, after which Council members will agree who should be invited, with the intention of it being quite a broad group. The meeting will be scheduled for an hour with the option for it to overrun if demand is there.

8) British Congress 2022

CW talked through his proposal paper. Council agreed that Lancaster will be the location for the 2022 Congress, subject to suitable arrangements being made.

The location for 2023 was considered. It was agreed that Northern Ireland would be a suitable location, with enough advanced planning, and if the Irish Go Association were happy to be involved. CW and TM are to have exploratory discussions with our Irish colleagues to test the waters.

9) AGM 2022 Method and Date

It was agreed that future AGMs will be held by ZOOM, and not be during the British Congress. May 2022 was agreed to be a suitable target date for the next AGM.

A useful side-effect of this is that it will free up time at the Congress for other interesting events to be planned and run.

This change will be announced initially through a news item on the website.

10) Indemnity Insurance

Following a review if the recently issued policy conditions MA reported that many of our previous questions are still relevant. Council members are to supply MA with any specific examples where they need clarity on what is covered, and MA will then compose the final list of questions to send through to Hiscox from the Treasurer.

11) Council Membership

With Gerry Gavigan's resignation we have a vacancy on Council. It was agreed that we could explore this at the end of the volunteers presentation.

RW said he would be happy to report on London activity in the future.

In terms of possible co-opted members, AAT agreed to ask Alice Thurman about her views on joining.

12) Strategy Day Actions Review

The list was reviewed and updated. ST and CW will work out where to record and store minutes from these and other Council meetings.

ST will reword the actions in Trello in preparation for the next Council meeting.

13) Outstanding Actions

The list was reviewed and updated.

14) AOB

14.1 Loan Sets It appears we have no loan sets available for new clubs, and the internal process to manage this is not well understood. It was agreed a BGA kit audit was required as a matter of urgency. CW said he would check with MM what he knew about loan kit. TM said he would contact Nottingham club.

Some of the tournament equipment is now ageing and could be considered for loan kit.

TM said he would contact european suppliers to check prices. RW suggested we contact Hoyles as well as an existing supplier.

14.2 Ratings Contact Geoff Kaniuk is keen to start to hand-over his role concerning the maintenance of ratings. CW will issue to Council the person and role spec that Geoff comes up with. TM to discuss with CW.

A discussion ensued about the benefits of GoDraw as versus other options, CW took an action to write a short paper.

15) Date of next meeting

A Doodle will be done for the first half of January, though some papers may be issued before then.

The meeting closed at approximately 22:15.