The Twelfth Man 2013

4 Chairman’s Report “It was a great night on Thursday at the Wombwell!” Not my words, but those of President Dickie Bird, who was telling anyone who cared to listen in the East Stand Long Room on Yorkshire’s AGM Day about our end-of-term meeting when ECB Performance Director David Parsons presented awards to young players who had passed through the Society’s 2013 coaching programme. It is no disrespect to some of our other frontline speakers in 2012/13 to say that it was great: the hall was packed; the questions and answers flowed, and the boys, girls and their parents and friends met a man at the top of England’s coaching structure. All to the accompaniment of a pea-and-pie supper. It was everything the Wombwell should be. Yet the alarm bells are ringing. Membership Secretary Beryl Ambler says we now number under 300 and we all know how disappointing some of our attendances can be. They do not give confidence to the Chairman and Secretary in booking the speakers. Even more disturbing is Acting Treasurer Ron Firth’s report that the Society recorded a significant loss on the year of £2,030. I am saddened by the fall in membership, but not devastated. We are still far better placed than some societies I could name – one or two of them quite close to home. The financial deficit is another matter, and it will cut us like a knife if we do not address it. Expenditure on speakers can vary widely: sometimes those with the highest profile will come for nothing, but increasingly they will not. Retired First-class players from other counties seem to have an invisible trade union which makes most of them demand a £100 fee. Perhaps more. All speakers are offered the AA mileage rate or rail fares – and, if they have travelled a long way... or if the weather deteriorates when they get here – they can have overnight stay at the Ardsley House Hotel. Some are quite definitely on the professional circuit, and when the 2007 financial crisis broke we had to turn down a man who wanted £250. Nowadays that would be more. Suppose we only had low-profile local speakers and minimum expenses. I fear that we would, as our Aussie friends so delicately phrase it, go down the googler! Am I right? Tell me at the AGM! We can have a mild winter with expenses blowing in slow flurries... or we can have a blizzard. Perhaps we need a financial wheeler- dealer – somebody who knows how to attract money. Meanwhile, will those who have donated sums of £25 in recent years to pay the nightly room rentals please keep doing it! And if others can join in, please do. Margaret Harrison and Beryl flog the raffle tickets week in, week out, but can we encourage them by at least donating raffle prizes? We ought to get one of those airport automatic walkways for Margaret, who has to journey from the back of the hall to the stage at raffle time... and then do a quick-step all the way back to her chair to prime her camera for the Twelth Man presentation pictures. We were all sorry to learn that Roy Foster had felt obliged to resign as Treasurer on health grounds. It pains me to recall the circumstances in which Roy took over in 2007, but it required mental courage as well as accounting skill to pick up that portfolio and Roy, in tandem with his old Barnsley Council colleague Tony Perry as Independent Examiner, kept up his flow of meticulous accounts and reports until illness struck. Our thanks to Vice-Chairman Ron, who finished off Roy’s final accounting year for him, and to Brian Sanderson, who has intimated to the Committee that he can be available for election as Treasurer at AGM. The decision of John Ambler to stand down as Coaching Co-ordinator after so many years of service to the Society – dating from when he was going through the Wombwell programme himself as a boy – could have been a crisis point. We have been saved from this by stalwart Brian Workman, who has intimated that he will be available for election at AGM and who can rely on all the support he needs from John and Beryl in his first year. We also thank coaches Darren Crossland, Rob Hulley, Brian Marsh, Brian Workman and Sam Wilson for everything they do with the young players, and it was a fitting end to their winter season that they were able to work out in the facilities at Headingley. It is a tribute to the Society’s membership that we receive tributes from speakers congratulating us on the quality of questions they have to answer, and I was particularly pleased to receive such an accolade last winter from former