Bowdon CC AGM  2011;   Presidential Remarks.

Welcome to our magnificently refurbished Clubhouse for the Centenary AGM.   We have to wait a year for each meeting, and it is a tribute to all present that you have come at all after such a long wait!   This year I propose to concentrate mainly on the Club centenary and leave the excellent reports by the Club’s Officers to tell their own story.  With one exception, for I must mention the departure of Ian Lines who came from being a mere beginner in 1993, via the UK’s most improved player and All England Handicap winner in 1995, to being the most successful member of the victorious MacRobertson Shield Team in 2010.   We must hope that young Adam Swinton, winner of the 2011 All England Handicap, will prove to be his equal in the fullness of time!   Ian’s fifteen year stint as Croquet Secretary since 1996 has covered a most significant period in the Club’s history and deserves our undying recognition as a foundation stone of the Club’s continuing development. We are fortunate indeed to have such able replacements as Ken Cooper and Steve Reynolds to divide the job while Ian maintains our Calendar for as long as needed. On behalf of us all, thank you Ian, so very much!

It is a special pleasure for me to be celebrating the Club Centenary this year, for July was my 50^th Anniversary in the game.   In 1961 I lived for 4 weeks in the ICI Norton Hall Club, whose croquet section was a registered CA Club.   I saw the game played on sunny evenings after work, with ample supplies of G & T near at hand.   I was hooked!   It is a happy nostalgia to see the tradition so well preserved here in Bowdon, where the gin and good company are plentiful, but the sunshine and warm evenings are not so frequently in such good supply.

In the beginning, we were part of the Bowdon Bowling and Croquet Club – the original BBC Club ! - and how we could have profited from registering the Domain name if only we had had Ken Cooper and John Wastell around then as our web-masters!   But even in 1910 we had no CA registration.  It was the stimulus of our newly independent existence in 1911 which prompted this far sighted move.  As Bowdon Croquet Club we were masters of our own game and ready to advance (despite our Advanced grades falling a few points!)   The first CA Gazette report of our second summer tournament in 1913 was pretty encouraging.  We had an unbelievable 54 competitors in the handicap singles, made possible by the loan of local lawns, including “excellent” lawns at the Bowdon Ladies Tennis Club – I wonder where that was ?   In precis, the report comments as follows: catering, hospitality and Management were highly commended (and we have retained the standards to this day.)  Of the weather and lawns I quote, “In the last 4 days there was plenty of rain (no change there!).  The heavy rain considerably improved the surface of the courts which were rather disappointing earlier in the week.  With care and attention they will play well next year and make this delightful meeting a first class fixture.”    Here we have progressed, and Alan Mayne (ably assisted by John Greatbanks) stands at the pinnacle of a worthy succession of ground managers.   This was the only area noted for improvement a century ago when the lawns were very new, and I commend to posterity the evidence before us now.

Naturally the new Clubhouse then required no comment, but it would be a dereliction of duty if I were to leave the magical restoration of our dear old Clubhouse unremarked.  The original building had been twice extended, first to enclose the verandah in 1927 (now our meeting room) and then in 1981 to extend the frontage with a general benefit to space, but especially to the changing rooms, kitchen and balcony.   The task given to our sub-committee at the EGM last year was to remedy all necessary outstanding maintenance, to enhance the existing building so as to bring its services into line with modern standards and to improve the general facilities within a budgetary limit of £50,000 - based on quotations received.  All this work was scheduled to be completed in time for the start of the centenary playing season, with an absolute deadline of 30^th April for the May Bank Holiday weekend tournament.   Barry Keen was our House Chairman and clerk of works for the project, and I will leave him to explain later the many new features which have been included in this major renewal of our building to make it such a delightful Clubhouse.  I will limit myself to a short explanation of how we came to complete the task in a slightly different way, with the wholehearted support of the membership at large; and with apologies for any inadvertent errors or omissions.

From the start it had been intended that our highly qualified committee, having sufficient skills within its own ranks, would save money by being independent of architects and surveyors.     It was only as the complexity of planning and building regulation controls became clearer, and the time available ticked away inexorably, that they realised the expertise was present but the time was not!  After constructive debate the committee decided to employ outside professional help.  In this they were prompted and encouraged by our former treasurer Mike Sandler, whose commitment to the success of the project and whose belief in the potential support of Club Members was so sincere that he insisted on underwriting, from his own resources, any budgetary shortfall.   Naturally this had to be a confidential offer; the Committee neither wanted members to feel their Club was being subsidised nor to be unaware that there was a problem to be addressed.  Further, we shared Mike’s confidence that the membership would endorse a general appeal to Members for the necessary funds if we were to call an EGM.   But the absolute deadline for completion depended upon letting the builders start before any such EGM could be held under Club Rules.  The consequence of such delay would have been to miss the Centenary  season, and some of us may not have been able to wait that long!

The rest is history.  I wrote to you all.  You came up trumps.  We are all shareholders in the completed project, and we are indebted to Mike’s  instinctive generosity.  He gave us the space to prove ourselves worthy of the Club’s history, and we did so in some style.  This is the moment to applaud our sub-committee’s hard work, Mike’s generosity and our openhanded support for the project, all worthy of our Club’s Centenary. 

Then to cap it all, we have outside a distinguished antique weather vane and a modern clock, both given by Rupert Webb; with Liz’s priceless painting inside to celebrate 2011 with a unique backward glance.

Before I sit down, it is my pleasure to unveil a Plaque which pays tribute to all the contributors, and celebrates the beautifully renovated Clubhouse in commemoration of this our Centenary Year.

It only remains for me to commend to you the excellent work of your Officers, Web-masters, Clang Editor, Managers, Caterers and Players in the current year, and to leave you with every good wish for the coming Christmas and for the season  2012.  

 

            MGB 2011