Minutes of meeting held on 3^rd December 2015

The chairman welcomed all to the meeting including guests from the umpires association.

Apols were received from; A McEvoy; J Ham; G Bradbury; A Luff; J Ballantyne; E Shiers; J Suchecki.

Membership; stands at 56, well below last seasons 70

RA Voice over; an item from 1908 was mentioned regarding York RA being formed.

Problem Corner; the FA had issued guidelines about concussion. There was a discussion on this, also wet pitches and not to be swayed into playing if you think pitch is unfit.

Dinner ; April, will discuss in new year.

Jeff Evans; cricket umpire our evenings guest then gave at very colourful and interesting talk/summary of his career. Highlighting some incidents, characters, teams he has encountered in his 19 years as a first class umpire. He mentioned that they now have fitness test and also injury guidelines (as the concussion guidelines). We had to call Jeff to a close after an hour and three quarters of a very entertaining and absorbing evening.

A o B  none

Meeting closed at 9.55

Comment from the President: A disappointing attendance from our members, with fifteen members plus invited guests. We are trying our best to attract good speakers to our meetings, but it is difficult to justify with low turnouts. Members’ suggestions around the content and format of meetings, to encourage more to attend, would be appreciated.

Minutes of meeting held on 5 November 2015
At NHS Club with 20 members present.

 The chairman welcomed colleagues to the meeting. Good to see an increase from earlier meetings.

Apologies were received from I Hotchkies, M Butcher, J Sucheki, P and J Ballantyne.

Membership stood at 50,  and colleagues were reminded of the renewal of subscriptions, with the benefit of motor vehicle legal cover.

Problems  discussed Referee / AR instruction “I’ll back you 100%” (courtesy of “Benchmark”); should the referee say this? Instructions need to be clear and questioned as appropriate. Referee’s need to assess the quality of AR’s and be flexible accordingly.

Mention was made of Strensall (Barracks) pitch size/markings, which had been reported.

Guest Gary Kellett (Bradford) FL Match Observer presented a session on Match Observing at FL level. He was in his 8th season following a lengthy career. He contrasted the old assessing system with  manual note-taking and reports and discussed the current method – using IPad / technology to record and report Key Match Incidents on officials on the FL. The observer does not provide a mark but the system provides the official with a mark from the observations recorded.

There being no more business meeting closed at 9.40