Under Old Business, a quick review of the club finances confirmed that our crack habit has gotten way out of hand, and that we are going to have to start stealing money out of our mum's purse to help make ends meet. While income was on a par with previous years, the lousy climate and my penchant for shiny polyester ensured that we blew all that we had and more on indoor training facilities and fancy foreign kit. Nevertheless, the results speak for themselves; a successful Fall season, with the team never having looked so dashing.
Anyway once that depressing news was out of the way, it was on to the more animated part of the evening, namely, the elections. First up was President, and with Fred stepping down to attend to his new family, Jerry McQueeny was elected in an uncontested race. Jerry ran on a platform of major fundraising and spending ever more time out of the house. He made a good start on the scratch-front with a significant financial pledge already in the bag, so I can only assume his kids will have forgotten his name by this time next year.
Secretary was next in rotation, and another uncontested race, with yours truly getting by with another year's undetected crime. So far, so good. Efficiency - 2; Democracy - Nil.
Treasurer almost promised to offer our first contest with both Al Parks and Ed Lutjens being nominated, but the discussion was short lived and Al now has the difficult task of cutting up the credit cards and cancelling our charge account at Neiman Marcus. I guess those Manolo Blahnik rugby cleats will have to wait another year.
Nevertheless, we were making good progress and it looked as though we would be in the pub by 7:30.
The position of Captain however proved to be a little more time consuming, with three nominees being put forward: the incumbent, Jason Willey; Hannes Bouwer and myself. After a brief cross-examination of each candidate by the electorate we were banished upstairs to wait for the white smoke. Hannes got an early reprieve, no doubt for being too fit and too talented, so that left Jay and I to sweat it out. After some interminable debate and a close run vote, it ended up that I would "assume the position" for the coming year.
Joking aside, before going any further I need to stop and recognize the great effort and sacrifice made by both Jason and Fred in the past year. Twelve months ago they were at the helm of a club that was at possibly the lowest ebb in its history. A good time to cut and run, you might think. But instead, these guys stepped up and slowly but surely they were able to turn things around and restore dignity and self-belief to the club and to the team. As a servant of the club myself, I am under no illusions about the gritty and unglamorous nature of their task. We owe them all a huge debt of gratitude.
So, anyway, pathos aside, the mathmaticians amongst you may have notice that someone now had two jobs, and that just ain't good for business. Fortunately Ed came to the rescue and agreed to relieve me of all my secretarial duties, minus the blogging, which was pretty much all there was to begin with. So, in order to give him something to sink his teeth in to, it was decided to roll up the duties of Fixture Secretary with regular Secretary, to make some kind of uber-Secretary, complete with lazer heat vision. As mentioned, I still get to
But I digress. The only other electable position for the night was Selector, and three able candidates were put up in Jerry A., Matt and Fred. After a brief debate, Jerry got the nod, and thus the voting was brought to a close. After that, a few other subjects such as fundraising and recruitment were discussed, but only in a half-hearted kind of way, since most people seemed ready to pack it in and get a drink. As in most years, a bunch of people volunteered to help out in these areas, usually hoping that there names will have been forgotten by the time the next AGM rolls around. I'll spare them any ignominy but not publishing their names here.
My own notes started to get a little sketchy by this point of the evening, and after a brief discussion about our new closer relationship with the women's team, it was decide to leave the finer points of this and pretty much every other issue to the Exec. and head off down the boozer. A motion to close was made, and I don't think I heard the "second" under all the noise of scraping chairs.
