AGM 2011 CHAIRMANS REPORT 23 January 2011 at Wootton British Legion Welcome to you all and thank you for coming late in January. You've probably noticed that the nights are drawing out - May 2nd isn't that far away. A few congratulations. Firstly to all the section winners for 2011 especially the Spread Eagle team for winning the Premier section for the first time. To Martin Sheridan for winning the Singles title for the 6th time, it will probably never be achieved again unless, of course, you know differently.... Actually Martin has me to thank in some small measure. Our venue, Steventon Sports Club first round. We played and won a leg a piece, I set the third with a 5 - as you might imagine I think I felt very confident of at least a draw if not an outright win. But of course I didn't appreciate how much Martin wanted to win and he threw the sweetest 6 to start his chase for the title. Mine's a Guinness Martin! The last two finals/presentation evenings, although successful, we the Committee feel we need to revamp and improve so as to encourage the rest of the Aunt Sally players to attend so this year we will discuss our ideas during Any Other Business. The success of the website is there for all to see and has been hugely popular with everyone I speak to. There are some really old guys out there with no real technical nouse tweeting away like there is no tomorrow. A big thank you to Paul Stone for overseeing and organising the webs growth - thank you Paul. A thank you also to 'The Anchorman' for giving us all something extra to read about and digest and of course discuss and argue over during the Winter months - I feel sure he has plenty of ammunition with which to blow our minds. The website not only keeps us players up to date but folk can read all about us and the history of the game all over the world. One such person is Nigel Hawkins from Tucson Arizona (USA). Nigel emigrated over 20 years ago with his wife and daughters. I used to play with Nigel at the White Horse and The Crown, Ox Street. We email from time to time and Nigel tells me he's an avid fan of the results and news he gleans from the site. He still has his sticks and dolls and is very keen to play. Welcome to our AGM Nigel ! I wonder how many more of you there are out there? Please feel free to contact us. A big thank you to Brian Collins for turning out this evening - we appreciate it very much. Back in September I was asked to obtain a set of 2lb sticks from Brian, after talking to him the correct wood is difficult to obtain. Under 2lbs is fine but anything over is more difficult and more players want heavier sticks which made me think. Brian is the last professional stick maker we have so I wonder how long we can expect him to keep going - food for thought. So yes we really appreciate all your hard work Brian. (Brian mentioned this is his 53rd year of making sticks).  I thought of a few statistics for you all to mull over. They are in no particular order but might be of interest.   We have enough "foreign" names on our books to have an international team! The number of players scoring a 3 each leg - by adding an extra 1 doll that could be over 50 extra dolls for the season. The number of players scoring a pile of 5's but not one 6. Only 2 players scored 2 or more in every leg they played. A great many of our top players only scoring a 1 or less in up to 50% of legs. Only 1 player scored over 200 dolls. As far as I can recall, but not certain, the most number of dolls scored in any one season is 256 and not in Abingdon. One team last season managed only 7 points - we hope to see you back to improve. We had 78 teams start the season and we've had over 80 - we can beat that!   Well now if you're bored to death with my pontifications I will come to a close with thank you's to Graham, Jean and Claire Brown again for all their hard work during the year keeping scores. Thank you very much also to Heddleworth and Mark for sponsoring us yet again. Thank you Mark. To Terry Downes, James Barguss, John Symonds and Paul Stone who make up our Committee and do valuable work during the year to make it all run smoothly.  This ends my report. Graham Barguss Chairman