QUEENS PARK HARRIERS
COMMITTEE MEETING MINUTES
Monday 4th November 2024
Attendees:
Gavin O’Sullivan, Sophie Barnard, Roma Denetto, Bill O’Connor, Sarah Cooke, Jennifer Armson, Freddie Cooke, Charlie Lawson, Gilly Cross, Rich Byrne, Jodie Whitelaw, Luke Kretschmer (Guest)
Apologies: None
Volunteer Groups: Terms of Reference Updates (Gavin)
Thanks to those who’ve already added content to the document. There are good examples in there for anyone not sure what it should look like.
ACTIONS:
● Volunteer group leaders to update their ToR by 30th November - ToR document here
● Sarah/Stu to review finance asks for the next year.
● Confirm budget allocation for each volunteer group.
Club Christmas Party Update (Jodie)
Note that Jodie presented on behalf of Freddie because Jodie has organised this so far.
● The William Pub on Harrow Road, Monday 9th December to allow everyone to join from 7pm. The club has the pub to itself.
● Social committee felt that feedback from previous years meant charging for the party doesn’t hinder the number of attendees, and the committee felt it’s an event members should pay something towards.
● Committee agree on £20pp, includes substantial canapes and an arrival drink (house lager, house wine, mulled wine or soft drink)
● Only cost to the club is the awards.
● 7/7:30pm arrival, Emma Yentis to emcee, usual structure of speeches, awards, close off formalities and then the night can continue until pub close
● Social team to request song submissions
● Committee agreed a concession rate should be available for this on a subsidised membership.
ACTIONS/DISCUSSION POINTS:
● Any feedback or ideas for the evening, let the social team know.
● Bill requests to make it clear the ticket only includes one drink.
● Bill requests to invite Malcolm French
○ Committee agreed the club will pay for his ticket as a thank you for his support.
● What awards will be given?
○ ACTION: social team to discuss this separately, and pick up the conversation with the committee offline.
Juniors Fees & Junior's Coaching (Gavin)
Full details of the proposal can be found in the agenda.
Juniors team review the cost model with Stuart Woolmer with two purposes:
● To understand what we might need to increase juniors fee to, to ensure it’s sustainable ● To see whether there’s scope within that to increase payment to juniors senior coaches Propose:
● Juniors fees to rise from £60 to £70 per term.
● Committee to vote on increasing senior coach payments from £25 to £30 an hour - first increase in 8 years.
Note that fees have already increased to £70 for juniors who attend.
It is proposed that the following are not eligible to vote: Gavin, Sophie, Jodie (as all are members of the Juniors Coaching team).
Jen raised a discussion point: does raising the fees mean we can bring in more people from the waiting list? The challenge is more about space.
Bill raised a point that many people give up a lot of time for the club and do not get paid, so juniors coaches should not get paid. Gavin responded that since it is a different service, and requires more, compared to the senior track sessions, and many juniors coaches also give up time for the benefit of the club. Jodie stated it is just Senior Coaches who are paid for the juniors, not Assistant Coaches. Further clarification was provided by Gavin following the Committee meeting that it is Qualified Coaches that are paid, non-qualified roles/coaches are not paid.
VOTES IN FAVOUR:
Sarah Cooke, Jen Armson, Roma Denetto, Charlie Lawson, Gilly Cross, Freddie Cooke, Rich Byrne.
MOTION PASSED
London Marathon Place(s) Selection (Gavin)
We don’t have confirmation from EA that we have any marathon places yet. This is the same for all clubs, many clubs are promoting to their members that applications are open but caveat that this is still to be ratified once EA confirms the place.
Gavin proposed we run the same criteria as last year (see AOB in this month’s agenda for the full criteria).
Bill raised that if you have received a ballot spot from the club before, you should not be able to receive one again in the future. Gavin asks whether we have a cross check list to see who has received the award before (see action point below).
Bill raised that we should extend the membership cap, so people must have been a member for a longer period of time before they can enter, since some in the past have only been a member for a year, win the spot, then disappear after they have run in the club place. Gavin responded everyone should feel they can enter (within the current set criteria) and it’s up to the committee to decide who gets the spot.
Committee will work with the Communications Team to spread the word about the place and how to nominate yourself.
All agreed to follow last year’s criteria again this year, and that if we receive a second place from EA, a name will be drawn out of the hat at the christmas party.
ACTIONS:
● Bill to find a list of previous recipients of a club London marathon place.
● Recipient of the place must be decided before 9th December so this can be announced at the Christmas party.
Green Belt Relay Registration (Sophie)
The Green Belt team is planning to increase the entry fee this year to cover more costs, since last year’s budget considered two teams and we only entered one.
Sophie requests the downpayment to register one team for 2025 before the price increase
Gavin highlights that in future years, this won’t need to come to committee because it falls in the Racing & Competitions Team, and therefore will be factored into their budget as per the Terms of Reference. R&C Team could propose possible entry for two teams in their budget as part of this
ACTIONS:
● Sophie to send the invoice to Sarah Cooke to process the payment.
Meet the Committee Newsletter Feature (Gilly)
Luke Kretschmer has been collating meet the members, and featured Emma Sutherland last month as the outgoing president. Newsletter team requests a meet the member from Bill (if he is willing) to introduce him to the club as the President for 2024/2025.
Gilly requested an article from the new committee, to introduce the new committee to the club. This would entail a short paragraph on each committee member, along with photos for those who feel comfortable.
Gavin raised that committee members who are comfortable should also submit a photo to the comms team to include next to their name on the committee page of the website.
Giles asked whether the Comms subcommittee covers just digital comms, or offline comms too, since a banner outside of Willesden Sports Centre has been previously discussed. WSC are keen to promote the community aspect more, and that maybe they can contribute or discount in some way.
Gavin responded that this would fall into the costs as part of that group's ToR if that is something they want to explore, the team should factor this into their budget. Gavin requests Giles to help with an intro to the contact at WSC. Bill raises we used to have some banners and that Alan might know where they are.
ACTIONS:
● Gilly to confirm what committee members should submit for the ‘Meet the Committee’ article.
● Gilly to liaise with Luke and Bill for a meet the president feature.
● Committee members (who are comfortable) should send a photo to the Communications Team to include next to their name on the committee page of the website.
● Comms team to explore and discuss the prospect of a banner outside WSC, and then re-propose this to committee.
● Giles to support Gavin with an intro at WSC.
Juniors Incident Report (Sophie)
Note that Sophie raised this item because Jodie presented the Christmas Party item.
There was an incident with a junior during the cross country course they do as part of the juniors session every other week. A junior tripped and sprained her arm. This has happened in that same place before (near the gate), when it happened the first time they put measures in place, such as a cone or placing a parent there, to prevent an accident happening again. A series of unfortunate overlapping reasons meant that measures weren’t put there on this occasion. The coaches are filling out an incident report and reporting it to WSC. The juniors coaches are going to change the XC course so this doesn’t happen again in the future, and the juniors committee are taking it seriously and dealing with it.
Rich raised it’s important to have this as a standing feature and bring these to committee, explaining what happened and how we’ll rectify it in the future from a transparency perspective. Jen asked whether we have reporting obligations. Rich responded that we don’t, best practice is to log the incident and Welfare already has a system in place to log it. Welfare can then share this back to the coaches for review and to prevent such incidents in the future.
Queen’s Park Social Run (QPSR) - Merchandise Request (Luke)
Full details of the proposal can be found in the agenda.
Luke explained that QPSR is starting to funnel new runners towards the club and track
sessions, and requested a short run of t-shirts to advertise the run to people in the Queen’s Park area/on the routes the run takes. Luke explained it’s a marketing request that is more in line with crew running, (a free, low-commitment option) to try and tap into the crew running market that is becoming increasingly popular. Through the new suppliers from Jodie, 10 is the minimum amount we can order. Luke would work with the branding team to create the design, and t-shirts would be distributed to those who have helped the run get off the ground. Currently, newcomers are finding out about the run through word of mouth, so making it clearer what the run is and how to join will help it continue to grow. The aim of the t-shirts is to increase the uptake of QPSR and in turn, funnel newcomers into QPH as paid members, build a brand identity in the Queen’s Park area. Luke explained that Wolfpack are interested in sponsoring the run, but would like to name it ‘Wolfpack Run Club’. This proposal doesn’t have anything to do with Wolfpack. This would be assessed after 6 months (proposed criteria in proposal). There are regularly 10-20 attendees of QPSR each week depending on the weather.
Questions raised by Committee, answered by Luke:
Freddie asked is this merchandise that members would usually pay for? Yes, it would be available in the shop. The focus being a marketing effort, creating something that looks good, the aim would be to gauge interest on selling these, then make them available for people to buy. All profits would be retained by the club.
Freddie raised that the QPSR is not inclusive of juniors. Luke said he appreciates that it doesn’t allow all seniors members to join, but that it more broadly widens the clubs offering.
Sophie asked how many people do you think deserve a t-shirt? Could you give 5 away, and if there’s interest, sell the other 5? If Wolfpack were interested in sponsorship, how do you see that working? Luke explained they want to have it named Wolfpack Social Run, extend it to West Hampstead (Luke highlighted that this would be a good opportunity for expansion for QPH too), they reserve a table for QPSR each week, and would give financial sponsorship such as putting money behind kit. Luke is aiming to keep this within QPH for now and has only taken them up on a table reservation each week.
Charlie: The number one initiative request at the feedback night was to have a new design of running top that could be made available to the club. Why not do a whole new top instead of one just for the social run? Luke said he is keen to keep a soft partnership between QPH and QPSR to continue to appeal to a specific demographic that he feels the club is struggling to attract and retain. Luke said he’d like to see the option for new members to tell us where they heard about the club, with the intention that this would help track the success of this proposal. Jodie mentioned that from the merch side, they are working on bringing more offerings into the merch mix so will work with Luke to build something that’s more cohesive.
Giles: Where does this sit from a community engagement perspective?
Committee members felt they weren’t ready to vote on this item, and want more input from the community engagement, membership, and merchandise team. Charlie raised that after the feedback night in June, the team are still trying to define what the purpose of the club is, and therefore where this would fit into that before we progress any further.
ACTIONS:
● Luke to work with Jodie, Charlie, and Giles to re-propose this at the next Committee meeting in January, or alternatively the committee can review offline once they have put together a new proposal.
AOB:
Charlie asked Gilly who to go to for IT/website support. Gilly confirmed this is part of the Communications team. Charlie and Gilly to pick this up separately.
Bill proposed the club make a £100 donation to an animal sanctuary (as per Peter’s wishes) in memory of Peter Hunt’s wife. The club unanimously agrees.
ACTION:
Bill to speak with Sarah to arrange the donation.