Minutes from the Exiles Annual General Meeting 2023
Saturday, February 25th 2023.
Agenda:
1. Election of Chairman viz. § 9
2. Approval of minutes of last AGM - presented by Chairman
3. Reports from the Committee
4. Presentation of the Accounts for the preceding year and budget for the coming year.
5. Establish the number of votes
6. Annual subscriptions
7. Resolutions
a. Top try scorer trophy
From Emilie & Yann:
We should either remove the best try scorer trophy for the men, or the girls should also have it. But there are probably enough trophies already, so I'd rather remove them. Also, the one who scores the try is only concluding the effort of the whole team.
b. Compensation for coaches
From Emilie:
It would be great to have financial compensation for the coaches. I would say a yearly compensation would be the best. I don't really know what amount, but I would say at least to cover commuting to practice twice a week + games.
Small computation to get an idea:
24kr (price of Nørreport st -> Lyngby st) * 4 times per week * (52 weeks in a year - 4 weeks in the winter - 8 weeks in the summer) = 3840 dkk.
I guess that would require some paperwork, to make a contract and things like this. I don't know how difficult that is.
And if that is not possible, I would say the least the club can do is to have the coaches exempt from paying their subs and their tickets for the AD&D & other social events.
I think that is quite important regarding the effort the coach puts in the team, and considering how valuable their work is for the team's performances. I think it was pretty obvious last season, with the ladies' team.
And on a side note, maybe that would help the men's team recruit a coach as well.
8. Election of Officers - Candidates:
1. President: Currently - Nick Morton
2. Club Captain: Currently - Jesper Heiselberg.
3. Secretary: Currently - Jon Vinther
4. Recruitment secretary: Currently - Ignasi Pons Romances
5. Social secretary: Currently - Stephanie Kluz.
6. Communications secretary: Currently - Komnen Labovic
7. DTU Liaison: Currently - Empty!
8. Treasurer: Currently - Simon Mountford.
9. Head of Men: Currently - Zorn Cooperider
10. Head of Ladies: Currently - Signe Munch
9. Appointment of Auditor
10. Any Other Business
Before we start, President Nick starts by telling a little about Noel de Baroid, who sadly and suddenly passed away 2 weeks ago, in his homeland of Ireland.
Noel joined the club back in 1977. After a few years as a player, he was our coach, and eventually ended up coaching the national team. More recently he was our previous club president, until he stepped back in 2017.
He will be sorely missed.
There are plans to arrange a wake around Saint Patrick's day.
Election of Chairman viz. § 9
Jon Vinther is elected as Chairman.
Approval of minutes of last AGM - presented by Chairman
No objections, so minutes from last year's AGM are approved.
Reports from the Committee
Head of Ladies (Signe): Last year started with few players but recruitment was very successful, so in the fall they did really well and ended second in the tournament.
There are high hopes for this coming season!
They have almost 20 players coming for practice currently. This is enough to consider having multiple teams in some of the games this year.
The coaches of other teams like the Exiles a lot, as we help them in tournaments.
One of our players was nominated for player of the year – Emilie, big honor and well done to Emilie. As of now the winner has not been selected.
We have 2 national team players. Emilie will continue, she can play for the team now after having been in Denmark long enough, and Amanda is new called up.
Lele will continue as coach, and Emilie will continue as captain.
Head of Mens (Zorn): The Men's team had a very nice year, even though we didn't win as much as we wanted. Hopefully that will go a bit better this year.
Zorn sends his thanks to the playing coaches for their continued support of the team. The team is still looking for a dedicated coach.
Unfortunately we had to cancel a few games last year because of too few players, which we are also hoping will not be an issue this year.
Importantly we are still quite liked by the other teams, and have been building better relations with FRK, and getting closer to CPH Wolves.
The coach of the National team reached out and showed interest in one of our players, Komnen. He was invited to join for the national training, but has spent the last semester in Texas.
One of our players, Yann, has been voted on the team of the year.
President (Nick): It’s a continued privilege to be President of this club.
Great to watch the team play, and to even come to training this year, as the Old Boys have started joining for training once a month.
The fallout from the AD&D were a bit of a downer, and will be addressed a bit later in the meeting. Thanks go to everyone involved in making it happen again this year, especially the committee.
Another group who need a round of applause are the coaches. It is your continued effort that keeps the club running!
Treasurer (Simon): Thanks goes to the committee, and to the money coming in.
Remember to pay your subs!
Recruitment (Ignasi): Still pretty new in the committee, having only joined in the latter half of last season. Haven't been able to work on it recently, since I was out of the country, but I have good ideas for the next season. Want to get even more people from DTU, but keeping the players we do get is equally important!
We recruit a lot at the start of the seasons, but may fall off. So maintaining players is also very important. We need to figure out how to keep them coming back.
We all need to work on this, not just the recruitment secretary.
Branding (Alberto): Merch was a bit of a pain, as it was very complicated to get stuff sent from all over the place. Brexit has made it a lot more complicated, since ordering from the UK has VAT now.
Hopefully everyone is happy with what they got!
Need to coordinate with the other committee members, about fliers and posters for this year.
Socials (Stephanie): Overall it’s been a really good year. Second half of the year the mood was really good, the ladies especially planned several dinners together and were in great spirits. We have good fun and invite the other players from the other teams along. We’ve had several good barbeque days during the season.
80 people joined us for the AD&D last year, which was a great turnout, the same as the previous season.
Wants to do maybe more stuff during off weekends, but players are also good at arranging that themselves, so maybe not much is necessary.
DTU Liason (Zorn): Spoken to Henrik and have been trying to negotiate upgrading our clubhouse regarding mostly light outside. They have a 2023 strategy about getting more women to participate in sports, so maybe we can use that pool of money. We can ask for money for making them more comfortable with light and maybe upgrading changing rooms. The middle one is lacking a bathroom.
Questions are asked about DTUs plans, but Zorn doesn't know the details. The details should be on the website.
Secretary (Jon): Will start work on getting Holdsport up and running this season, so hopefully we can use that for our team management next year.
Gary volunteers to help out!
Communications Secretary (Komnen) and Club Captain (Jesper) were not able to attend the AGM.
Presentation of the Accounts for the preceding year and budget for the coming year.
Simons hands out copies, only the numbers are printed for the AGM, but the full account has been signed by Simon and our auditor Riina.
The accounts look good overall! Hopefully we will sell some or our merch stuff, as that’s currently a bit in minus. And we should apply for money from DTU this year, as we didn’t apply for, or get any, last year.
Let’s also be better at buying the 10kr beers at the clubhouse. They are a fair share of our annual income. MobilePay is 75 øre per transaction, plus monthly fees, which is digging a bit into our income.
We haven't gotten last year's sponsorship money from Bootleggers yet. We should arrange a meeting with Greg soon.
Charlie butts in from behind the bar, and says we should maybe look into the 2.000kr, that can apparently be requested from the commune for coaches.
Establish the number of votes
Head count gets to 22 people total, and all 22 were paid up members last year.
Annual subscriptions
The AGM votes to keep the Subs the same as last year.
Resolutions
Nick first speaks a bit about the fallout from last year's AD&D, where a mirror was smashed, a door was punched through, floors were destroyed, furniture in off limits rooms was puked on, and someone somehow managed to poop beside the toilet bowl.
This is not the behaviour we expect from our team, and several participants in the AGM chime in.
Everyone agrees that we need to do better, and show each other more respect in this regard.
Top try scorer trophy (Resolution details in agenda above)
Many opinions are shared. Some suggest to keep it, and others suggest to remove it. A few suggest somehow sharing it between the two teams.
Points are made that the AD&D is already a long night, so maybe removing it would streamline that night more.
In the end we vote for either adding a new trophy or removing the Men’s one.
The AGM votes (13 for) to add a new trophy for the Ladies team.
Maybe we can award them at the same time during the AD&D? The new Committee will discuss.
Compensation for coaches (Resolution details in agenda above)
Many opinions are shared again, most feel that we should somehow compensate the coaches, as they put in a lot of effort.
Some agree that we should make the subs free for coaches, but others counter that we should all pay Social subs, regardless of whether we are active players or not. This is our connection to the club, and should be something we continue doing forever.
Simon says that looking at the accounts, we do have the money to compensate somehow. But it would set a precedent, and a yearly expenditure. Agrees in principle that we should compensate coaches.
Exiles have always done coaching out of love, but the 1st division is hard and coaching a team there requires a lot of commitment and commute time. Covering that commute expense could help recruit new coaches.
Someone questions if anyone has looked into the legals around this? Someone else answered that it's okay to pay travel expenses.
It’s discussed how we should differentiate between coaches and player coaches, and most agree that It’s valid for coaches who travel and wouldn’t otherwise come to training.
Points are made that handing out money is dangerous and changes the balance of the club. Lots of people do volunteer work, feelings would be involved and people might be hurt or feel overlooked, if others are paid but not them. There are a lot of people working in the shadows. Maybe everyone should be compensated somehow?
Maybe the club pays beers in Bootleggers? Or tour on discount?
The Committee maintains that their positions should be held out of interest, not any monetary compensation. Coaching however does take a lot of time, more than most committee members outside of maybe Heads of the teams.
The AGM ended up deciding that this discussion would take too long to finish today.
The AGM as a whole agrees that we want to somehow compensate the coaches, and agree to let the Committee decide how, on the coming committee meetings.
Election of Officers - Candidates:
1. President: Currently - Nick Morton
No other candidates, and Nick is re-elected unanimously.
2. Club Captain: Currently - Jesper Heiselberg.
No other candidates, and Jesper is re-elected unanimously.
3. Secretary: Currently - Jon Vinther
No other candidates, and Jon is re-elected unanimously.
4. Recruitment secretary: Currently - Ignasi Pons Romances
No other candidates, and Ignasi is re-elected unanimously.
5. Social secretary: Currently - Stephanie Kluz.
No other candidates, and Stephanie is re-elected unanimously.
6. Communications secretary: Currently - Komnen Labovic
Vanda Nováková wishes to run for Communications Secretary.
Since Komnen was not at the meeting and currently out of the country until later in the year, Vanda was elected unanimously.
7. DTU Liaison: Currently - Empty!
Jacob Stokkebye raises his hand to ask a question, and immediately gets elected as DTU Liaison. Contrats Jacob!
8. Treasurer: Currently - Simon Mountford.
No other candidates, and Simon is re-elected unanimously.
9. Head of Men: Currently - Zorn Cooperider
No other candidates, and Zorn is re-elected unanimously.
10. Head of Ladies: Currently - Signe Munch
No other candidates, and Signe is re-elected unanimously.
Appointment of Auditor
AGM decides to keep Riina as our Auditor.
Any Other Business
As time is running out, there is not much time for other business.
Gary wishes to discuss recruiting younger players from the schools around Lyngby.
Gary will come to the first Committee meeting and talk about the potential here.
Signe mentions that Gentofte now has a senior ladies team, and we therefore cannot recruit from them.
Jon raises the question of what to do with physio the coming season.
Members present feel that it’s more important to have the physio during the games, rather than later at training.