THE EADA ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING - November 2006

This is a report on the AGM held at the Wintergardens last November.

President’s Report
The President reported that at the Meeting last year he had set out the Council’s aims to increase the membership and increase our funding. He was happy to report that the membership had increased by over 1,000 and for the first time EADA had made a profit and would have to pay Corporation Tax. (Unfortunately we could not have foreseen this but he would be asking the Treasurer to give him warning of this in future years.) On the International scene there were still problems between the WD&DSC and the IDSF. The IDSF had asked us for the names and addresses of all those couples who wished to dance abroad but we have agreed to supply them with only the name and date of birth. This was only for couples wishing to dance in IDSF events. The Anti Doping Rules would soon be published on the EADA Website. There were still some matters to be clarified with UK Sport.

We have made an enormous step forward in getting the British Dance Council to allow us to run EADA National Selection Competitions under International age groups. These would be implemented as from the 1st January and as soon as the letters had been sent out to the promoters the membership would be informed.

He thanked all the EADA Council for their hard work over 2006, especially Laurie and Elsie Gregory who had run the EADA Membership office for so many years and have now retired; Peter Jones (our Treasurer), Steve and Tina Holes (who have put in sterling work on the Amateur Coaching Scheme), Adrian Lucas (our Chart Co-ordinator), Manuel Silva (who has looked after the interests of the Junior and Juveniles parents and would now be taking over as Travel Co-ordinator), and last, but not least, Mary, for sending out all the Invitations and Agendas, answering the telephone all hours of the day and night and the mass of secretarial work done to keep the office running.

Treasurers Report
Peter Jones reported that the accounts showed an increase in income from £44,358 to £52,200. There was a small rise in the amounts received from subscriptions and donations, bank account interest and income from fees charged for Chart Rated Events. Sales of merchandise also accounted towards this. There had been a fall in expenditure of almost £2,000. A large proportion of EADA costs are for sending couples abroad to dance in IDSF World and European Championships. Luckily there had not been any far distant IDSF competitions in 2005/6 but the next year might be very different with some Championships taking place in countries such as Japan and Singapore.

As in previous years, in order to bring the figures to the lowest level for Corporation Tax, our Auditors, Milne Hawkins & Co. have shown sundry creditors totalling £24,128. This shows that this amount of our income is allocated for future expenditure.

Current assets total £71,431. Included in this figure are funds of £4,895 held for the National Training Courses at Egham and the Showcase, £2427 for IDSF Judges Licences which were not paid for until the next accounting year and £8217 held in the Trust Fund. These funds are used to give grants for travel to those couples who have contributed to it by way of demonstration fees.
He thanked all the members of the Council who had helped with the finances of the Association over the year and in particular Elsie and Laurie Gregory who had, up to July of this year, dealt with all the banking of the membership fees; and also those involved in running the Training Days at Egham for the organisation and the collection of the monies which had made them self-supporting and also the Showcase.

There were questions from the Meeting:
Steve Witherington asked about the reserves in the Travel Fund and it was explained that these were monies held for our members who paid in their monies from demonstrations. EADA returned 90% to them and the remaining 10% was reserved for them to draw on (with additional funds) for attending IDSF events.
A question was asked about why EADA had lost their Sports Council Grant. DC explained that Sport England had linked us to the Movement and Dance Group. This included the Health and Fitness League which had been given a huge grant to increase their membership and fund a Chief Executive and a Marketing Manager. We had been advised to ask them to “ring fence” some of this for EADA and we were meeting with them and endeavouring to talk to the Sports Minister and various MPs. The Government were increasing their funding to PDMs to increase fitness training in schools. These were more interested in football but we did have 9,000 children dancing this year who were not dancing before. EADA was forming a Sponsorship Committee.

Tony Knopp suggested we develop a Club system such as they have in Germany. He was informed that these were usually formed by professional people who were prepared to club together and put money into buying premises and employing a manager and professional trainers. A suggestion that the IDSF was run by the Germans was categorically denied by the Secretary who pointed out that this may have been true when Dietlief Heggeman was President of the IDSF 20 years ago, but not now.

There were more questions about the funds being held and Peter Jones pointed out that much of the surplus funds were held for specific purposes. He promised to produce a budget of future expenditure and put it on the EADA Website.

Warren Boyce said that we must have confidence in the Council. They were all volunteers and they had worked very hard for EADA over the last year.

Steve Holes said that we had come a long way in the last four years. The Sports Council Grant was about one third of our income. DC had promised to increase membership and raise more funds but money in future years will be given to those sports to be included in the 2012 Olympics.

Derek Wilman told the meeting that he had been on the Council for 18 years and this was the first year we had made a profit. In the four years since DC became President we have become much more professional. We are now part of a world wide organisation and our reserves mean that we can now plan ahead. It is up to us.

It was proposed by MK and seconded by TTK that the Treasurer’s Report and Accounts be accepted. There were no votes against.

Membership Report
The President again thanked Laurie and Elsie Gregory for the many years they had run the Membership office and then taken over again, after they had retired, when Carl Olson was unable to continue because of work commitments. Adrian and Jill Lucas were now reorganizing the Membership Database and dealing with all renewals and new members so that the new Membership Secretary could take over in the New Year. Damien Hey had taken over the Disco and Freestyle members and the numbers of this section were growing so fast it had been agreed to have a separate Membership Secretary to look after them.
There were now 1,800 registered Ballroom and Latin competitors.
937 Disco and Freestyle members (+ 500 DH has not yet dealt with).

These are all registered through their schools.

We have insisted all Formation Teams register after it was found that many Junior Teams dancing at Blackpool contained girls of 16 or over. We now ask for copies of Birth Certificates and have discovered that a number of children are a year older than shown on last year’s Database!

We have 188 Affiliated members from Guernsey and 189 Affiliated members from Jersey.

We have a grand total of 4,300 members. When we reach in excess of 6,000 we will no longer be considered a “Minority Sport”.

Of the 1800 Ballroom and Latin competitors, 700 are Senior; 200 are Youth or under 21; 360 are Junior and 268 are Juveniles.

There are 200 Classical Sequence members, who are mostly Juniors.
Medalists are not allowed not to become members of EADA and are therefore not covered by our Child Protection or Equity policies, which is of concern to us.

Election of Officers to the Council

A) Membership Secretary – Pat Fortin (a Senior Ballroom and Latin competitor who lives in West Sussex and Inna Vasilieva who lives in Paignton who were both elected
B) Treasurer – No nominations other than Peter Jones. He would continue as Treasurer.
C) Child Protection Officer – Colin Brewer was the only nomination in Ballroom and Latin Section.
D) Travel and Demonstration Co-ordinator – Manuel Silva.
E) Secretary – Mary Corfield will continue as EADA Secretary.
F) Senior competitors election: Tina Holes, Lawrence Pearson and Keith Hateley were elected. The President announced that he would co-opt Mike Fortin to the Council. Jobs could be found for all of them.
G) Championship Competitors – Stephen Arnold; Damien Hey and Warren Boyce were all elected to the Council.
H) Classical Sequence representatives – Colin and Karen Brewer, together with Derek Wilman were elected. In addition help had been offered by two parents of Classical Sequence competitors - Sue Plowman and Ed Davies.
I) Parents’ Representative – Since Manuel Silva’s son was now dancing in the Youth grade a new Parents Rep. was required. The only nomination was for Terri Brockman, who is herself a Ballroom and Latin Senior competitor and has children in the Juvenile and Junior Grades. She would therefore be our new Parents’ representative.

Any other Business
The President announced that members will have seen, from the EADA Press Release in Dance News, that the BDC have agreed that we can run our Chart Rated Events using International age groups. This means that from the 1st January we will be running Senior I (Over 35s) and Senior II (Over 45s) Charts – which will replace the old Over 50s Chart. We have been informed that the IDSF may run a Senior III World Championship in the future and, if this is so, we will be running Senior III (Over 55s) Chart Rated Events in 2008.

The Secretary had written to Sandra Wilson, on the instructions of the last AGM, asking her to include the Viennese Waltz in the Amateur and Senior Championships at Blackpool. She had agreed to do this but only in the Semi and Final rounds and only as the last dance “in the Blackpool tradition”. The President expressed concern that we had obtained her agreement to run an Over 50s Latin Championship in 2007 but numbers had now fallen substantially. It was agreed to see what numbers the Senior II Latin Chart Rated Events drew.

Steve Holes reported that this had been the worst year for deciding Chart Rated Events. There had been requests from five promoters who had never run these before and others had refused to run the events they had been allocated. There had been suggestions that we reduce the number of Senior CREs to 9, or may be 7 in the case of Senior II Latin. This would be discussed at the first Council Meeting.

There were complaints from the floor that promoters sometimes did not send in their marks to the Chart Compiler and the Charts published in Dance News were months out of date. Unfortunately EADA has no control over when Charts are published in Dance News but promoters who do not submit their Marking Sheets to EADA within 7 days, may not receive as many CREs next year.
There were requests that EADA ask the DPA to show recalls to the next round and give a “Running Order” to enable couples to prepare themselves.

There were queries about whether professionals were CRB checked and the President gave details of the Teaching Societies who did this. Unfortunately it was far from universal.

The President said that he could not close the Meeting without congratulating Martyn King for all the work he did on the Website and Tracey Tyack-King for the “better than ever” InMotion magazine.

The meeting closed with a round of applause for both of them.