My main responsibilities as Administrator for the Eton Fives Association are the editorship of this report, webmaster for the EFA website, membership, the promotion of Club and School Fives and the provision of general support to the Board.
Most of the work entailed with the production of the Annual Report is undertaken out of season during the summer months. This can be a time consuming task especially if contributions have to be continually chased. That said I am grateful to those members, Club Secretaries, Masters-in-Charge and others who readily supply copy on demand; provide photographs; artwork; and agree to take out advertising space.
Our individual membership base has finally reached the magical six hundred mark although I fear we may lose a few as we go through the subscription transition from standing orders to one of direct debits. I am grateful to Mike Duncan for his continued support in maintaining an ever changing membership database, a time consuming and thankless task. A special plea to members, please advise Michael or myself of changes to personal details. To non-members please join the Association. Club Secretaries are asked to play their part in advising known changes to their own databases and in the recruitment of new members.
The website continues to expand with regular ‘daily’ news items and the addition of articles from the archives. Much of the website creativity takes place during the playing season but hits to the site remain high throughout the year. A fuller report and usage graph can be found in the following article.
Encouragement of the game at School and Club level continues unabated. It is good to see the increase in schoolboys and girls playing the game albeit no longer recognised as a major school sport. The ever increasing numbers of youngsters playing at the Westway Sports Centre is also very encouraging. A main thrust for the future must be to ensure that youngsters continue to play in adulthood especially during this time of a decreasing club player base and loss of friendly Fives matches. These issues are currently being addressed as part of the strategic ‘Forward Look’ for the game.
In closing I would like to thank the generosity of those members and friends who agreed to take advertising/sponsorship space in this report. Most, I believe, enjoy reading it and with a few more advertisements to help mitigate the production costs a greater use of colour could result.
M.R.F.
Administrator's Report 2003-2004 by Mike Fenn
Created 17th December 2004 by Mike Fenn
efa@etonfives.co.uk