The Taunton AGM
By Bagpuss and Miike
November 23 2013
The regional AGM season comes to a close with a Taunton version with more than twice the usual attendance, a byline credit to Mike for the first time and Dave Nosworthy impressing the poting population with his direct approach to explaining things. Bagpuss and Mike report.... Take it away guys.
Many thanks to those present for their inputs annd especially Mike and Bagpuss for their depth of content as plagarised without guilt below;
Mike;
"Attendance was 72 twice what they normally get.
The first time I have heard Dave Nosworthy speak and he was very good to listen to, and he has a sense of humour.
He ask Marcus if his eye sight was going, Marcus went and had his eyes tested and produced a test certificate.
Marcus has been abroad on holiday with his family for the first time since he has had his trouble, when Dave was ask if Marcus may go on the pre-season trip with the team to South Africa he said he couldn't accommodate families going so didn't know if he would go.
Guy Lavender spoke clear as usual, he was asked about the new Pavilion and somebody wanted to make sure most of the seating will be for ordinary member not for those who can afford to pay a lot more to sit there. They haven't worked that out yet.
On the second floor there could be another Long Room to add more space for things like function, the club is now taking bookings from groups that previous used somewhere else in Taunton. I know a group that had to go elsewhere in Taunton because the club was fully booked.
The third floor will have seating for 350, and the cost of it all is now 3.8 million.
I hope I remembered correctly on my report."
And
Bagpuss;
"Nothing much to report from theTaunton Area committee part of the meeting, other than we've raised less money than recent years - approx £3K less than last year, mainly due to the necessary cancellatiom of the annual barbeque (which last year raised about £2K IIRC) and also because a couple of the regular off season events (quiz night and meet the players dinner) were taken over and run by the club.
There are now 8 members of the Taunton Area committee (a few years ago 12 or 13 I think) and if anyone would like to join us you'd be welcome!
So on to the presentations by Guy Lavender and Dave Nosworthy.
Guy Lavender
Club has 4 objectives
- playing success and winning trophies
he did say something along the lines of exceeding members expectations here - can't remember exact wording - bud remember thinking at the time that this can be achieved not only by playing better but also by reducing our expectations!
- developing our own talent
the club are keen to identify and develop local talent and are proud that 15 members of the current squad were born or educated in the West Country (it was 16 of course 
)
- developing the ground
an ongoing project with the development at the OP end necessary not least because the building is well past its use-by date, but also because they want to provide excellent facilities for cricket spectators as well as creating soething to provide revenue for the club (although he didn't say as much, the building will be a source of non-cricket and out-of-season revenue much in the same way as the developed CA pavilion is). The new 'Somerset Pavilion' (working title) will go to construction tender stage in the new year with the build programme anticipated to start at the end of next season and last 10-12 months (so there will be some disruption during the 2015 season). Cost as Mike has said above approx £3.8 million; he said there is a 'small financial gap' in the funding tho didn't expand on exact amount of this, but 2014 will be a club appeal year to try to offset this amount. GL was very insistent that they have NO intention of putting the club at financial risk to achieve the development and said the level of debt they expect to have would be similar to that effected by the development of the CA pavilion and latterly the Caddyshack.
- international cricket
the objective is once the development has been completed to stage international cricket, with the 2019 World Cup being the obvious target (apparently up to 11 venues will be chosen to stage WC matches)
Guy also said that whilst financial strength doesn't guarantee success on the field, it does make it very difficult to achieve if you are struggling financially. No figures mentioned bu good financial results expected for this year the excellent weather esp for he T20s as well as for the Aussies will have helped a lot. Away from cricket revenue the catering side praised lots (rightfully so).
And a few other notes - they are trying to think of ways to make more of an evening of the Friday T20s - encouraging people to stay on at the ground (ie stay spending) once matches are completed. They are aware of problems with antisocial behaviour at matches and feel that this was generally less of a problem this year and less of a problem here than at some other counties but also appealed to members to help self-police and to report incidents at the time to stewards rather than just having a moan to the club after the event.
Of course the elephant in the room was mentioned - the scoreboard - which continues to be rather a personal embarrassment, the more so in Thu5rsday's company because the Gimblett Hill board was paid for by funds raised by the Taunton Area committee. Suffice to say they've decided to stop throwing money at it and just replace it; the board will be an LED screen 45' square which can double as a video screen (no doubt opening up all sorts of revenue-gathering advertising opportunities). It is not clear whether the board will have a Thatchers shelf for Tractor. This new board should be installed by the end of February.
There is also due to be some work on the PA system over the winter as there are still areas of the ground identified as having poor coverage.
Questions to GL
Why was the number of complimentary tickets given to members reduced from 5 - GL coudn't say when this happened but before his time and felt that the current number was a good balance between offering something to members to introduce people to the club or bring guests and remembering the club is a business as well.
How will the membership packages for the middle floor (long-room type membership) of the new Somerset Pavilion be priced - again nothing specific but GL says they are sensitive to the fact that they don't want to price members out of the new facilities whilst remembering that this and the new hospitality boxes that will also be there are important revenue streams (blah blah blah)
There are plans to continue to accommodate the Somerset County Sports shop withing the ground (tho he didn't say within the new SP building itself)
Floodlights - plans for these in infancy there is no doubt the club would like to have them but getting permission would be challenging on this site. Noted that the vast majority of funding for floodlights (at grounds with international status, or all of them I'm not sure) is via grants from the ECB.
Women's cricket - the County Ground offered a 'home' to womens' cricket but since then the women's game grown exponentially and now the women's team find it better to be based at Lord's (this surprised me a bit as I would have thought that Loughborough more suited with all the facilites, but maybe he meant the office base rather than the actual team/training base) England women's matches always welcomed at Taunton and they always like to play here, not least because of the support they get.
The club are looking at maybe staging some double-header T20 matches this season with either women's matches or school matches in the afternoon preceding the friday T20 matches.
Dave Nosworthy
Cricket Review at the end of the season included questionnaires for all the players - one theme that cropped up from many of them was desire for specialist coaches, so appointment of DH and promotion of JK down to player power as well as other factors.
Interestingly DN said that one thing he thought soon after he arrived was that the players 'don't hit enough balls in practice'. Apparently this opinion wasn't shared by all the players when he mentioned it, but that they are coming around more to his way of thinking!!
Going back to the theme of identifying and developing local talent feels that there are still some potential players slipping through the net and Minor Counties and universities identified for talent-spotting attention. AH apparently looking forward to this role ant expected to be v good because of contacts he has built up, respect he has as 1st class coach and this also means he is well aware of the type of player who will do well at county level and beyond.
My take on the comment Mike has already reported about the 2006 season low then progression to the 2010 high point before performance tailing off soewhat since - the 2nd place in 2012 mentioned not so much as an aberration by DN as a bit of a smokescreen because before the last 2/3 matches we were in 5th place and the results in the last few matches due in v large part to the arrival and wickets taken by Rehmann, pushing us up the table to 2nd place. He didn't mention results in other comps which didn't really show the same deterioration.
Incidentally he did say that Somerset will continue their attitude of tring to be successful equally in all forms of cricket - his attitude is if you don't start out intending to try to win a competition then you shouldn't enter it in the first place.
DN said in all fairness he didn't really get to grips with each player and the way things work over the season until about August and wanting to give all a fair chance was keen not to do a big clear out at the end of the season but to give all players a chance next year hence sorting all the contract extensions for next year - all but Gemaal who he wished well. He did say that everyone at the club had tried there best to resolve 'Keepergate' and tried to get Jos to stay (I wouldn't have expected anything less) and were v sorry to see him leave but acknowledged the almost impossible nature of the situation (and please every one don't start a new subthread on this theme 
)
DN v aware of the history of poor starts Somerset makes to the season and for 1st time since 2007 the team will go abroad for preseason training in late Feb/ early March. unsurprisingly they will go to South Africa. Majority of team will go tho a few will be on tour with the Lions at the time. Preseason training and practice already underway.
Alviro Petersen expected to be here for more or less whole season tho international programme always subject to changes. Currently SA have just a short (2 test) tour to Zim that clashes with couty season. There are rumours this may be changed to an ODI tour too.
Questions
Yup, the captaincy one. DN hedging a bit on ncaptaincy saying announcement about to be made Fri am. The way I understood it the issues were not so much the current captaincy - he says MT an excellent captain on and off the field and is one of if not the best captains he has ever worked with - more the issue that there has not been in the past, nor currently, a process in place for succession of captains. (Obviously todays announcement fulfills the immediate succession). He is also looking beyoond the current and even next captain with aleadership programme as part of the talent id and development role of AH.
Incidentally someone asked (I think I heard this correctly), in view of his recent family trip to Egypt, the first time he has been abroad since the height of his illness, whether travelling with the team preseason to SA would be mandatory for MT as captain. Personally this angered me more than a little and DN said that the family trip was completely different to a training camp, not least of which because of the family element (which of course the club wouldn't be expected to pay for travel for). The decision would be for MT alone and if he chose not to travel this would not affect his position as captain. (As it shouldn't.)
Who makes decisions at the toss - well, everyone has input captain, DOC, other players and although ultimately down to captain he would decide based on the opinions of all these. Much easier with 20/20 hindsight. And the team should be good enough to play on any pitch never mind whether the decision made was deemed 'right' or not.
I think that's about it - if there was anything else I negleted to make a not of it. Would like to say like others who were there have mentioned I was v impressed with DN's presentation, attitude and comments.
Bring on 2014."
I'll second that emotion as the great Smokey once said
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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2013:12:05:14:34:08 by Grockle.
Help me out Bagpuss with my report.
I still think the best way to 'condition' people for bowling is to have them bowl and that the best way to avoid injuries in young pacemen is not to force them to do loads of so-called 'core strenghtening work', but rather to ensure that they are not over-bowled and get plenty of rest.
Given that we've been financially strong for some considerable time, I can only assume that this means that Mr Brian Rose must have been very sceptical about the value of full-time specialist coaches.
There is one thing about Dave he tell you how it is and not to cover things up, he told the players something after a match they didn't like (I can't remember what it was he said).
I was impressed with Dave N's honesty and forthright approach. I certainly feel more confident about him being at the helm now that I have met the guy.
What are your thoughts?
2014 is a fund raising year for the club £150,000 target if I remember correctly.
This seasons accounts are expected to be good with membership up and good weather for the T20, also that four day Australia tourist match.
The new screen scoreboard will be an LED screen like Lords, I imagine you can put almost anything you like on it.
Quote:Mike TA1
tourist match.
The new screen scoreboard will be an LED screen like Lords, I imagine you can put almost anything you like on it.
Somewhere for Tractor to rest his mug, presumably.
LoL
Sixty-six Seasons a Somerset Supporter
AGod , you are so old fashioned for a younger person.
I totally agree with you, but I'm old fashioned and old.
I rather suspect Andrew Caddick would agree with you too.
Grizzzly
Well it works for the webmaster at least.
I was ready with my pen and paper to take notes of the meeting and in the end didn't bother and did all my reports from memory.
I can see why you did those Cricinfo articles.
None of the Hertfordshire papers seem to have carried a report. Inexplicable.
Baggie confirms my suspicions about the captaincy issue. It is about Succession.
Add to that DN saying it will be reviewed in 12 months could mean changes then. Possibly with Hildy taking over the one-day stuff.
I just hope that his development in 2014 includes some serious time actually leading the team as well as taking part in team management and selection decisions.
“Incidentally someone asked (I think I heard this correctly), in view of his recent family trip to Egypt, the first time he has been abroad since the height of his illness, whether travelling with the team pre - season to SA would be mandatory for MT as captain. Personally this angered me more than a little and DN said that the family trip was completely different to a training camp, not least of which because of the family element (which of course the club wouldn't be expected to pay for travel for). The decision would be for MT alone and if he chose not to travel this would not affect his position as captain.”
I suspect that the said member who asked the question was one who would not openly support the continuation of Marcus Trescothick as captain (as indeed I do not) but it does on the face of it (and of course I do not know the manner or way in which the question was asked) appear to be a ‘dig’ on Marcus’s ‘illness’ of a few years ago.
Or perhaps, Bagpuss, I have misunderstood the question asked all together?
Because we certainly should not be including somebody in the XI because they are the Captain.
Was he woefully outside of our top 6 averaging batters last year?
Yes it was a poor season be his superb previous seasons, we and I'm sure he would have hoped for better.
But to warrant a place in our team he needs to be one of the best 6 batters in the side, not average 15/20 runs more than all our other batters?
I am very pleased he is continuing as skipper.
Nosworthy is no mug, he knows what he is doing and clearly thinks it's our best option. He is without any doubt strong enough to have ditched him if he had felt that was the best thing to do, clearly he didn't.
I am happy Nosworthy and the rest of our management are for more knowledgable than me (and I suspect all of us on here) They see the guys all season day in and day out, in all scenarios, they know best.
Would we have been guaranteed to win things under somebody else?
We have been exciting to watch and competitive in most competitions every season under his leadership.
If Nos after a season in charge (all be it a tough one) still feels Tres is the right man for the job surely he's best placed to decide that, not us?
Many seem ok with Marcus being given another year as skipper, but on grounds that seem to me to amount to little more than ill judged loyalty, and the fact that he is undoubtedly 'a good chap'.
As for DN saying he is one of the best Captains he has ever worked with, well, having just confirmed his position (for 2014 at least), what the heck else could he be expected to say ?
I still believe, reading between the lines, that the writing is on a very large wall for Marcus & fear that we may end up with a very similar debate at the end of next season, to the one we're having now.
As for the argument that James isn't ready to take over yet, I just don't buy it.
If the requirement to becoming Captain was that you had already skippered a team for a full season, there would be an awful lot of vacancies around !
Grizzzly
Is our failure to win something simply because of captaincy issues?
If it was, why does it tend to be the case that those who seems to be anti Trescothick and the captaincy are so pro Rose and his stewardship?
It was nothing more than captaincy, we did no better under Justin Langer (in fact we did better for longer after him) and wasn't he your captain of choice BJ?
I'm not particularly fully pro MT in the skipper role but as WSM again points out. I struggle to identify the other candidate who would have pushed this side over the line.
So our lack of trophies doesn't really 'say it all' or we wouldn't need policies and purchases in other areas. it would just be a case of appoint Hildreth and wait for it all to flood in wouldn't it?
The new man will not have that advantage.
And we'll obviously never know whether having a different captain would have changed the outcome in any of those one-day final defeats.
As to the CC, I don't think we have under-achieved, overall. Over the period since we returned to Div One, Durham have clearly had superior pace bowling resources to ourselves so I don't think it's surprising the the ledger reads Durham 3 titles, Somerset 0.
Where I think there has been an issue is that two other sides - Warks and Lancs each managed a season of over-achievement to win a CC and we've not been able to do that.
Instead we had what I interpreted as something of a dig at them from Brian Rose in which he implied that we could have won the CC had we chosen to adopt an attritional batting style, "but we would never want to".
Overall, I think Somerset have - in the CC - been neither more, nor less than the sum of our parts - which might imply that the captain has been a kind neutral factor, neither making us better through his captaincy nor undermining us by making the side less than its parts would suggest it should be.
Keeping Somerset together and in contention in the first division in any shape at all was a monumental achievement in 2012 given the key injuries and lack of playing resources. Not putting that at Marcus' door specifically but there had to be someone sorting it out and keeping the motivation up as more and more problems were piled on.
I entirely agree with the unspeakable that you have spoken.
I agree with Grockle that our performance in 2012 was astonishingly good under the circumstances.
I was at that match (all the home matches) watching it in the freezing cold, I know it's easy to captain from behind the boundary board but when Warwickshire walk off after being dismissed in their first innings we were all saying around where I was sat we would enforce the follow-on.
There were not many overs remaining in the day so the ball would have been almost new the next morning, so when we saw we has not enforced the follow-on we couldn't understand it, some wit said it was because Sky was there and we wanted to make the match last four days.
Re the decision after winning the toss being more of a group decision, did any of them raise their eyes to the skies at Horsham???
Perhaps the point was raised in a light - hearted way, but if it was entirely serious, then that is a different matter all together.
He managed the first game and seemed to be coping with it well (he was even miked up for the fielding section) but that was as far as it went and he returned to the UK while the side stayed to finish the tournament
Without personally wishing to add any more, the question was probably asked in the manner in which I suspected.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2014:08:08:16:05:16 by Clarence Parker.