Regional Conference at Matamata

Whoops!! If your club wasn't represented at Matamata you missed a goodie ... and a magnificent lunch, all thanks to the Matamata members who looked after us so well.

The day started off with a moment's respectful silence for Greg Saxon, president of the Te Aroha club, who died last week.

Jane Stearns entertained us with a lively presentation on the topic of Mini-Moos. This is an initiative to nuture Beginners fresh from lessons in clubs around the Waikato. Dressed in the official uniform of cow suit, Jane's enthusiasm and presentation by Powerpoint made it clear what the scope of her programme was. The Bays people got wildly excited about starting up their own such undertaking next year based on Jane's model.

This was followed by the official unveiling by Michael Neels of this very website. Here is provided the platform to bring tournament entries on-line. Tournament posters are now available 24/7 by clicking the big blue button on front page right. All tournament entries can be made on-line - either at the host club's website or under the Tournaments tab above. If all clubs bought into this policy it would mean

• That all attendees could see who's coming
• That tournament secretaries had ONE list in ONE place
• That scorers could compile their pre-entry files independently
• That players could check their own entries. (policy: "If your name's not on the website then you're NOT in the tournament")

It's very easy to do - even for tournament secretaries on behalf of those that don't own a computer. Many other features were presented including the innovative Partnering tab. Have a look at it - press the Help button for a full explanation. Michael's notes are in the Clubs Info folder of Dropbox.

There were three of the seven NZ Board members present in Karen Martelletti, Alan Turner from Tauranga, and Allan Joseph from Wellington. Allan (2 ll's) gave an excellent presentation on the Board's strategic plan. It was a very informative talk. One of the major thrusts of the Board is to stimulate national membership numbers. It makes two very strong recommendations: That each club should appoint:

• a Public Relations Officer
• a Membership Officer

Notes on these roles can be found in the Clubs Info folder of Dropbox.

We broke for the excellent aforementioned lunch, resuming with coverage by Ray McCully on how the Region is implementing the Boards Strategic Policy - all covered somewhere on this site. At 2:30 we began general discussion about tournaments - why do we run them, setting entry fees and prizes, where to find directors and scorers,and what the regional committee could do to help.

As a finale we broke into small groups to discuss ways and means of growing and supporting Junior and Intermediate competition. This was reported back to Rona Driscoll who did a fantastic job as MC for the day. Many thanks from your committee to all who attended.