Minutes of AGM 2026, held at Saltwell Social Club, Thursday 11th June 2026
Roll Call of Teams represented.
The Secretary welcomed attendees to the 2025 AGM and called the roll of teams present. Teams represented were Albert Hill, Darlington Snooker Club, The Bene, East End Nomads, Saltwell SC & Key Club. The Committee was represented by the Chairman (Kevin Turner), the Secretary (David Westerby), the Treasurer (Leo Ford) and members Steve Westerby & John Swan. Member John Doyle was unable to attend.
2025 AGM Minutes.
The Secretary stated that Martin Robinson representing Darlington Snooker Club believed that the minutes were not a true record and that his notes of the meeting showed that it had been agreed that 12 individual questions would be asked in a Table Top quiz, whereas 16 questions had been asked in practice and that a discussion regarding raising money at the Table Top quizzes by way of a raffle had not been mentioned. The Secretary stated that the minutes had been sent out after the AGM and subsequent Table Top Quizzes had taken place and the subject of 12 or 16 questions had not been raised. A discussion regarding people’s recollections of events then took place but this was inconclusive. The normal procedure of the minutes being accepted did not take place.
Secretary’s Report
The Secretary thanked the members of the League for taking part and those people who had set quizzes throughout the season: Paul Finch & Dave Lowther, who had set 2 and 4 quizzes respectively, Jeff Coxon & Steve Westerby who had each set a quiz and Leo Ford who had set the Singles & Pairs. He thanked his fellow Committee members. He was pleased to report that all quizzes had been played and that the spectre of unfulfilled fixtures were now ‘a thing of the past’.
Chairman's Remarks
The Chairman echoed the Secretary’s remarks and thanked him and the other Committee members for their work during the year. He thanked all the people who had participated in the quizzes throughout the season, players, questions setters and quizmasters. He remarked upon how long the league had been in existence, and that going to a quiz involved meeting old friends and hoped that the League would continue for as long as was possible.
Treasurer's Report
The Secretary presented the balance sheet which had been prepared by the Treasurer and showed a bank balance of £129.77. He stated that the time had now come where subscription fees would have to be reintroduced to allow the League to continue, these would be £40 per team if the website was dropped, or £60 a team if the website was to be retained. He then handed over to the Treasurer who talked about the expenses incurred by question setting, postage, printing etc and acknowledged the part played by the Secretary’s daughter in printing the quizzes. A discussion then took place on whether the website should be retained, or dropped and replaced by a digital newsletter. The Secretary stated that the expected cost of the website would be between £100 - £150, being due around September. Brian Neil suggested that as the subs of £40 per team worked out at £10 a man based on a 4-man team, increasing that to £15 a man would enable the website to continue. It was then agreed that would be accepted, and that subs would be set at £60 per team and that the website should continue but its cost would be monitored.
Election of Officials
All officials would continue in their current roles.
Election of Committee
All Committee members would continue in their current roles. The Secretary invited Mike Sowerby of Albert Hill and Dave Guttridge of The Bene to join the Committee as representatives and they accepted.
League Structure
There were 2 proposals for the structure of next season.
The first, from the Committee, was for a continuation of a league of 6 teams playing each other once, with 3 table top quizzes, comprising 8 quizzes. The second, from Darlington Snooker Club proposed each team played each other home and away, with one table top quiz, comprising 11 quizzes. Martin Robinson outlined the reasons for this proposal, and a discussion took place to which several members contributed. The main points which were raised were that the League would struggle to get question setters for the increased number of quizzes and that the increased number of quizzes would produce a more congested calendar and that there would be less free dates for teams to re-arrange fixtures into, bearing in mind that there were 3 teams playing at the same venue. There was a vote which resulted in the second proposal being defeated by seven votes to one.
Rule Changes
Two Rule Changes had been proposed, both by Darlington Snooker Club. The first was to amend Rule B1 (The Quiz) which states that ‘A team shall consist of four persons. In the event of an emergency teams shall be allowed to play with a minimum of two persons.’ The proposal stated the wording of the rule should become ‘A team shall normally consist of four persons, but shall be allowed to play with a minimum of two persons. Where a team plays with ONLY two persons, a member of the two person team is allowed in both the Individual rounds (Pot Luck & Specialist) to answer an additional question and also be able to take a Bonus - having to stipulate before the question is asked, that they are to contest the question if initially answered incorrectly”. After a lengthy discussion, an amendment was put which stated that ‘A team shall normally consist of four persons, but shall be allowed to play with a minimum of two persons. In the Individual rounds a 2-man team shall be allowed to answer three questions and bonuses, the format as follows:
Team with 2 players in Pot Luck individual round:
1st Question: Player 1 (Own question or Bonus)
2nd Question: Player 1 (Own Question or Bonus)
3rd Question: Player 2 (Own Question or Bonus)
4th Question: Player 2 (Own Question or Bonus)
5th Question: Player 1 (Own question or Bonus)
6th Question: Player 1 (Own Question or Bonus)
The 7th & 8th Questions will not be answered by the 2-man team.
The captain of the team shall mark on the scorecard which is Player 1 & Player 2.
Team with 2 players in Specialist Individual round:
Player One has one first choice sport and one bonus sport
Player Two has TWO first choice sports and two bonus sports
Two questions and bonuses will not be answered by the 2-man team.
This rule change would not affect teams playing with 3 men, the situation regarding that would continue as per normal.
This rule was adopted after a unanimous vote.
The second rule change proposed was to change Rule B2 (The Quiz) and it advocated the dropping of the necessity for the question setter to mandatorily set questions on the five ‘major sports’ in team rounds and individual rounds. This was discussed and after a vote of 5 in favour, 2 against and one abstention was passed so the rule shall read as follows-
2. The quiz shall consist of eight rounds of which rounds 1, 2, 7 & 8 shall be team rounds consisting of 14 questions (7 pairs of questions).
Round 3 shall be an individual round of 8 questions. Team members shall select a number between 1-8 to decide the question asked them.
Round 4 shall be a written round. Points are awarded on the following basis: 4 points to the winning team if the margin is three points or more. If the margin is two or less, three points to the winning team and one to the losing team. In the event of a tie, teams shall receive two points each. The time duration of the question shall be decided by the question setter.
Round 5 shall be a written round of 7 questions. A written answer must be handed in to the question master within 30 seconds of the question master completing each question. Scoring will be two points for a correct answer.
Round 6 shall be an individual round of 8 questions. The Question Master will reveal the subjects of the question prior to the commencement of the round. Starting with the 'home team', the Team captains will alternately select a subject and then nominate a player to receive that question. The opposing Team captain will nominate a player to receive the question being answered incorrectly. Each player can only be nominated for a question once, and for a bonus once, during the round.
All questions can be passed to opponents for a bonus point, except in rounds 4 & 5.
In certain questions first names may be required and this shall be specified by the question-setter. If no first name is asked for by the question-setter, any first name given in the answer shall be ignored and not taken into account by the by the question-master. In matters of dispute Rule 10 shall apply.
Any Other Business
The format of the Table Top quizzes was again discussed and Darlington Snooker Club had requested that a) the first and last rounds should be in a questionnaire format, and b)the round of 16 Specialist Questions would be reduced to 8 Pot Luck Questions. This was discussed at length but after a vote, the questionnaire proposal was not adopted mainly on the grounds of the amount of paper which would be required, with only vote in favour, however the second part of the proposal, that in the Individual round there would be 8 Pot Luck questions, was agreed unanimously. It was also agreed that the rule change which had been introduced for Rule B1 would also be applied to the Table Top quizzes allowing a 2-man team to answer 3 individual questions. The exact details of how this would work would be looked at by the Committee and advised to teams prior to the first table top taking place. Martin Robinson of Darlington Snooker Club had suggested that extra funding could be raised by a raffle at Table Top nights with nominated teams donating prizes. Steve Lakey suggested that another possible method was to sell a Domino Card or Football Card on the night. Martin agreed to look at and implement this proposal for the 2026-27 season. The AGM was then declared closed and the Presentation of trophies began.