AGM 2021- Summary

A summary of today's Holy Cross ACC AGM - held on Zoom. 

In his presidential comments, Mahmood Din reflected on the sad loss of club legend Colin McGill last year- 'he could be a pain in the ass but made a massive contribution to the club in his various roles'. Looking forward to the coming season with some optimism, Din was confident that 'will get some cricket, if not anything like a normal season'. 

Club Secretary Jon Bates talked of the substantial storm damage suffered by the clubhouse in March 2020. The rugby club had been proactive and their efforts had returned the clubhouse to its original condition. Some donations from HX members had assisted with this work. 

He said that the recent statement from Cricket Scotland gave 'some reasons for optimism’. Now that it had been established that cricket was a non-contact sport, it seems likely that it could make an earlier return than last year. Though there will, again, be no indoor nets. 

ESCA's latest statement suggested there was no point in organising fixtures until April when the situation would become clearer. There will likely to be some issues regarding Edinburgh Leisure grass pitches as there was a push to move the start of the football season forward. Given likely travel restrictions, there might be a need for some regionalisation- at least in the early weeks of the season. From ESCA's point of view, a season of 12 or 14 weeks would be needed to constitute proper season with relegation and promotion. 

In his treasurer's report, Jon stated that: 'the financial position of the club is robust'. 

Ben Reiss reported on the first XI who played 7 games- 3 intra-club matches and 4 friendlies. As he put it, 'everyone was grateful to get out of the house and into the open'. They had been a successful set of matches, with two particularly enjoyable games against Stewarts Melville. 40 players had offered their availability at points during the season -  out of a mailing list of 108. All the midweek games had been rained off and there had been no second XI fixtures. 

Elections 

• Mahmood Din will continue as club president, with Ken Lawrie also continuing as vice president. 
• Ben Reiss will take over as first XI captain, with Euan House stepping down. There remains a vacancy for first XI vice-captain. The committee will approach possible candidates. 
• Vikram Gaware we will continue as second XI  captain, with Andy Quinn again his vice. 
• Brian Fraser will continue in his role as social convenor. 
• Ben Reiss-midweek captain. 
• Jon Bates will continue in his roles as as Club Secretary and Treasurer. Mahmood thanked Jon again for 'holding the club together' over a number of years. 

AOB

Other topics discussed included the memorial match for Colin McGill which will hopefully take place this coming season. It is intended that Holy Cross players from past and present will take part as well as some of the ESCA players closest to Colin (from Marchmont, Heriots etc).  

Mention was made of the fantastic archive which the late Hugh Kilpatrick had put together- both his physical and computer records, as well as memorabilia. Chris Kerr will be in contact with the family regarding the physical records, while Ken Lawrie will try and transfer Hugh's computer records into a more modern and accessible format. There was a hope that some of Hugh's photos could be displayed in the clubhouse- in the Green Room.

Mention was made of updating the HX website. This will hopefully happen soon, with some of Mark Brown's excellent photos being added. There will hopefully be scope for some of Hugh Kilpatrick's photo archive to be added.