The UKPA AGM saw the re-election of Dave Brookes to Chairman and Sue Brookes to Secretary, both having resigned earlier in the year. Dave captured 59% of the vote as he defeated Jane Wright Roberts, who got 17% (the remainder of the room abstained). Sue Brookes was unopposed in the post of secretary and received 68% of the vote (again, the remainder of the room abstaining).

Both Dave and Jane were questioned at length by the room on their policies and how committed they were to the role of chairman. Each candidate did face some tricky questions, Dave over his resignation and Jane over her alleged role in approaching the IPC about setting up a Welsh polocrosse association and the recent vote of no confidence in her as Director of Coaching by the UKPA Exec. It also seemed at points that both candidates had people in the audience primed to ask them soft questions and to ask the other candidate particularly tricky ones, however such is the nature of politics!

The only other opposed role was for Player Representative and Richard Chapple won against Guy Robertson with 65% of the vote to 30% (the rest abstaining). Guy unfortuantely couldn’t make it due to work commitments and this probably went against him as Richard was there in person to deliver a speech and charm the audience.

In the remainder of the categories the voting was as follows:

Membership Secretary: Jan Jenkinson (94%) Abstain (6%)
Chief Umpire: Hamish Michael (88%) Abstain (12%)
Executive Officer: Jeff Parr (83%) Abstain (17%)
Sports Development Officer: Iain Heaton (94%) Abstain (6%)
Trustee: Julian Smith (95%) Abstain (5%)

There were a number of resolutions proposed, the details of these can be read here. Both resolutions on reduced fees for Pony Club members were passed in principle and it was left to the Exec to work out at exactly what level this should be set and for how many years it should apply. Resolution 2 on the idea of bringing back the Inter Regionals was deferred to the Exec to look at in more detail and no vote was taken. The same occurred for resolution 3 and 4, proposed by Arden club. Both the Midland region resolutions were passed, on reducing regional monies and establishing a self funding exchange program for juniors with countries such as Australia. The final resolution to be passed was that in the future only playing members should vote on the position of players rep at AGM (and seeing under a third of the voters at the AGM were playing members this may cause problems in the future!)