2025 Annual-report

MINUTES OF THE SEPTEMBER 2025 EXTRAORDINARY GENERAL MEETINGS 63 M I NU T E S O F T H E EXTRAORDINARY GENERAL MEET ING Held in the Derek Randall Suite and online via video conference on Thursday 11 September 2025 The Chair opened with a welcome to the meetings, and introduced the top table which for the first meeting comprised Mick Newell as Director of Cricket, and Chief Executive Lisa Pursehouse. Minutes were being taken by Linda Allen. Mr Hunt continued by noting that this was an unusual situation as members were gathered to hear two EGMs which would be treated as two separate meetings. He reminded members that an EGM is very different to an Annual General Meeting which is called by the club and covers a number of formal topics. An EGM is called by a member of the club subject to meeting the terms of the club’s constitution, and only items that had been notified in advance to the full membership could be discussed at an EGM. Although there would be time for questions, they must relate only to the resolution being discussed in each individual EGM. Members joining via Zoom had been asked if they wished to submit questions in advance & these would be put to the panel during the relevant meeting. EGM 1 After confirming that the meeting was quorate, The Chair set out the purpose of the meeting. The meeting had been called to announce the outcome of the vote on the resolution put forward by Mr Nick Evans; as a ballot was conducted by post and online in advance of the meeting, there would be no voting in the room that evening. Voting had closed on the previous Sunday at 5pm. That resolution was that The club shall oppose any proposal reducing the number of County Championship games. Shortly, the Chair said, the Chief Executive would announce the outcome of the vote, after which Mr Nick Evans would be asked to speak to the resolution, and the Chair would have the opportunity to respond on behalf of the club. The Chair then asked the Chief Executive to announce the result of the vote. Ms Pursehouse began by saying that, in line with the terms of the club’s Constitution, a postal/online vote was held. The ballot was supervised by the club’s Auditors. The ballot paper asked members to vote yes or no to the resolution. Of the 944 members who voted, 698 members voted yes and to oppose a reduction, and 246 members voted no and to not oppose a reduction. For the purposes of this EGM the resolution was, therefore, carried. The Chair then asked Mr Nick Evans as the proposer to speak to the resolution. Mr Evans began by thanking the Chief Executive for her help in organising the meetings and the approach she had taken, which ensured that the process had been both democratic and fair. It had been an excellent example of how a members’ club should deal with such a request from its members. Mr Evans believed that members had felt themselves to be bypassed by the ECB’s Domestic Schedule Review. These members, he said, felt that the review had largely been driven by the Professional Cricketers’ Association (PCA), and that the PCA had failed to land their message with county members on two specific issues: workload for players and the domestic schedule itself. Mr Evans was not convinced by the argument about workload, as he said there had never been a period before now when so few balls had been bowled in men’s domestic cricket. On the schedule, however, he had a little more sympathy. The Outlaws had done a lot of travelling to fulfil this year’s T20 Blast commitments. To tackle this, Mr Evans believed that the PCA should be calling for a minimum time period between matches. In any event, Mr Evans said he felt that deciding on changes now, in autumn 2025, when those changes would affect the 2026 season, was way too late. Mr Hunt then replied. He began by thanking Mr Evans, as well as all those members who had taken the time to consider the resolution and