8 – Blinded by the Light
To anybody who has participated in a committee of any sort over the years my heartfelt and doubtless mutually shared sympathies to you all; it is an inescapable fact that any organisation needs some sort of management structure and for the voluntary sector that generally means a committee. Anarchy cannot be allowed to rule although it could be argued that most committees often produce the same effect by way of endless and pointless meetings rather than simply letting nature takes its course. Whoever said that most committees were generally a collection of well meaning idiots was not far off the truth.
Initial good intentions and positive approaches to improve the lot of mankind gradually morph into the mire of never ending late night meetings on freezing cold winter nights ticking off each agenda item grinding hopefully towards “Any Other Business” and the escape hatch. Committees contain all walks of life from the respectable, successful, talented and generally trustworthy individual to those…well…shall we say less so. Inevitably most end up resembling a hotchpotch of individuals almost akin to the Foreign Legion albeit, thankfully not armed with anything other than a pint of bitter.
Adolescent Idealism: The Brutal Truth
My earliest exposure to the committee was perhaps an early sign of sado-masochism, volunteering as a very naive fourteen-year-old so we, as juniors, could have some representation amongst the “old farts”; as if we really expected them to take any notice of what we had to say. As I said, adolescent idealism. I think that secretly I was trying to negotiate us a key to the old hut for the cold winter months and hoping to install some new fluffy carpets and a sofa. It had to be better than six months hanging around on street corners like a group of Big Issue sellers.
In those days we held our meetings at the Wrose Bull pub a huge but atmosphere free place perched overlooking the Aire Valley. As we had no home of our own save for the wooden shack – which was freezing in the winter months – and visits to the cesspit had long ceased to be pleasurable with the retirement of the local exhibitionist, the Wrose Bull had some modest attraction. In those days meetings seemed to last forever, in part because the committee was exclusively male and broke regularly for more beer. They usually managed to coordinate the end of the meeting with closing time although not once was the possibility of a breathalyser mentioned… actually not a lot got mentioned.
The Great Debates
What did we discuss in all those meetings? Well I honestly cannot remember a thing. The club had been in existence for over fifty years at that time yet had no money, precious few assets and even fewer ideas. Indeed the newly formed Junior Committee seemed to be its most solvent “division”. However, with progress starting to be made on the field there was a feeling that things were about to change and maybe we could leave the Wrose Bull soon before Alcoholics Anonymous gained some new members and the gay landlord offered to show us juniors his stables behind the pub.
In fairness few committees are dynamic or forward thinking; its a battle to get most incumbents to remember when the next meeting is and what was discussed at the last one so few captains of industry are generally present. This is largely to do to with the composition and structure of your average band of volunteers. Why, when a public company can run it itself with a board of directors of maybe half a dozen, should an insignificant little cricket club need twelve on the so pompously named “management committee”? In olden days the committee could exceed twenty so they must have been really, really desperate for a pint and a night off from the wife in those days? And in those meetings, would they have ever discussed anything like The Great Margarine Scandal?
The Great Margarine Scandal
Now the following events would never have occurred had our Secretary, Martin “Molly” Molyneux, done his job with a degree more verve instead of downing another swift one before the wife cottoned on he was late again. Most committee meetings follow a pre-ordained agenda fixed since the beginnings of time lumbering robotically to a fumbled climax with the two final subjects always being “Complaints and Suggestions” and “Any Other Business”; this is usually the sign to “start the car…we’re off” as the commentator David “Bumble” Lloyd would say. The Secretary’s unofficial duty is to seek out the feared Complaints and Suggestions book pre-meeting to hasten our exit; as an act borne out of humanity, he must rip out any pages that may keep us discussing the ramblings of some booze addled member who just fancied a whinge because the club had run out of Veuve Clicquot; read and destroy were the simple instructions but one critical night Molly failed us all and the events that unfolded a few weeks earlier came to unfold via the dreaded book.
As a brief background, this epoch-making meeting followed several years after the introduction of a bar to Villas in 1983 which attracted many new members – not necessarily bothered what the wicket was like from Saturday to Saturday or how our youth policy was coming along – they were here for the sauce and largely because it was cheap; so cheap some of them never actually bothered paying for it. We never did register as a charity although we would have had good cause to as we kept enough of them in free beer for several years. In fairness some were willing to participate in the running of the club more than others and volunteer for the dreaded committee.
The Berlin Wall
Bob and Beryl Stead, both no longer with us, were active members of the club for many years. Now Beryl did enjoy a tipple or two – nothing wrong with that – probably helping launch Tico sherry on the UK market, fast becoming it is best and probably only customer nationally. Bob became Treasurer reflecting his chosen profession although his accounting techniques owed more to Enron than any other master class; but who needs a Profit and Loss account and a Cash Flow Statement when you’ve no money anyway and most of the committee would understand Urdu better?
One typical Saturday afternoon, Bob and Beryl were sat aligned on the so called Berlin Wall; this was a row of seats in the clubhouse named by the younger end because it seemed that it would be there forever. The Steads were sat slurping away with Ken and Olga Shackleton – Brent’s mum and dad – and “Uncle” Eddie and Barbara Barraclough. Ken and Olga lived next door to Eddie and Barbara and both men were joiners by trade and had worked at the nearby Wharfedale Speakers factory – now George Barkers – in Idle before joining forces as self-employed craftsmen.
They were the club’s unofficial, unpaid and generally unappreciated handy men and as a crowning glory they built the bar at the original clubhouse and then became attached to it generally at an angle for it’s entire existence; without a doubt they had earned that right. It was a beautiful piece of work and created with care and skill and when we came to rip out the building many years later it was harder to pull away than Ken & Eddie; my dad also claimed he donated the wood glue so that was his excuse for leaning on the bar as well for just as long and with equal obstinacy.
Wot No Flora?
Midway through this particular Saturday afternoon with the game on in full flow outside the smoke filled bar helping the cricket teas to gain a smoked flavouring there was a commotion in the tearoom. Disaster had struck like no other – the tea ladies had run out of margarine. Unbelievably, Beryl kicked off like a movie star – possibly due to the mind altering properties of a litre of Tico – lambasting the club and all it is hierarchy for its blatant failure to have available a spare tub of Flora.
Now the tearoom is a place most players avoid like the plague on match days for fear of seeing the misery of the wife or latest girlfriend having given up her Saturday to butter teacakes largely unnoticed and unappreciated by players and spectators alike. As far as the new breed of social member was concerned what those cricketers did on a Saturday afternoon that so deserved a good feed was beyond them; after all they ran the club now. But Beryl had never been near the kitchen, certainly was not on the tea rota and as bad as it ever got for player availability, Bob was never mentioned in selection.
Eat Your Hearts Out Oxford Debating Society
A few weeks passed by and there we were again at the next meeting of the great, not so great and downright criminal with the rebuilding of the already crumbling 1983 clubhouse and related fundraising high on the agenda. As it had no official slot on the agenda fundraising generally came last even after the dreaded Complaints and Suggestions slot. As if to confirm the logic of most committees there we were a club about to embark on the biggest project in it is history leaving the discussion of said project to the point in the evening when most members were either pissed or in a catatonic state.
And so it was that we spent forty-five minutes in heated and sometimes very funny debate discussing margarine and Beryl’s conviction that we had, as a committee, failed the club and should resign en bloc because the cucumber sandwiches were endangered from being far too dry. Chairman Haighy had fallen asleep – again – doubtless hoping for a peaceful end and hoping that nobody expected him to either do anything or opine. By the time the “debate” had ended it was probably the meeting that just summed up what committees really are about. Believe it or not, we never did get to Any Other Business and might not have got home before midnight had we not resolved to enforce a margarine contingency plan for the future well being of all.
Often I have tried to understand what type of person becomes a typical committee member; the following categories will probably fit every club in the land but are purely fictional and bear no relation to those living, dead or just playing dead so they don’t get asked to volunteer. And, of course, no connection should be made with anybody at the Villas!
The Power Seeker: useless at school, condemned to a lifelong, dead end job. The committee is the only chance at high office. If they gave out badges saying “committee man” this person would front the queue. Never misses a meeting and never says a worthwhile thing and always the last person to volunteer for anything that may involve work.
The Alcoholic: desperate to find another excuse for a pint and would gladly make meetings weekly not monthly. First there, last to leave and would stay overnight to avoid the wife.
Wife of Alcoholic: knows exactly what his game is so joins too.
The Dutiful: joins out of a sense of mis-placed social responsibility but sits there at meetings looking as if he would rather be anywhere else. Cannot believe we are talking about margarine. Hopes that one day a meeting will actually finish inside an hour because that’s what his mate told him to persuade him to join in the first place.
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