In her opening address she said it had been a great year for the football club, crowned by the first team winning the RUR Cup. The club also enjoyed the second highest average attendance in the league, second only to Eastbourne Town.

Mrs Norwood paid a glowing tribute to Mike Bradbury who stood down as a club director, for his outstanding work in ensuring the club gained FA Charter Standard status. Given the size of the club, up from 14 teams three years ago to 23 teams now, to co-ordinate managers on the various courses they had to attend in order for the club to achieve this status, was testament to his outstanding commitment and diligence.

Bradbury, along with director of football Mark Shutt were also the instigators in driving the club forward to reach community status three years ago.

Mrs Norwood briefly outlined the club’s five year plan with a permanent fix to the clubhouse roof a priority. She gave special thanks to those trades and volunteers associated with the club who pulled together to make interim repairs. She also acknowledged house builder Barratt Homes’ contribution of £1,000 plus a further £50 per house they sell up to 50 houses, to the roof fund.

A huge thank-you was also given to her board of directors for their hard work as well as all the managers and coaches of all the teams, bar staff and everyone involved with the club who as she reminded everyone, are all volunteers.

Club treasurer Steve Davies gave an optimistic treasurer’s report and although the club made an operating loss of £1,920 in the last financial year, the future looks positive. But he urged everyone not to miss opportunities to generate revenue and cited missed chances of income at several under games 23 games last season when there was not a volunteer to man the gate.

Two new directors were elected to the board because Mike Bradbury and Jez Avens both stood down. The latter because of business commitments and Mrs Norwood expressed her thanks for all the work Mr Avens had done over the years, including being the community club’s first chair. He will still continue to be involved with club running its 200 Club.

Club members and supporters Adam Jones and Stanley Bernard were voted onto the board, with the latter taking up the role of director responsible for compliance. Clive Blunt was elected as the club’s vice chair.

Mrs Norwood then outlined the club’s objectives which included:

To maintain Charter Standard.

Ensure football for all.

One single club to support all.

To raise £10,000 by July 2020.

To create a business plan for a 3G pitch.

To manage all complaints professionally and timely.

Unanimous support was given to all the objectives.

The new planned youth structure was then unveiled which will see acting youth chair Scott Burns recruit three youth vice chairs to lighten the administration workload. She also stressed the importance of youth managers or their representative attending the regular youth meetings and said that if a team was not represented at three consecutive meetings, regretfully that team would be withdrawn from the league. This criteria brings the youth meetings in line with the main board.

A social committee would be formed and Brett Powell agreed to chair this. Several people volunteered to join the committee.

Scott Burns gave his youth report and offered a huge thank-you to everyone involved with all the youth teams for giving up their time. He also made a special mention of the club’s five teams who won youth tournaments this season as well as those which made it to the semi-finals.

Director of Football Mark Shutt confirmed the club would be fielding five senior teams this season: under 18s, under 23s, third team, reserves and first team. He also thanked Clive Blunt for the good work and service he had put in in running the under 23 team last season and the under 21 team the season before. He announced that Dave Croydon, who had worked with Shutt for the past five seasons and Callum Wiltshire, the senior club captain for the past three seasons, would be taking over the role.

Mr Shutt also reported how well the academies were doing and that they were fulfilling their requirement by feeding youngsters into the club’s various youth teams. Additionally the girls’ academy has proved a huge success and as a result of this success the club will be fielding three girls’ teams this season at under 10, 12 and 15 levels.