Chairman of Junior Golf John Jewsbury then made his presentation on what went on in 2005 and plans for 2006.

Firstly John told the meeting that the new handbook on Junior Golf (the revamp of the Children in Golf publication - CIG) was not ready yet. He then covered the setting up of the new management structure in late Winter 2004-5, to take over from the very intensive schedule of previous Chairman of Junior Golf Brian Fish.

That team of John Simpson (Boys 1st Team Manager), Antony Gascoigne (U16s), Dick Ferry (Coaching) had worked very well and for 2006 would be joined by Stephen Mayor who would be working on the JoM. Thanks were expressed to President Jim Dean, who had attended virtually every match, to new County Secretary Graham Hayes for all his help in every department, and to David Morgan for all he does with the Warwickshire Web Site.

The huge successes of 2005 were detailed, the highlight being second place in the EGU County Finals, and included the 13 shot win in the Midlands Qualifier and a 5th consecutive 4 Counties win. Comparing the 193 clubs of the winning County of Yorkshire to our 52, John made special mention of the consistent quality of our Juniors, and noted the special talents of last year's Boys Captain Andy Sullivan who now has the EGU recognition he fully deserves.

At U16s level, the last match of the year was against an undefeated Nottinghamshire team, a match Warwickshire won 16-2. An 8 year old shot 91 off the back tees at North Warwickshire. Jack Sant played for England at U16 level whilst Rory Kirwan and Ben Bernamont tied for second at the England Schools and both won England Schoolboy Caps. These three players are also able to play Junior Golf for the County in 2006, the County Centenary.

For this year, there are 7 players of handicap 1 or better, and over 30 players who are off 6 or lower, many of whom can play Junior golf for the next two years.

The Union Executive are to propose Chris Doughill (Stoneleigh Deer Park) as Boys Captain for 2006 and Andrew Geraghty as U16s Captain, Andrew being undefeated in both singles and foursomes in 2005 and the last U15s Champion.

The Junior Management team and the Executive are fully aware of the need to continue the work on developing Junior opportunities and have made a number of changes to the structure of County Competitions, to fit in with the EGU age structures of national championships.

This will mean that the Boys Championships (Kenilworth GC - 4th August) is now only open to Juniors offering more opportunities to Juniors (The U21s has been discontinued) and there is now an U16s (to be played at Nuneaton on 14th August), and the U15s will become the U14s (played as usual at North Warwickshire on 8th August).

There is a new U21s Par 3 Championship, open to anyone even if they don't have a handicap, which has been very kindly sponsored by Young Masters and is hosted at Stoneleigh Deer Park. This will be on 12th April.

The next Agenda item was the Warwickshire Schools, a short presentation made by David Morgan who is Schools Secretary. David announced that the date of the Schools will be Tuesday 11th April and played at Ingon Manor. There will be the usual Boys and Girls Gross Championships, the Nett Trophy, qualifying for the English Schools Team Championships, and for the McPartlin Trophy which is for mid handicappers (12-24). Full details will accompany the Entry Forms which will be posted on this site in mid February.

Dick Ferry then covered the programme of coaching he has looked after for in 2005-2006 and for nearly two decades. This year the numbers of Juniors who have been to see the County Coached Neil McKewan and Andy Dunbar have been doubled and last week included a first group of U10s, whose abilities very much impressed the coach for that session Andy Dunbar.

The next speaker was Sharon Heeley who is part of the Joint Officer Network for the EGU and ELGA. Sharon covers eight counties for the England Golf Partnership in implementing the Whole Sport Plan which is part of a sports wide push for one network of governing bodies for every sport.

The funding that will come from Sport England is mainly for Elite player development. Development funding comes from National Bodies.

There are three key initiatives -

'Start' - getting people involved in golf from ages 8-80

'Stay' - supporting golf clubs - things like the Golf Mark initiative

'Succeed' - helping Elite players in the transition from top level Amateur Golf to the Professional ranks.

Sharon also included the 'Get into Golf' web site in her presentation which includes initiatives to help with member recruitment, and with particular mention of the need to find more Girls (U18s).

There was detail on the linking program to take school and college students to golf clubs and Sharon provided detail of the two grants available to clubs for offering their own opportunities for coaching.

For free golf coaching to be available for any age group, clubs can apply via the EGU web site for aý200 grant (Two hundred UK pounds).

For a Junior Coaching grant, a club must match the ý125 (UK pounds) available from the EGU with ý125 of their own commitment. The money must provide 10 hours of coaching and the grant is available retrospectively and clubs have to provide details of how the funds have been spent.

Sharon then went through the Golf Mark initiative, the National accreditation scheme which has been running for over two years. The initial scheme was directed specifically at Junior Golf and there is to be a new Golf Mark which is directed at Golf as a whole, not just Juniors. Thos clubs who already have Golf Mark will keep it for three years, irrespective of any work on what will be called the Club Golf Mark.

There will also be a new County Golf Partnership, mirroring the Start & Stay partnership with clubs.

Sharon then answered questions including on CIG.

She said that the resource pack had been met with 'mixed feelings' and 'some controversy'. The new version will not be available until at least the Spring as the CIG group are to conduct and questionnaire survey to Clubs.

Sharon stressed that child protection procedures are a must and that anyone in golf can benefit from attending one of the workshops that she runs. 'Transport', Sharon said, 'was a big issue.'

Once the revised handbook is approved, it will become part of Golf Mark.

The last Agenda Item was the new Junior Order of Merit, presented by John Jewsbury and David Morgan . Please see the nearby additional feature on this.

Questions from the floor followed and Dean Guy from Shirley asked all present to take note of the new Duke of Edinburgh Trophy, details of which will be circulated through to clubs in the next weeks. dean asked all clubs to try and make sure they enter their Juniors.

There is something very special about the event as the winning Junior, along with their Junior Organiser, and their Club Captain, will be invited to Buckingham Palace to receive the trophy from the Duke.

Stonebridge asked if there were any club who would be interested in setting up a match against the Clubs' growing Junior section. The club will consider joining one of the Junior Leagues but with 60 or so very interested new members, they would like to start some interclub competition on any basis.

There was also news of changes to the qualification for the England Junior Club Championships where the finals are now run on a Nett basis. Prospective changes to how a Warwickshire Club will be put forward will follow with the entry forms to the Boys Championships.

The meeting closed with Warwickshire President thanking all for attending and wishing everyone a very successful 2006.