July 2019
Fixtures Secretary
I’m very pleased to say that my plea for a volunteer to take over as fixtures secretary didn’t fall entirely on deaf ears and that Ryan Pitt has stepped forward. We are extremely grateful to Ryan for offering to take it on.
Ryan’s first two tasks have been to get to grips with the new TTLeagues website that’s taking over from tt365, of which more later, and also sorting out the structure for next season.
Divisional structure
A total of 30 teams, the same as last year, have entered for next season. Netts and Felsted RBL have dropped a team while Rayne and Liberal have added one. Rayne asked to split their B team into two first division teams, which we were able to accommodate as Netts have dropped one of their first division teams (they were entitled to four after their D team won division two last season). This left us with nine second division teams and 11 in division three. The option of not relegating the bottom team in division two was ruled out as Felsted B have dropped out and likewise the possibility of promoting the runners-up in division three was not possible as Notley I have also effectively dropped out (last year’s F and I teams have merged to form a new division two team). Fortunately Netts D, who finished third in division three as Netts E, have agreed to take the place in division two, for which the league is grateful. The line-up will therefore be:
Division 1
Liberal A
Rayne A
Liberal B
Netts B
Netts A
Netts C
Rayne B
Black Notley A
Black Notley B
Rayne C
Division 2
Rayne D
Liberal C
Black Notley C
Black Notley D
Felsted RBL A
Nomads
Black Notley E
Rayne E
Black Notley F
Netts D
Division 3
Black Notley I
Netts E
Rayne F
Black Notley G
Rayne H
Black Notley H
Rayne G
Rayne I
Rayne J
Liberal D
Playing schedule
Following discussion at last season’s AGM, I consulted all division one captains to see if they favoured changing the schedule so that each team played each other twice rather than three times. The result was marginally in favour of staying with the current set-up, so each team will again play 27 matches.
Cups
Liberal’s A and B teams have not entered the team knock-out cup. The dividing line between the team and restricted cups will therefore fall between Nomads and Notley E on the list above (ie Nomads will play in the team KO cup and Notley E in the restricted).
TTLeagues
TTLeagues is the name of the new website Table Tennis England will be using next season in place of tt365. A proposal to the Table Tennis England AGM that the affiliation fee be reduced by £7 and that sum be paid to tt365 to continue their services was not passed. The league website will therefore move over to this one. The Braintree League has been one of those testing the new site and Ryan reports that so far it appears to be capable of emulating what tt365 used to provide. He and Alan McEwan, who remains in touch despite his move to Norfolk, will work on transferring material across from one site to the other.
The league’s new website will eventually be on http://braintree.ttleagues.com/.
Social secretary
The league has a social secretary for the first time since 2007 and we are very grateful to Jan Fuller for volunteering. If anyone has any ideas for a social event, please let me know and I will pass it on to Jan.
General secretary
This is probably a forlorn hope but the league is still without a general secretary. I am currently filling the role as a contact with TTE, Essex etc while committee members are taking it in turns to take the minutes at meetings. I would be very grateful, and they would be very relieved, if someone would like to volunteer to help us out. Any offers to the address below.
Ron Fosker
Chairman