Sidmouth Running Club held its annual general meeting recently, writes Terry Bewes.

The last 12 months have been a resounding success for the club which continues to grow ever stronger.

A lot of this success is on the back of the work put in by the previous chair Helen Palmer from whom I took over last year. Helen steered the club through a difficult time in her usual calm and efficient manner.

She still keeps an eye on me, tapping her watch if I am going on to long on a Wednesday evening!

None of this would have been possible without the time and dedication of the leaders and coaches, not only in taking the runs but also the time they give in attending the various courses.

Of course the more the club grows the greater the call will be on them.

During the year we welcomed four new leaders Adam Marston-Price, Nigel Maeer, Tim Clay and David Lee.

Tim Mitchell is currently taking a four day coaches course which he finishes in June so he will be organising some form of training plan for the autumn with his newly found knowledge.

I would also like to express a vote of thanks to the committee for the work that they put in unseen on behalf of the members and in particular our secretary Jo Earlam.

Jo has been extremely busy this year but is always on the ball keeping us up to date on all the rule changes that affects us and taking the all-important meeting minutes.

Treasurer Sarah Burston, another lady with a busy life who keeps our account up to date but due to growing work and family pressure she is now standing down from the role. I would like to take this opportunity to pass on our appreciation of all the time she has given to the club in the role of Treasurer.

Naomi Garrick our social secretary never gives up trying to get the social side of the club going and it is an uphill struggle. This is an area I hope we can improve on in the coming year and we are arranging a barbecue here at Port Royal on Saturday, June 17. If you have any ideas for a social event please let Naomi know.

John Keast, our membership secretary spent a lot of last year getting to grips with the England Athletic Registration System.

This system is an extremely important tool to the club as it allows us access to email all our members in one hit - web-ed Rob Edwards.

I would challenge anybody to find another running club website that is as good and up to date as ours.

That in itself has had the effect of raising the profile of the club and the continuing increase in membership.

The time and effort he puts in is incredible, what I send him one day is usually on the site the next.

I cannot speak highly enough of him, not only with data input but sorting out any problem that arises with the system.