Pembrokeshire cricketers will make a beeline for Haverfordwest Cricket Club on Wednesday, February 28, for the annual general meeting of the County Club, starting at 7.30 pm. There will be some enforced changes at the top. Club president Stanley Richards stands down after completing his three-year term in office and will be succeeded by Maurice Cole, of Cresselly. A new secretary is needed to replace Geordie Fraser, of Llanddewi Velfrey, who was appointed last year, but was forced to resign later due to health problems. The post of county secretary is no longer an onerous one as many of the duties have been taken away and are carried out by other officers or members of the executive committee. The main role of the county secretary will be to serve the county executive committee in terms of preparing agenda and minutes, taking notes of meetings and dealing with general correspondence. Anyone interesting in obtaining further information about the post can contact one of the former secretaries, Bill Marchant, of Rosemarket, on (01646) 600974, or the county chairman, Dave Morris, of Fishguard, by telephoning (01348) 872969. Under a proposed rule change, the county executive committee will be given delegated powers to appoint or co-opt officers and there is every possibility that the appointment of county secretary could be made from the floor on the evening of the meeting. Help is also required in other directions such as advertising, sponsorship and editor of the county handbook and match programmes for cup finals. Again anyone interested in obtaining further information can telephone Bill Marchant or Dave Morris. Micky Phillips is standing down as Junior League organiser and will be replaced by Philip Tallett, of Stackpole Cricket Club. There are the usual resolutions tinkering with the rules of the County Club. One of the most interesting proposed changes is in relation to the award of draw points. A proposal by Haverfordwest Cricket Club would make it more challenging for the team's batting second to have a share of the draw points, but at the same time the bowling side will have to take 10 wickets to win the match. Under the proposal, the side batting second will receive five points if their total is within 10 runs of the side batting first and one point if the total is within 50 runs of that side batting first. As explained in last week's Observer, in 14 of the 15 drawn matches, the runs differential between the two teams was within 70, 11 of the matches were within 60 runs and 11 also within 50 runs. Only seven matches were within 40 runs, two within 30 runs, also two within 20 runs and only one within 10 runs. Under the proposed rule change, the side batting second would obtain one point if their total is within 50 runs of the side batting first and would only obtain five points if their total is within 10 runs of the side batting first. If the Haverfordwest proposal gets the nod, based on last season's Division One scores, 11 teams would have obtained one point and only one team would have obtained five points. Fishguard Cricket Club would like to see a change in the rules to prevent clubs packing their second or third teams with first team players to avoid relegation or to gain promotion. Under the Fishguard proposal, for the last two league fixtures of the season no more than two players who played in the previous league match for their club in the higher division shall to allowed to play for any team in that club in a lower division fixture. This proposal deserves consideration to avoid the temptation for clubs to abuse the league system. Very often, first team players under-perform when playing for the second or third teams of their clubs and many clubs have found to their cost over the years that the artificial propping up of lower division teams does not pay dividends in the long run. On the other hand, sometimes clubs have to call on players from lower teams to fill their first team because of player unavailability through illness, injury or work commitments. In such circumstances, it would be a little unfair to penalise those clubs for the last two league fixtures of the season. Another interesting proposal is to give the executive committee power to change the venue of Harrison Allen Bowl fixtures where due to exceptional circumstances a fixture cannot be completed within five days of the scheduled date. This problem has arisen a number of times in recent seasons because of the effect of a prolonged period of rain on some of the wetter grounds in the county. After two or three postponements, everyone is keen for the match to be played and it makes sense for the venue to be switched to the ground of the team drawn to play away.