The motion, which might see two teams wiped from the Newcastle competition, could have a massive affect on the Maitland and District Cricket Association, forcing the first change to clubs for more than 20 years.

The last change came in 1987-1988, when Thornton was promoted from club cricket to district cricket and Northern District amalgamated with Bolwarra to form Northern Suburbs.

Raymond Terrace have had their name in the ring for a slot in the Newcastle competition the past few years and remain in the hunt.

The Newcastle association has not dismissed the possibility of Raymond Terrace or other clubs from outside the current 12-team format playing a part in a new-look competition.

“This is our first major night to sit down and go through club by club ... we may look at expansion, but at this stage it is not with one club in particular,” Newcastle association president Paul Majoribanks said.

“Raymond Terrace will not be on the agenda, but the issue of expansion will be.

“We need to look at our current 12-team structure and our internals before expanding ... but Raymond Terrace could be one of those options (if we expanded).”

Maitland association president Wayne Trappel remained unfazed by the proposal.

“We have talked about this before, when Raymond Terrace first started having discussions with Newcastle,” Trappel said.

“We put a feeler out to district clubs and one-day clubs ... and there was a bit of interest from a few A-grade clubs at the time.

“If Raymond Terrace did go to Newcastle, the biggest thing for us would be losing a big one-day cricket club to district competition. “If not, we would have to look at moving from an eight team competition to a six team district competition or a seven team competition with a bye.”

Trappel said he was confident the competition could withstand the changes, but would prefer the current structure to stay in place.

“It is actually in our constitution to have eight district sides but we would work it out,” he said. “The structure at the moment (home and away season with a combination of one and two day matches) is ideal.”

Tonight’s meeting in Newcastle comes at the same time struggling Maitland club Weston and Cessnock club Kurri Kurri have met to discuss the possibility of merging

and playing in Maitland for the 2010-2011 season.