First of all, I’d like to congratulate you for making it through the festive period. It’s a tough time, all that eating, drinking and not knowing what day it is, but well done – you survived!
As we plough ahead into 2019, let me wish you all a Happy New Year, and from a club perspective, if it’s anything like 2018 we’re set for a great year ahead, and one which I’m extremely excited to for. Right, as I’m sure a few of you will be feeling rather delicate after last night, I’ll keep this message as “light” as I can do…

Looking back at December, it was a fairly eventful one for me personally as I took the plunge and packed in the safety net of full time employment. This will allow me the opportunity to dedicate my time, not into club business but into a business idea I’ve been mulling over for a number of years now. I’ll share more as it unfolds in the coming weeks, but let’s just say, a lot of people will be quite envious as it’s centred around beer!!

On the club front, it’s been another busy month as we finalised the deal with our new kit suppliers Macer who will supply our on and off-field apparel (posh word for kit!) for the next three years. Having seen some of their samples, you won’t be disappointed as it’s of the highest quality and there’s a great range as well which you can order via the online shop (click HERE). Not only are we changing suppliers, we also have the opportunity for a new main sponsor as well as other options available on other areas of the shirts. We’ve got a number of ‘feelers’ out already with some local businesses but I could really do with a hand as we try to attract new sponsors. If anybody thinks they can help, please get ion touch with me as it’d really help me personally share the workload and there’s also reductions on offer on your membership for people who bring in new sponsors. One of the downsides in a change of supplier and sponsor is that we don’t want our senior playing members to feel forced into buying a new playing shirt so we fund these for you – but, this comes at quite a significant cost (c.£2,000) so this is why it’s so important we find sponsors to help cover the costs.

The other thing myself, Tom Marsland, Nigel Sharrock and Andy Roberts have been working on is strengthening the senior playing squad and the latest addition is Connor Smith. More details about Connor can be found HERE, and having spoken with him over Skype he seems a decent bloke who’ll fit in really well and I’m looking forward to welcoming to the club when he arrives in April. As we look ahead to Winter nets which start in a couple of weeks, I’m hopeful they’ll be more additions to strengthen throughout the club.

Looking ahead to what January holds in store, as well as Winter nets starting, the main focus will be a meeting we have planned with our landlords, Leverhulme Estates where we will have the opportunity to share with them the latest update of our 5 year ‘strategic plan’. I’ll report back more next month as to how the meeting goes.

So, to close I thought I’d share with you a few words I took from a book I’ve been reading (and can highly recommend), The Exhaustive Guide to Club Cricket – “Cricket clubs offer a sense of identity, a world where you can escape and where it doesn’t matter what you do for a living – you are all equal”. Sound familiar?