It’s always a challenge waking up after the ‘marquee weekend’ as the adrenalin that has kept me going for the last couple of days has subsided but with 36 hours “rest” I can look back on what was a truly memorable couple of events. Despite the fact that the lead up to the event is frantic, and especially the Friday which is an endurance test as I was down at the club at 6am setting out the tables and chairs, I absolutely love this weekend and it’s great to be able to “showcase” the club at its best. Ricky Tomlinson was an absolute star, and a really nice fella to boot as he entertained the 240 guests with great support from Sean Styles. Having had the privilege to catch some time with him before the event it was great to hear him converse just like you or I would and I thoroughly enjoyed his company. To round the weekend off, on Saturday night we had nearly 200 people in the marquee partying the night away. All in all, a great weekend for the club not only in terms of people enjoying themselves but also the funds it raises which really helps us in our efforts to deliver the best possible facilities for our members.

Keeping on the ‘social’ theme, last week I was absolutely delighted with the attendance at our inaugural Ladies Day where we saw around 30 guests enjoy an ‘afternoon tea’ during the 1st XI game versus Macclesfield. A massive thanks to my wife Debbie and Elle Dixon who put on a fantastic event and I’m not sure how much cricket the ladies actually saw but they all seemed to enjoy themselves – that might have had something to do with the gin cocktails though!!! It certainly gives us something to build on as this will now most definitely become and annual fixture in the social calendar.

It's not often I get the opportunity to reflect on a period of decent weather, but the recent hot spell has certainly put the memories of the wet weeks at the start of the season to bed. Not to forget those, and especially one of the areas which causes us a lot of pain is the trees over by the scoreboard which stop so much light getting onto that area of the ground and at times rendering it out of action. I’ve had some very productive discussions with Cllr Tony Smith and there is a team assigned by the council to assess the trees and come up with a plan of action to help us out. This is really encouraging given the volume of juniors we have on our ‘books’ where we are finding we need every available blade of grass for them to practise on Friday evenings.

In terms of club administration. a couple of weeks ago we had our Clubmark assessment by Graeme Rickman from Cheshire Cricket Board. For those unaware of what Clubmark is Sport England's national accreditation scheme for high quality community sports clubs and stands for higher standards of welfare, equity, coaching and management. Whilst I’ve always been confident we meet the desired standards, the feedback we received from Graeme after what was a very thorough assessment was extremely encouraging. Whilst we won’t find out if we have retained our accreditation for another few weeks, I certainly left the session feeling positive.

And to close, at the half way point of the season I can look on with pride as to how well all four teams have performed. To have four of our five senior sides challenging at the top of their respective leads is a fantastic achievement and one which demonstrates how strong we are throughout the club. It’s not just the eleven players that take the pitch that have made this happen, it’s everybody involved off the pitch as well as without the support that you all give we wouldn’t be where we are.

Keep it going guys and let’s have an equally successful second half of the season.

Cheers
Jez