Old Bristolians Westbury CC

Old Bristolians Westbury CC

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Chairman's Report

27 February 2023
Chairman's Report

Chairman’s report 2022

I am pleased to be writing this report with another full season of competitive league cricket behind us and it is of huge credit to the captains of this club that we have been able to fulfil a full season of fixtures for the 4 men’s and ladies teams when the overall trend is that clubs are struggling to put teams out consistently post covid.  Not that we haven’t had our challenges.  

On the field congratulations go to the men’s 4th team who have secured promotion to B&D division 12 despite having to concede 3 of the first 7 league fixtures.  It is a fitting way to end the 10 year reign of Craig Strachan and I know how proud he is of this team and its achievements this year.     

Elsewhere, the 1st team were not able to repeat the heroics of 2021 and have sadly dropped out of the WEPL structure.  While I know this is a disappointment for Russ and the team I am confident that next year we will be a lot more competitive in the B&D Senior Division and that a lot more enjoyment will come from winning more regularly.  

The 2nd team finished a comfortable 5th in B&D division 3 and had results gone their way over the last 2 or 3 weeks of the season the 3rd team might have enjoyed back to back promotions instead finishing 3rd in B&D division 9 just 13 points behind promoted Churchways.

The ladies team enjoyed a mixed season finishing towards the bottom of the league but with some fine performances with the bat from Maria and Rachel and with the ball from Charlotte King who took 5 wickets against Chipping Sodbury finishing with outstanding figures of 4 overs, 2 maidens, 5 wickets for 8 runs.   

My thanks as always go to the captains who have continued to work tirelessly to get teams out each week despite regularly having people not respond to availability requests on SPOND.  Availability is one of the major challenges we face each week and we have to make our captains lives easier – as mentioned above we again had to cancel three 4th team games this year due to lack of numbers and several other games were at risk so I implore all members to make sure that your availability is up to date early each week and if your situation changes please let you captains know as late pull outs are a captains worst nightmare.

My thanks also go to Steve Jacobs who secured our club’s main sponsor for the 2022 and 2023 seasons.  Peter reports that the funds have now come through so will be available to support the development of our youth programmes next year.   We are always looking for sponsors so please do not take this announcement as we are sorted – we can always use more funding to undertake development projects so if you think you could persuade your employer or anyone to sponsor us please let the committee know.

Off the field the club ran another superb All Stars programme with 80+ 5-8 year olds being  introduced to the games core skills while having a great deal of fun at the same time.  My thanks go to Steve and Rhiannon Jacobs who ran the programme this year.  Steve is likely to run the programme again next year and I have to stress how important to the club that we maintain this as it grants us access to ECB funding and other benefits.  Running All Stars requires a lot of volunteer assistance and this was again another of our challenges last year – we need people to help out and while I thank those who consistently made themselves available we were always hunting around for more in order to maintain the necessary ratios to run a safe session – if you see a call for assistance next year please lend a hand if you can – it’s only a couple of hours and is very rewarding.  

I would like to thank the committee consisting of Mike Dodson, Russ Baker, Dan Langan, Jon Sheeran, Craig Strachan, Maria Fowler, Stu MacArthur, Will Penny, Steve Jacobs, Peter Matthews, Connor Crane and your president; Phil Thorn who have all provided consistent and valued support throughout the year.  

Two of the longstanding committee members named above: Craig Strachan and Will Penny have been proposed for life membership of the club and I am delighted that both of these will be accepted at the AGM. Will has been heavily involved in all aspects of club life from running the bonus ball competition, part of the grounds committee, sports club liaison, Child Welfare officer, all stars volunteer, speaker of the 1st team fines court and 1st team regular to name but a few.  You all will have been encouraged relentlessly by him to attend social events which has been essential in bringing the clubs members together.  Craig has also been heavily involved in club life holding roles from youth coach, website construction, Spond administration and also Chairman.  He has secured funding for the aforementioned net refurb as well as grants to keep us going during covid as well as designing the tools and match day rules that kept us playing during the pandemic.  In addition to all of that he has captained the 4th team for the last 10 years and as such is most likely responsible for bringing a good number of you through into adult cricket.  Craig steps down with 166 wickets to his name and a record of 77 wins, 56 defeats and 2 promotions.  He made 122 appearances out of 168 scheduled games and I’m pretty sure that probably doesn’t include the 34 cancelled/abandoned/conceded games some of which he would no doubt have been playing in so you can see how committed he has been.  For me as chairman and for us as a club we have been lucky to benefit from his dedication and service and I am pleased to also name him Clubman of the year for the 2nd time while I’ve been Chairman.    

For too long this club has relied on a very small group of dedicated volunteers who have formed the committee and put in countless hours to ensure that we all enjoy our cricket each year.  This year, several of those long standing committee members will be standing down at the AGM and I have written in the past about how thinly the committee is stretched which has probably held the club’s development back.  I have been encouraged therefore that a recent call to arms has seen 8 new club members agree to be part of next years committee in some capacity.  This doesn’t mean that all roles are filled and several more of you will be approached.  The first job of the new committee is to establish how the roles will be assigned and what new roles will be created.  We still need an army of volunteers to help support the committee so please do not wait to be asked, if you have something to give then I encourage you to get stuck in.  

There are a lot of things going on in the close season to give you better facilities next year and the refurb of our outdoor net facilities will be completed before we start outdoor training in April so please get plenty of use out of this facility.  Indoor pre-season training will resume in January and we are trying a new venue and a new night which I hope will make it easier for more of you to attend.  

Yours,

Ross Dallimore

Chairman

OBWCC.



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