YORKSHIRE CRICKET BOARD ANNUAL REPORT OF THE DIRECTORS FEBRUARY 2015 1 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE YORKSHIRE CRICKET BOARD, 2014 Executive Summary 2014 will no doubt go down in the annals of history as the year of major change in Yorkshire Cricket and in particular for the Yorkshire Cricket Board. Ian Chappell (Chief Executive) retired on 31st March 2014 after a long and very distinguished service of 30 years for the Yorkshire Cricket Association and of course the Yorkshire Cricket Board. Tributes and presentations have been presented to Ian who also won the Lifetime Achievers Award at the YCB OSCAs for 2014. Further tributes will be made in the handbook. Ian’s departure has obviously left a void and four people have now picked up the work Ian had religiously done for many years. Andrew Watson has now become Executive Director of YCB. The YCB now have 8 Directors and will oversee the areas of work. Mark Arthur (YCCC CEO), Chris West (NYSD League), Jane Hildreth and Umar Rafiq have joined the existing directors, Philip Radcliffe (Chair), Albert Pattison (Vice Chair), Ian Cotterhill and Andrew Watson (Executive Director). Yorkshire Cricket During the last year Mark Arthur, David Gent (Chair of the YCF) and Andrew Watson have worked together so successfully to enable open dialogue, and mutual trust, that we have established “Yorkshire Cricket”. By starting to share human resources and back-office work, joint services and programmes are evolving through the very close day-to-day working relationship the Board has with the County Club and the Yorkshire Cricket Foundation at all levels. We are now departments of Yorkshire Cricket, but will keep our identities. The General Members of the Yorkshire Cricket Board have met on three occasions with the Board of Directors meeting every 6 weeks. The Board has considered a wide range of issues including new ECB initiatives and work overload. Once again all decisions have been unanimous. The challenge ahead is the continuing ECB funding agreement with Sport England focusing on Adult Player Retention, Disability, and South Asia communities. Details are as itemised later in this report. However, the report must commence with tributes to those people who have passed away since the last report. Farid Karolia passed away during the summer after a long illness. Farid’s work in the BME communities of Batley/Dewsbury especially at Mount CC and Batley CC has been well documented and recognised by YCB. Farid won the YCB Services to BME Cricket OSCA and also the National Asian Awards OSCA for his services. Jim Harkin passed away in November. Jim worked as a senior teacher in PE at Dinnington School for over 25 years and a coach for YCB, Nottinghamshire CB and Manager of the Yorkshire Senior Schools Association U19’s at the St. Peter’s week for many years. Rob Wiltshire passed away in December. Rob umpired in the NYSD league for many years, being a very good umpire who was always helpful to young players. He served on the North Yorkshire Area Council with distinction as a very efficient secretary for 11 years. He also took on the role of child welfare officer which he continued with until his untimely death. Bernard Shaw passed away in mid-January following a long illness. He was a very well respected umpire who continued to umpire despite his illness. His work over many years within the area, in particular as chairman of the York/Scarborough Area Council, now NYE, was much valued. Full obituary tributes will be in the 2015 handbook. 2 Tributes During the year Ian Powell (CDM-North Yorks) and Reece Bird (CDM-East Yorks) left the YCB after many years service. Ian has moved to the Institute of Groundsmanship as a Regional Pitch Advisor following 12 years service with the Board. Reece moved to the MCC as a National Hub Manager. Reece gave us 8 years service. We are so sorry to lose them, but we thank them so much for all their hard work and their loyal service to Yorkshire Cricket and wish them well for the future. Finally a tribute goes to the Administration Staff and Development staff who have handled an extraordinary workload this year and borne the brunt not just of orchestrating the normal YCB development programmes, but also the main part of the planning process which has been long and very time-consuming especially Adult Player Retention, Disability and South Asian project planning and the Chance to Shine scheme. Overall this report follows previous year’s patterns with the reports of Sub-Committees, Forums, Working Parties and Area Cricket Councils following along with other County Associations. There may be some changes to small parts of the report before it is submitted to the Board in March to bring up-to-date some developments. 1. Structure of the Board This can be found elsewhere in the report. The General Members of the Board who meet 3 times a year are: John Jennings, Martin Kingston, Ian Livesey, Brian Lymbery, Stephen Pickles, (all representing YCB Council (recreational cricket), David Ryder, Ian Dews, Mark Arthur, Andy Dawson (Yorkshire CCC), David Allan (Yorkshire Charitable Youth Trust), Ian Hales (YCBCA), Glyn Pearson (YCBACO), Richard Jones (Women’s Cricket) and Keith Dickson (for Yorkshire Schools) and the Directors. The YCB Council (for Leagues, Area Councils and CDGs) has five Area Councils as members with each aligned to a County Sport Partnership area. Due to their size West Yorkshire and North Yorkshire also have East and West sub-divisions. The Council nominates the five members as General Members of the Board to represent the needs of recreational cricket. It has also been decided that there will continue to be an annual meeting of Leagues etc. to place the Board Annual report before them for discussion and questions and to provide information with presentations. They further the needs of cricket in their areas and cultivate partnerships in the area to benefit cricket. It is believed a minimum of 3 meetings a year is essential. The main focus has been the results of the National Player Survey and Adult Player Retention. It has also been noted that there has been low attendance at some Area Council meetings. 2. England and Wales Cricket Board The ECB National Strategy for Cricket – Champion Counties - was agreed between ECB and Sport England and the Memorandum of Understanding was signed in 2013. As indicated below this has created ring-fenced funding for Adult Player Retention and Disability programmes and with funding for South Asia projects in both Leeds and Bradford. 3. Funding The Board is very grateful to the ECB Trust, The Yorkshire Cricket Foundation, National Cricket Foundation (C2S), Sport England and Lord’s Taverners for their support. The Board is also very grateful to Yorkshire CCC Charitable Youth Trust for a further £10,000 and for other donations to help fund core activities and school visits. 4. Staffing and New Appointments During the year there has been a number of staffing additions or changes. Richard Wilkinson replaced Ian Powell as CDM for North Yorkshire and Joe Ashdown (who was the Community Coach for York) replaced Reece Bird as CDM for East Yorkshire. Rachel Hildreth has been appointed Community Coach for York and replaces Joe Ashdown. Other new Community Coach appointments: Grant White has been 3 appointed for Middlesbrough; Matthew Hurren (Scarborough & District), Tas Malik (Kirklees/Calderdale) and Charlie Roebuck (Disability Engagement Coach) All community coaches are funded through Chance to Shine and are on one year rolling contracts subject to funding. We welcome all the new staff to Yorkshire Cricket and hope that they have a long and happy career with us. In addition Paul Topham finished as Women’s Cricket Chairman in March 2014 and also Brian Wheeler as Women’s Cricket Committee secretary. Rob Clayton also stood down at the YCB CA AGM as secretary to the Coaches Association. Iain Mallett also finished as secretary of the YCBGA due to work commitments. Again we thank these volunteers most sincerely for their long service. 5. Development and Development Managers At the present time the YCB have Development Plans for Disability, Women’s Cricket, Black Minority Ethnics and Workforce Development plans for Volunteers , Coaches, Officials and Groundsmen together with increasing Adult Participation and Retention and facility development. With the changes in the ECB funding many of these have been renewed and new specific plans are now in place for the ring-fenced funding areas of Adult Player Retention, Disability and South Asian communities. Many schemes are catered for through Chance to Shine, Street Chance and other programmes with wards of High Indices of Multiple Deprivation being key targets. The CDMs, Managers and Community Coaches have prioritised quarterly work programmes to meet the requirements of ECB and Yorkshire Cricket and are worked out with Andrew Watson and this is working effectively. 6. Chance to Shine This has been a huge success across the county as Gareth Davis reports. 300 primary schools and 150 secondary schools took up the Yorkshire Cricket offer which includes visits to Headingley. Our thanks to all the clubs and community coaches, CDMs, but special thanks to Gareth Davis (Lead Officer) and Lawrence Walker for ensuring C2S is delivered. 7. Adult Participation/Retention Certainly, the theme of the day. Led by Richard Wilkinson we aimed at much more Indoor Cricket and a key target area was Higher and Further Education students with College Cricket and corporate bodies and full reports later in this document and the aims have been achieved. Outdoors there is more informal cricket including Taxi Driver leagues, Restaurant leagues, Mental Health leagues (Disabilities), Tape Ball Leagues and informal matches on club grounds.