Firstly, thanks are due to a great many people. Not only for the day to day running of the Club but also for navigating all the challenges from Covid over the last two seasons. So thank you to Ground staff, Pavilion staff, Committee members, Captains, Fixture Secretaries, Coaches, Newsletter contributors, Age Group Managers, Beer festival volunteers, Cricket festival volunteers, Umpires and Scorers. Also, thank you to our sponsors; Ash Construction, SI Capital, KES Witley, RGS Guildford, Southern Grove, Andertons, Pefect Pitch marquees, West Berkshire Brewery and Hogs Back Brewery.
I would also like to specifically thank Olly Birts for all his hard work and commitment during his first year as our first ever Director of Cricket. We have already benefited significantly from Olly’s role and, more importantly, can see the potential to do so much more in the future. Thank you to David Watts for all his commitment and tenacity delivering our new Lease which secures Woodbridge Road as an ECB first class ground for GCC for the next 75 years and to Chad Murrin for leading our key fundraising events, the Cricket and Beer festivals, so well and successfully this year after the cancellations of 2020. In addition, thank you to Tom Bancroft and Matthew Finnegan for all their hard work as they step down respectively from the Hon Sec and Junior Chair roles. Best wishes and thank you to Sammy Laurent and Nick Gooding as they take their places.
On the field we have had many successes. Our playing membership is up 20% over 2019, we played more 4th X1 matches than ever before, the Women’s 1st X1 won their league, the u17’s and u10’s reached their finals days, the u14’s won their cup final, we fielded our first ever girls u15 team, established our first ever All Stars training group for 5-8 year olds (25 participants), held three summer coaching camps, delivered a significant increase in 1 to 1 coaching and had extensive representation across several Surrey CAG teams. Also, in between the rain, we had much fun at Junior training sessions and many beautiful evenings at Peper Harow.
At the same time, we are ambitious to do better and develop the Club further. From listening to you all we need to focus our attention on various challenges. Amongst others, they are; Junior integration into Senior teams, selection transparency, continuous development of our coaching offer, net facilities, our second ground and a step change in the social culture throughout the Club.
We have small groups looking at all of these including longer term financial planning and membership categories. We intend to reduce our non playing membership categories to one and then build up that Social membership around a focused and attractive package. You will hear more from us in due course.
We are always open, and need, support and help from the membership. Specifically, right now, we are looking for people to help with the following;
– planning and organising social events
– helping out with the website
– helping the club bring in more money through sponsorship means
No experience or expertise is required. We are just after people who can offer a little time to help with pushing forward these matters for the club.
As ever, thank you for your continued support and feedback. Please continue to do this. As said on many occasions, this is YOUR club and we are keen to organise and develop it as well as we can.
As they say, ‘Winter Well…!’
Best wishes to you all.
James Geffen
GCC Chairman
