OWCC - 2019 season subs and new nets!

[David Hagger - OWCC Secretary]

Hello everyone,

It is only a few weeks until the start of the new season and we hope that you are all looking forward to it.  We wanted to reach out to you with regards to a few important topics.     

Last September Whitgift School took over the maintenance of the grounds.  We now have 2 permanent grounds staff (Andy and Ben) compared to one person who was part time with the previous company.  They are here Mon-Fri (8am to 4.30pm) and 3 hours on Saturday mornings (during the cricket season only).  We are already seeing the diffence that this has made to the grounds over the winter period.  They have been doing a lot of work and the Winter sports teams are very impressed.  They are very friendly and our cricket squares are looking very good.  They are also looking after all of the grounds where as the previous company only looked after the playing areas.  This means that they will be maintaining the banks (no more balls lost in long grass!), bushes, trees etc. 

Over the next few years we should see real improvements in the quality of our grounds and there cannot be many other clubs in the area who will have such good grounds!  In case you have not been up to Whitgift School their grounds are immaculate!  We have also had a donation of some new boundary ropes for both the bottom and top pitches. So players will no longer need to put out the flags on the top pitch!

Some more good news is that we will soon start using our brand new out door cricket nets.  Thanks to some very kind donations we have three 34m in length cricket bays, fully enclosed in a cage with extra thick netting.  Access is via a locked side gate.  The nets are 4m in height which will please the spinners in our teams!  The nets have been built by an ECB approved company.  The nets will be available for use during the week to all paid up club members and will be of great benefit to the colts and adults in our club.  If you have not paid your subs you will not be able to use the nets (this is an extra incentive to pay your subs!).  We need to make sure that we all look after our nets and we will publish a small rules pamphlet shortly which will explain the dos and don'ts of using the nets.  If you see anyone misusing the nets please tell them to stop.

As the season is fast approaching it is time to start collecting club subscription payments from our members.  The subscriptions help pay for our share of the grounds maintenance costs.  With the significant improvement in the quality of our grounds maintenance and the construction of our new outdoor nets I hope that you will agree that you will be getting a much better bang for your buck this year.

Membership costs are below:

Adults membership is £220

Under 21s / full time student / not in full time employment (evidence required for latter two categories) – £110

You can pay using a new card machine which will be kept behind the bar and can be operated by a captain.  There will be a small form to fill in to make sure we can keep track of who has paid using it.  Or you can pay online using a bank transfer.  For security reasons we have not included the bank details in this email: please ask your manager, captain or someone on the committe for details.  Please include your name in the reference.

If you have any questions, please reach out to anyone on the comittee.  Role on the new season!

Thanks

Old Whits Cricket Committee