More Cricket Force and other information

Dear All,

A huge thank you to everyone who helped out during Cricket Force at the weekend, a great club effort: the new netting is now on the nets at Penns Place, the pavilion is gleaming the sight screens are up, the store tidied and a start has been made at The Heath.

Particular thanks to John Windebank for his coordination and organisation; Damian Broadhurst for his general support and spontaneous supply of equipment; Simon Dodd for ensuring that the water system at Penns was repaired in time for Cricket Force to take place; and to all who took part. At the risk of missing someone and then being reminded at regular intervals for the next few months, also thank you to those there on the day:

The Broadhursts, Turks, Anscombes, Mays, Thomas's, Childs, Chris Wood, Dave Squires, Richard Stephens, Dom Carson, Omar Iqbal, Tom Stratford-Tuke, Tom Stevens, Ash Spencer, William Spencer, Bablu Karthick, and all those I’ve forgotten!

There are still some jobs to be done to get everything totally ready of the beginning of the season, the first game is now under a fortnight away!

An update as to where we are with some of our other projects and work:

• The new covers for The Heath have been ordered and will hopefully be delivered in time for the first league weekend (9th May).

• The water hog for The Heath will be purchased this week.

• The new netting for the nets at Penns Place was put on Saturday (thank you to two colts Nicholas Ross and Tom Stratford-Tuke for securing the money for this through a youth fund).

• We plan to submit within the next 24 hours an application for an additional award (we already have one from the Lloyds Bank Community Fund) to undertake drainage improvement work at The Heath. Carolyn Warne will be interrupting her holiday tomorrow to upload the documentation for it to be in before midnight on the 31st March, thank you.  We have obtained critical support from English Heritage, Petersfield Town Council, West Sussex Archeology Group, Friends of Petersfield Heath and have also obtained a free geophysical survey that will take place during the first week of April.  

• The result of our Inspired Facilities bid to modernise The Heath pavilion will be known next month.

• Two weeks ago the England and Wales Cricket Trust awarded us over £2,250 to buy a new fridge, water boiler, dishwasher and glasswasher.  These will be purchased as soon as the money is transferred and we know the result of our Inspired Facilities application which may impact upon the specification.  

• The equipment purchased from Hardmoor sports ground was collected and delivered to us the week before last.  This would have been an even more complicated and complex operation without the support of Agincourt Contractors who provided all the manpower to make this happen.  Again, thank you to all of them but particularly Damian Broadhurst and Steve Bryant for organising this and their commitment when the scope of what we were doing ran into two full days. To cut a very long story short as a result we now have:

• 3 more sight screens at The Heath.
• A batting cage at Penns Place.
• A new scoreboard at Penns Place (so big even I can read it!). 
• 3 mobile covers at Penns Place.
• A power roller.
• A quantity of equipment for grounds maintenance and wicket preparation for both grounds. 

This is snapshot of what is going on and it has not even mentioned cricket: winter training for the boys has finished, although girls continues; senior training continues; the summer colts schedule has been arranged and will start on the 20th April; pre-season friendlies for the senior teams start in less than two weeks; we are gathering the evidence for the renewal of our Club Mark accreditation and there is more…...

I can’t express my gratitude enough to those key figures at the centre of all this work but I do promise an exciting season ahead with lots more opportunity to support the club on and off the field, the next opportunity is the Waitrose bag pack, this Friday (Good Friday), 3rd April 15, please contact Lisbeth Thomas (lisbeth.thomas@btopenworld.com).  

Kind regards,

James Stratford-Tuke.

Chairman,

Petersfield Cricket Club.