NWCF@Sawley & Long Eaton Park CC - The Movie

NWCF@Sawley & Long Eaton Park CC 'the movie' now available to members, supporters and volunteers from David Dooley [david.dooley1@talktalk.net or text 0788 419 6952] for just £2.50. Relive the magic of the day - 16 minutes of pure entertainment. Produced by Y8 students at Wilsthorpe Community School - they did a great job.

Event partners - their contribution

NatWest CricketForce@

Sawley & Long Eaton Park CC 

‘midlands showcase club 2011’

Event partners—their contribution

NatWest – provided 300 T-shirts while 30 staff members attended on the big day

England & Wales Cricket Board – provided the inspiration and arranged for former England players Mike Gatting, Denis Amiss, Michael Vaughan and Test players Ajmal Shahzad, Jenny Gunn and Katherine Brunt to visit the event.

Derbyshire Cricket Board – provided encouragement and guidance throughout event.

Derby College provided construction, decorating and stewarding kills for the event. Laid the patio, re-laid disabled access ramp, constructed the access ramp to the main pavilion store room, built the new brick balustrade and enlarged the social area in the GD Pavilion. Decorated the main pavilion inside and out. Provided 24 stewards on the big day.

Notts Sport— resurfaced the non turf practice pitch.

Barry White  Builders—provided invaluable expertise and advice throughout the event as well as volunteering on the day.

Westerman Homes – supplied the 3000 bricks required to build the new balustrade at the GD Pavilions and the new access ramp to the store room at the main pavilion.

Henshaw Building Contractors Ltd – donated 120 paving slabs to enable the club to enlarge the patio outside the main pavilion.

Lafarge Aggregates & Concrete UK – provided 20 tonnes of aggregate for the base of the enlarged patio and sand for the new brickwork.

Midland Plant—collected the aggregate and delivered it to the club in their 8-wheel tipper truck. 0115 973 3333

Adkins Bakery – donated 60 dozen rolls for the BBQ – keeping the army of volunteers feed on the big day.

Gary Dundas Butchers – local butcher who has provided all the burgers and sausages for the volunteer’s BBQ.

Tesco Stores, Long Eaton – provided a great deal of the refreshments being served in the hospitality area.

Trent Shop fitters – built the three new trophy cabinets for both pavilions.

Smart Kitchens – supplied a new kitchen in GD Pavilion which was fitted by club volunteers.

Danatile—tiled the cellar and kitchen area of the main pavilion.

Wilko – supplied new crockery and cutlery for cricket teas at the GD Pavilion, paint for the changing room floors and a staff volunteer.

IKEA—donated picture frames for junior team montages.

Manor Pharmacy – provided first aid kits, competition prizes and staff volunteers on the day.

Jewson – provided all the cement and building sand for all the building work.

Taylor Maxwell – transported the bricks to club pavilions on West Park

Concept Painting Contractors – donated all the paint and painting accessories to decorate the main pavilion.

A1 Secure Fabrications Ltd – supplied the security grills and doors for the GD pavilion and down pipe protectors at main pavilion.

Long Eaton Plant – sponsored two skips for the event

Roberts Skips – special deal for the three skips used during event

John A Stephens – provided substantial amount of building materials including 150m² insulation and 80 paving slabs.

Dulux Decorator Centre – provided a substantial amount of paint and decorating materials for the GD Pavilion refurbishment –0115 973 5040

Sinbad Tool Hire – provided props for holding up roof on GD pavilion before new brick balustrade built—0115 923 5111

John Gregory Painter & Decorator – provided painting advice, helped prepare the GD Pavilion for decorating while supervising the painting on the day.

Owzat Cricket – provided prizes for the event quiz—0800 542 8711

Travis Perkins – supplied plasterboard for the refurbishment of the female dressing room—0115 946 8100

Classic Drinks – supplied some bar drink stock for the day—0174 483 1400

Gunn & Moore—provided 50 miniature bats for the autograph hunt—www.gunnandmoore.com

PKF Accountants & Business Advisers – provided the administration team to help the smooth running of the event.

Attenborough Industrial Doors—Supplied and installed three roller shutters at the GD Pavilion to protect our new windows.

Oak Tree Windows—Fitted three UPVC windows in the GD Pavilion—giving some natural light in this pavilion.

Brownett Ltd—provided event signs, event documentation, event partner ‘thank you’ certificates and volunteers throughout the event.

Redmond Builders–helped with the construction work at the GD Pavilion during the pre-event activity day.

Event Supporters

 Wilsthorpe School – producing a video of the entire event – before, today and after – with the help of Graham Forde’s G-Force Media – cost of the production funded by school supporters. Also producing an array of artwork to decorate the newly decorated pavilions.

4^th Attenborough Brownies – serving the refreshments in the hospitality area.

3^rd Long Eaton Scouts – provided and erected the marquees in the hospitality area.

Long Eaton Dawnbreakers Rotary Club – sending a working party down on the day.

Derbyshire County Cricket Club– sent Freddy the Falcon to the event.

DHL— provided some staff volunteers on the big day.

Funding Partners

Sport England—provided funding to purchase two sight screens, mobile practice cage & rain cover —all assembled on the day by volunteers.

EON@Radcliffe-on-Soar Power Station—provided a donation of £300 to help fund security grills and doors at GD Pavilion.

Erewash Sport—Community Sports Network [CSN] - provided a grant of £375 to assist in the refurbishment of a changing room at for our growing girls membership.

The Lord’s Taverners—agreed to a grant of £3000 towards the re-surfacing of our non turf practice pitch which was over 25 years old.

Several club Vice Presidents made personal donations to help fund developments.

NWCF - Those little things perhaps you did not notice on the day!

 It was perhaps easy to notice the major works undertaken during our NatWest CricketForce@Sawley & Long Eaton Park CC - but what about those those little jobs which have been annoying some members for ages. Well have a look at this list.

*Social area of main pavilion insulated and loft boards fitted for much needed storage.

[insulation acquired for social area of GD – but still to be fitted]

*Coping stones on brick veranda cemented back in place at main pavilion.

Beautifully tiled in grey slate - Dean is delighted

*Cellar area and kitchen in main pavilion slate tiled.

*paving slab step secured at back entrance to main pavilion.

*Downpipes replaced and aluminium protectors fitted at main pavilion 

*Roof of main pavilion cleaned especially the drainage valleys.

*additional clothes peg in main pavilion umpires room

*sight screen at main pavilion repaired.

Now the 3rd XI can have their sight screen back

*oven in main pavilion and ladies toilets thoroughly cleaned.

*old dart board and chalk board removed from GD pavilion.

*new concrete floor in toilet of home changing room in main pavilion.

*multiple water leaks in GD pavilion sorted.

Attention to detail - even an extra clothes peg in the main pavilion umpoires room.

Oh! What a day!

Around 200 volunteers, 40 guests and 60 children enjoyed a remarkable day improving and refurbishing the cricket club’s facilities. About £60,000 of work was completed on the day from painting the changing rooms, erecting some new sight screens to enlarging the patio outside the main pavilion.

The volunteers with gifts from the England & Wales Cricket Board

The local volunteers were joined on the day by former England captains Michael Vaughan and Mike Gatting, current England test player Ajmal Shahzad and Women Test cricketers Jenny Gunn and Katherine Brunt. Apart from helping the volunteer s Jenny and Katherine opened the refurbished changing room especially for the female members of the club.

Ajmal Shahzad, Jenny Gunn, Katherine Brunt & Michael Vaughan - moving the soil from the enlarged patio

The event was formally opened by former England opening batsman Dennis Amiss, the Deputy Chairman of the England & Wales Cricket Board who presented the club with a print signed by all the captains of the county championship competition. Michael Hopkins, chairman of Sawley & Long Eaton Park CC, also accepted gifts from Bowden Ltd of a Bowdry ‘water hog’ and from Stuart Covers a single wicket rain cover – both gifts should enable more cricket to be played on rain affected days.

Later in the day Jenny Gunn and Katherine Brunt opened the refurbished girls dressing room complete with two mirrors.

The club, who gained promotion to the Derbyshire County Cricket League Division 1 last season, look set for a successful season and bright future.

How our event partners are are adding value to their participation in NatWest CricketForce.

Not enough partner organisations are capitalising on the publicity opportunities presented by NatWest CricketForce relying solely on the efforts of the cricket club they have helped to generate publicity. Yet a variety of opportunities are available to them.  

Inviting employees to follow the planning ‘ups and downs’ of the event by joining the blog accompanying the event [http://sawleycc.blogspot.com] , signing up to the Facebook page covering the event [www.facebook/Sawley & LE Park CC]and following tweets about the event [dooleydi] are just three possibilities.

Some event partners of NatWest CricketForce@Sawley & Long Eaton Park CC have agreed to be interviewed on the day by Y8 students from Wilsthorpe Community School, who are making a DVD record of the event.

Some partners are inviting employees to participate by volunteering on the day—through their intranet and company newsletters.

Finally some organisations are issuing press releases to their trade magazines announcing their participation in the event. Others are preparing post event news releases.

An example of an organisation capitalising on their support of NatWest CricketForce@Sawley & Long Eaton Park Cricket Club is Lafarge Aggregates and Concrete Ltd who have placed a news report in the media centre on their corporate web site – have a look go to www.lafarge.co.uk>media centre>news releases>Lafarge backs cricket’s big weekend.

NatWest CricketForce and the contribution of communication technology.

Technology has played a very important role in the process of NatWest CricketForce@Sawley & Long Eaton Park Cricket Club from using the www.play-cricket.com database to www.twitter.com and www.blogger.com.

The launch meeting did not generate an attendance which our membership should have produced. One of the issues was we did not have membership details to contact them electronically. In the knowledge we would have to revisit the membership through another meeting we set about cleansing, updating and redesigning our www.play-cricket.com member’s database. We chose to use that database because it was relatively simple to classify people, dividing them into meaningful groups, in our case – seniors [65], juniors [88], supporters [55], vice-presidents [24] and partners [28].

FREE to most cricket clubs

Apart from updating the contact details of members we also included supporters, a group of people closely associated with the club who had never previously been included in club communications. The database development also resulted in the club updating its information on our vice presidents while providing a method of speaking to them – which had previously relied on letter writing. In a similar manner NatWest CricketForce event partners were included on the database. As the database neared completion we had the details over 260 people – a proper reflection of the club’s community.

Apart from the quantity of people we could now communicate with we were also able to send ‘specially designed messages’ to each group including points relevant and appropriate for a particular group [e.g. partners]

The club revitalised its Facebook group page with postings about NatWest CricketForce. As the group grew, while all sections of the club membership was representated, it was apparent that teenagers were significant users of Facebook – traditionally a group which the club found difficult to engage with.

The immediate posting of news items on Facebook brought excitement to NatWest CricketForce and helped build and maintain momentum for the event. Asking members to post NatWest CricketForce postings on their ‘wall’ took our message to a wider audience, engaged these members in the event process and making it a topic of conversation through the Facebook ‘comments’ facility.

Shows club as modern and up to date

Facebook was also another method of acknowledging partner contributions while directing people to other NatWest CricketForce news sources through a live internet link to, for example, newsletters on the club’s web site – www.sawleycc.com. Finally its ability to highlight and announce events proved useful especially with its RSVP facility.

The realisation about the impact of new technology prompted the club to open a twitter account and send tweets [only 140 characters] of significant events – in the end 20 people were following our every move. Tweets convey excitement while the spread of smart phones means followers receive the message immediately on their handset. Like Facebook it requires nothing more than investment in time, and provides another opportunity to acknowledge partner donations and member contributions. Additionally it can be used to direct followers to other news sources for more detailed analysis and information. Incidentally Tweets and Facebook postings can be sent simultaneously using an application called www.tweetdeck.com

Helps people understand the club.

Perhaps the most interesting development was the construction of a blog to accompany the event – http://sawleycc.blogspot.com – which experienced about 80 hits a week from January in the build up to the event. Once again there are no cost associated with the technology except for the investment in writing and posting the blogs. However the development of material for all the different types of media available often means only small changes to something previously developed are enough to make it appropriate for another type of media. The blog written during the planning of the event were the basis of a number of press releases issued to the local press. The blog did also provide a method or ‘remembering’ points of interest which might otherwise have been lost in the hurly burly of the event development.

Simple to set up - only takes 10 minutes

Finally it must be noted that without email these events could not possible be organised so effectively – Sawley & Long Eaton Park CC have sent over 2500 emails  - very few letters were  written or fruitless phone calls made. The letters that were written tended to be attachment to letters. Reaching the right people is important when asking for ‘in kind’ donations – making educated guesses about a person’s email address can be very productive –a web site email contact address of enquiry@skills.co.uk can lead the way to the key executive in the target organisation. Apart from contacting and keeping in touch with external contacts it is invaluable in making sure the organising group are kept up to date in what can become a fast moving process.

In conclusion, while the impact of each medium is worthwhile, it is making them work in combination [i.e. using tweets to direct followers to other news sources] which brings more dividends to the effective use of communications technology. It is also likely to be a significant legacy of NatWest CricketForce@Sawley & Long Eaton Park CC.

NatWest CricketForce@Sawley & Long Eaton Park - a destination project.

NatWest CricketForce@Sawley & Long Park Cricket Club will see the club complete a programme of facility improvements on West Park, Long Eaton which started over eight years ago – this is truly a destination moment for the club.

It was just after the turn of new millennium that the club realised its facilities were falling behind the standards expected by the modern club cricketer. The club set about a programme to update both its pavilions on West Park as well as practice and match day playing conditions.

The first task was to upgrade the mainly wooden main pavilion, which though it had A grade league status, was a maze of corridors, had poor showers, inadequate kitchen facilities and a small viewing area. A modernised and extended pavilion was designed based on the Sport England guidance model. The external envelope of the building was re-furbished with improved insulation and better sound and impact resistant walls. The building was extended to include a viewing veranda, the floor space was reallocated to provide dressing rooms with their own showers, a better social, a modern kitchen and improved access and toilets for the disabled. The total cost of the project was £80,000. 

A complete new build would have cost around £200,000

Funding was obtained from Erewash Borough Council [£38,000] and Derbyshire Environmental Trust [£38,000] who were tasked locally to allocate funds generated by the Land Fill Credit Scheme. The grant from the council was reward for participating for many years in their summer activity programme for local youngsters where the club provided a fortnight of cricket coaching at the club for local children. Meanwhile, The Derbyshire Environment Trust was seeking community facilities which needed up dating within a 10 miles radius of a land fill site. With the club itself contributing £4000, the new pavilion was formally opened for the beginning of season 2005.

Of equal importance was the need to extend the small pavilion catering for our growing number of senior and junior teams. This small pavilion benefitted from an extension featuring three fully equipped dressing rooms and much needed storage space. This facility was subject to a successful bid of £57,500 to the Community Club Development Fund [CCDF]. It provided excellent changing facilities for match umpires, our  3^rd/4^th XIs as well as our junior teams. The extended pavilion was opened in 2008 by Mike Turner MBE, the former chairman of Leicestershire CCC and at the time an ECB Consultant prior to the first girls match ever hosted at the club. An appropriate moment as the CCDF grant was in recognition of the increase in cricket participation the new pavilion would encourage.

Several club girl members are now in Derbyshire County Squads

Once the pavilion projects were complete the development programme’s attention turned to improving our practice facilities. A small Award for All Lottery grant had previously enabled the club to lay a non turf batting practice strip with protective cage, but it provided inadequate capacity for the club membership. With the aid of grants from East Midlands Airport Community Fund, Derbyshire Community Fund and Loughborough Building Society Community Fund two batting and bowling non turf practice pitches were laid protected by a side and roof net while a ‘super soaker’ was bought to help remove water from the playing area. The practice facility was built and made ready for use by members as part of NatWest CricketForce 2009 at a cost of £7,000.

These three projects saw the club invest over £245,000 in its facilities on West Park over a six year period. Having already obtained funds from many agencies it proved very difficult to obtain support to refurbish the small pavilion which provided the social and scoring facilities for the CCDF funded dressing rooms opened in 2008 – enter NatWest Cricket Force 2011.

Although all the facilities of the club will enjoy improvements in some way as part of NatWest CricketForce@Sawley & Long Eaton Park 2011, such as an enlarged main pavilion patio, the focus of the project is on the small pavilion serving our 3^rd/4^th XI and junior teams – a new enlarged and redecorated social area, a brick balustrade to replace a rotten wooden construction, the refurbishment of an old disused dressing room for our growing female membership and an improved kitchen including brand new crockery and cutlery.

Henshaw Builders 120 paving slabs arriving to enlarge the patio

To complete the makeover the playing area will have two new sight screens and a three pitch rain cover. Overall the club expects to deliver through NatWest CricketForce £400 of value for every one of its 150 playing members. The eight year programme will see the club investing around £300,000 in its infrastructure which should serve the club for the next generation of members and players.