NatWest CricketForce 2008

With only nine days to go, our Natwest CricketForce weekend is gearing up to be a roaring success.

Following our meeting with Dave Leighton from the ECB, I really wasn’t sure that six weeks was enough time to organise everything we wanted to achieve at the club, despite the successes of other clubs in previous years.

Admittedly, in the beginning suppliers were not very forthcoming. However, once one donated, the others followed and the offers began to roll in.

We’ve had 150sq metres of patio slabs donated from Chandlers, Parker Building Supplies and Build Center, (and that’s an awful lot of slabs) along with cement and 12 tons of sand. Parkers have also donated 10 fence panels and posts for our new machinery compound.

Paint has been donated from Focus DIY and Community Repaint. B&Q & Wickes have also contributed. Harper & Eede and Travis Perkins have kindly donated a digger and dumper each and Pilbeams donated drainage pipe that we were desperate for as a stream surrounds our ground.

Our only problem has been obtaining chain link fencing for around our new pitch. Presumably because we need metres and metres of it no one company is prepared to donate for free, however I am still working on the necessary companies so I’m pretty sure someone will come through for us in the end.

AVS Fencing could not supply the chain link but have been very kind and donated all new picket fence instead.

A big thank-you must go to all of our suppliers and not forgetting Buxtons Carpets who are donating all new flooring and tiles for our pavilion, changing rooms and showers and Kew Electrical Distributors who have given us all new lighting inside and outside the pavilion.

Of course, our CricketForce weekend is not all about work. There will be loads for the children to get involved with. We’ve incorporated Chance to shine in our weekend and there should be an extra 120 children from schools in Sussex visiting us over the Saturday and Sunday.

To accommodate all the children there will be lots of cricket activities and matches going on. When they are not playing cricket, they will be able to paint all of the boundary boards and picket fencing and when they’ve done that, we have 50 bird feeders that need decorating, naming and placed around the ground all donated by Southdown Nurseries in Hassocks.

John Newbery Ltd are kindly giving us junior cricket sets to use and keep and hundreds of incredible cricket balls for the children to take home.

So with just over a week to go, now is the time to put the finishing touches to our weekend. Volunteers are still offering their help. Marquees are to be erected; we’ve got a jazz band playing on the Sunday afternoon.

Of course all of our workers will need feeding, so catering is very important. Forfars are donating bread rolls, sausage rolls and donuts and The Ganges Restaurant are supplying us with an Indian feast on Sunday afternoon. My main objective now is to find a supplier of hundreds of rashers of bacon and sausages!

The icing on the cake for the weekend will be fine weather and according to the Met Office it will be cold but fine with sunny intervals. So touch wood next week could be one of the clubs greatest achievements.

source: http://www.ecb.co.uk/blogs/supplier-offers-have-been-rolling-in,59,BA.html