CEO message - June 2024

Hi all,

The month of June always sees one of the biggest and most impactful occasions in our calendar year take place, with our National Table Cricket Finals at Lord’s, but it also had a fair amount of company this month with so many other important things happening throughout the month that I’m keen to update you on.

I’ll kick things off with our day at Lord’s on 27 June, firstly, a big thank you to colleagues Alex McHardy and Gabby Shirley for organising and hosting a fantastic pre-Finals Day networking event in the Warner Stand at Lord’s. Gabby hosted a brilliant panel discussion with England Cricket learning disabilities international Jonny Gale, Managing Director of the Recreational Game at the ECB, Leisha Hawkins and Director of Equality Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) at the Professional Cricketers Associations, former Olympic Athlete and World Championship medallist, Donna Fraser. It was a great opportunity for our community to get together and discuss all things inclusive sport.

Then it was on to what was a fantastic day of table cricket, with schools and participants from across the country heading to the iconic ground to represent their region in Finals Day. Over 100 young people living with a disability had an incredible day, it was fantastic to see so many people enjoying the competition and having such an impactful experience. This event and the six months of competition that led up to it, demonstrated that young people living with a disability benefit so much from taking part in high quality, competitive sport and can thrive if the opportunities and adapted environments are created – that is our role here at the Taverners and boy did the team and all of the volunteers, young leaders and many others come together so well to do just that. We were also joined by England internationals Jack Leach, Anya Shrubsole and our very own Super 1s participant and coach Alfie Pyle. To find out more, you can see how engaged everyone was with the occasion by checking out our social media channels.

A huge congratulations goes to Beckfoot School from Yorkshire for becoming national champions and a big thank you to everyone who officiated, scored, supported teams, cheered and coached. Finally, huge congratulations and a big, big thank you to Liz Kuda, for leading the team of staff and volunteers brilliantly throughout the day to ensure that participants had the best possible support. We were also delighted to award the Player of the Finals award which is now named after the founder of table cricket Doug Williamson, who joined us on the day to present the award for the first time, and as ever proud Taverner Lesley Williams presented the Spirit of Cricket, awarded in her families name. This year she was joined in presenting the award by her cousin Matt Lucas, who so many people were delighted to have selfies with and autographs from – big thanks to Matt for bringing some celebrity star dust to the event. What a day it was, and we all look forward to next year already!

Two weeks beforehand we delivered a very unique event at the iconic Oval gasholder next to the cricket ground alongside our partners at the Berkeley Foundation, to officially announce a three year extension of our partnership, which will see the Foundation fund our disability community cricket offer with £750,000 over the next three years, taking our partnership with them into a 13^th year.

Surrey Super 1s participants joined us to play the first (and probably last) game of cricket within the gasholder to mark the occasion, as Berkeley Group had reached a point in the new Oval Village project where we could create this special space for a one-off game to celebrate Super 1s and our partnership. Thank you to all of our friends at Berkeley Group and the Berkeley Foundation for their continued support of such an impactful programme, which thanks to them, has gone from strength to strength since its introduction just over 10 years ago.

We were delighted to be the beneficiary charity of The P&M Group Golf Day this month at The Vale Golf & Country Club, which saw a huge £24,000 raised for our Wicketz programme. The event was a huge success, enjoyed by enthusiastic golfers and sporting legends including President Gower, as well as former cricketers Andy Caddick, Tim Munton, Gus Mackay and Paul Prichard as well as former footballer Dean Holdsworth and rugby player George Chuter. A big, big thank you to Tavs member, P&M Group Managing Director Tony Wall for his tremendous generosity in helping to make this happen, and for his ongoing support of the charity in so many ways.

Other events I would like to mention are our infamous Cholmondeley Castle cricket event, our annual charity showcase in the North West brilliantly put together by Peter Willis and Paul Walker, thank you to them and the committee for continuing to organise and run this event so brilliantly. I’d also like to thank Scotland Lord’s Taverners Chair, Colin Crichton and his committee for organising a Lord’s Taverners game against Manderston Cricket Club in their 125^th anniversary year, and our partnership with Fettes School in Edinburgh which now sees a Wicketz hub hosted there every Saturday – a great example of the regional committee working closely with our community cricket programmes.

On a slightly more sombre note, we were all very sad to hear the news that Trude Oakley, a long-term member and supporter of the charity, and beloved wife of Roger. Myself, and everyone at the Taverners, send our deepest condolences to Roger, their family and friends at this very sad time. Rest in peace Trude.

We’re now looking forward to a packed July for the charity. I’m very excited to be attending many regional events and our Taverners XI cricket match against the Cricket Writers XI at Highgate, as well as many other events around the UK.

These include our East Midlands Eve of Test Fundraiser at The Tap & Run (the pub owned, and run, by former cricketers Stuart Broad and Harry Gurney) with Stuart Broad being one of the event’s special guests, and the West Midlands Eve of Test Dinner in Birmingham with West Indies Legends Curtly Ambrose and Gordon Greenidge, guaranteed to provide incredible cricket comedy and insights. A few limited numbers of tables and tickets are still available for these events so please visit our website to book your places as soon as possible.

Thanks to all our partners and volunteers for all of their hard work and efforts in raising the profile of the Taverners, as well as some much-needed funds to grow our reach and improve our impact at these fun packed events, where I look forward to seeing lots of Taverners members and supporters in the coming weeks.

Best wishes,

Mark