An update from our CEO

Hi all,

I’m sure you’re all still excited following the announcement of our new Royal Patron last week. We’re thrilled to have His Royal Highness The Duke of Edinburgh taking on the role that his late Father held for 71 years. This great news continues the long-standing, very important close affiliation and connection that the Taverners enjoys with The Royal Family, something which I know our membership values greatly. We look forward to updating you on His Royal Highness's future engagement with our charitable activity and events in due course.

During the most recent school half-term break, our Development Officers across the UK were busy organising and delivering some more impactful experiences for our Wicketz and Super 1s participants. Many of the young people enjoyed travelling to new places and meeting new people by playing cricket with participants from different programmes in their region, and a number of our female Wicketz participants were able to participate in one of our very popular glow in the dark cricket sessions created to help increase girls and young women’s engagement with the game.

I personally had the privilege of joining our Wicketz participants from Devon and Bristol during that week, which included a brilliant Development Officer led session on youth voice, where the focus was on young people designing their own programme activities. The topic on this occasion was 'design your own cricket holiday programme festival' with the prompt being 'what things would you like to see at your next Wicketz Cricket Festival?'.

After the workshop I left with some (very clear!) actions from a particular group of 9-11 year olds to raise funds that would make these things happen… so I’m now on the lookout for people and organisations who may be willing to fund the following:

• The opportunity for a group of young people to play cricket at Disneyland,
• Paintball cricket,
• And my personal favourite… the chance to play cricket on the moon!

I just love working with young people, the most creative souls on the planet. Backgrounds and barriers were left at the door, everyone was included, empowered and inspired… It is so important to take the time in this role to get to our programmes and see how all the fruits of everyone's labour create such impactful opportunities. When speaking to the young people, their coaches and parents, I hear their stories and gain a greater understanding of the challenges they face in life and how our community cricket programmes are a vital part of empowering them to overcome these challenges.

Speaking of feeling inspired, we hosted our second Impact Report Launch event this month thanks to our partners Brown Rudnick who hosted the unveiling of our latest report. It was brilliant to hear from those who have benefitted from our work on the night through our panel, hosted expertly by our Programmes Director Gabby Shirley. Super 1s participant, Charlie, and his mum spoke about the value of the programme and how it has led to speaking and employment opportunities for him. Super 1s has become a critical part of his life and helped him overcome isolation, loneliness and other huge personal challenges to become a thriving young leader amongst his peers and in his own community. Luton Wicketz participant, Uzair, also spoke candidly - demonstrating that he too is well and truly fulfilling his potential after making the journey from participant to coach. Also, we heard how Charlie will become the first ever Super 1s participant to speak at the House of Lords, where he will be sharing his story, and Uzair now has a full-time job at his local school in addition to being a cricket coach on the Wicketz programme that he benefitted from not too long ago. Similar stories are developing every week through our programmes and it's really exciting to see such progression and impact, all of which is down to the hard work and commitment that our members, staff, supporters and friends of the charity make each and every day… so on their behalf, thank you all for being part of Lord’s Taverners. Together we collectively work to enable young people to achieve so much.

Just in case you missed it in our recent communications, you can view our latest Impact Report in full by clicking here. I strongly recommend and encourage you to take a look and enjoy the rich and compelling stories within it. We have so much to be proud about as supporters of the charity, and again, I thank you all for playing your part in helping us achieve it.

Prior to the release of our Impact Report, you may have seen the announcement concerning our organisational values.

Our values and behaviours as employees, volunteers, members, stakeholders and partners are a demonstration of our commitment to leading an inclusive culture – one that is focused on the young people who participate in our programmes and the changes we can make to their lives.

Our new values demonstrate our commitment to achieving this, and after six months of engagement with more than 300 people, including members and our fantastic regional chairs, we’re very proud and happy to have been able to launch these values - We Include, We Empower, We Inspire.

The impact of the announcement and adoption of these refreshed values was epitomised by one member who kindly took the time to write to us and feedback the following:

“I must congratulate all those concerned with this new initiative — Our New Values. They sum up more succinctly than ever just WHY I have been a Taverner all these years. Although I have lived in the Algarve for over 24 years and therefore not able to participate as I used to, my membership has always meant so much to me that I have kept it going, knowing that I am still making a difference, however small, through my annual subscription. This news has enlivened my commitment — for which I thank you.”

So, a huge thank you to everyone reading this who was involved in the process of creating these important values. As a charity supporting thousands of young people, we all have a responsibility to behave in a way that safeguards our participants, each other and maintains our charity’s reputation – in other words, living by these values.

Lastly, many of you will know that this is the final year of our current strategy cycle 2022-2025. Following some recent work with the Trustee board, myself and the team will be undertaking a strategy refresh process over the next 6-8 weeks and will be presenting the updated and refreshed strategy for 2025-2028 and beyond, to the membership at our May AGM before a full launch in the summer. Our strategy will be driven and underpinned by our new values, and I look forward to sharing this future direction for the charity with you all this summer. 

That just leaves me to write that I hope you’ve enjoyed my latest update, please do continue to keep an eye on our website and social media channels for the latest updates on our 75^th anniversary year fundraising events in what is a hugely important celebratory year for the Tavs!

I look forward to seeing you at some Taverners events or activities very soon.

Best wishes,
Mark