CEO update - February 2024

Hi all,

The shortest month of the year has flown by and there’s been a lot of hard work undertaken by the central staff team to ensure that everything we do as an organisation continues to improve and sets us up to have a significant impact on young people facing the challenges of inequality across the UK.

The impact we have was very much evident throughout the February half-term programme activity our Development Officers up and down the country organised to keep our participants engaged with cricket during the school holiday period. We had inter-hub competitions, regional festivals and glow in the dark cricket too. The latter of the activities being one of the many things we’re looking to introduce to help improve female engagement with our Wicketz programme. Please visit our social media profiles to see videos and images from these activities, as it really does illustrate how we’re adapting our activity to meet the needs of our participants.

Our table cricket county competitions are well underway with teams already booking their places for the regional heats that kick off in mid-April. Dates for these will be announced soon and are a great opportunity for you to see our work in action, near you. I can however confirm that one of highlights in the Taverners calendar, National Table Cricket Finals Day at Lord’s, is booked in for Thursday 27 June at Lord’s. This is definitely a day to reserve in the diary and head down to the home of cricket to witness an incredible day.

March kicks off with a first for us a charity. Next Tuesday (5 March), we’ll be hosting our first ever International Women’s Day event at the Hurlingham Club. The brilliant Ebony Rainford-Brent will be hosting with special guests, Katie Bickerstaffe (CO-CEO, Marks & Spencer), Jayde Ellis (Former Director, Take Her Lead), Leigh Burns (Founder and CEO, Lacuna Sports) and more joining us to celebrate women in cricket, and the work we’re doing to engage women and girls across the country in the sport.

On International Women’s Day itself, our West Midlands region is hosting a special event with guests Zaynab Sohawon (award winning youth mental health lived experience practitioner, autism advocate and charity founder) and Kathryn Jelfs-White (Captain, England women’s visually impaired cricket team) talking about the importance of inclusion while discussing their journeys within their respective industries.

We have our first ever Impact Report based event on 18 March, where we’ll be sharing our latest report covering the impact we’ve had in the past financial year, alongside those who either deliver or experience it first-hand at the London offices of Brown Rudnick, and our AGM will be taking place on Thursday 16 May at our new offices in Fivefields.

As you can tell there is plenty going on and if you’re interested in attending any of the events mentioned above, please visit the event listings page on our website, or in the case of the Impact Report launch and AGM, email us via contact@lordstaverners.org.

In other membership news, after nearly nine years of service Membership Secretary Ian Aspinall has left the Taverners to pursue new challenges. Ian has played a crucial role in managing our membership during his time with the charity, creating many strong relationships and working very closely with many of you across all aspects of membership. He has been a stalwart at the Taverners, will be hugely missed and we wish Ian every success for his future endeavours.

And finally, I would like to pay tribute to a very dear friend of ours at the Taverners, Jonnie Irwin.

Everyone connected with the charity was devastated to hear of his passing. His energy, enthusiasm and laughter lit up the cricket field on the many occasions he played for the Taverners XI or supported our fundraising events, and it was brilliant to see him at our 2023 Christmas Lunch being as supportive of the charity as ever.

His compassion and empathy towards the young people we support shone through when seeing first-hand our life-changing work.

Our thoughts are with Jess, Rex, Rafa, Cormac and his family and friends at this very difficult time.

Best wishes,

Mark