Chair’s message – March 2024

Dear Taverner,

It’s been an exciting month of a few firsts and some fantastic results – none more so than the launch of our latest Impact Report that demonstrates what we have achieved together.

On 18 March, we held our first ever Impact Report launch event at the home of charity supporters, Brown Rudnick. Our CEO Mark Curtin, Maria Cook, parent of Sussex Super 1s participant Ryan and Manav Patel, who is a former West Ham Wicketz participant and now full-time employee on the programme helping to deliver Wicketz in Leyton and West Ham, spoke brilliantly and passionately about the impact we have across the country.

They brought our Impact Report to life, a report that told us we had doubled the number of young people we had reached facing the challenges of inequality in the past year. Approximately 90% of those participants have felt more active, confident and included following engagement with our programmes and we’ve also seen Super 1s become available in every county, Scotland and Wales, an increase of 42% in female participation and the first year of our work in Special Educational Needs and Disability schools (SEND) succeed in taking adapted cricket to 400 new schools and 13,000 young people with a disability.

The above barely scratches the surface of our growth and the impact we’ve had in the past year therefore I would encourage you to read the report in full here (link to – impact.lordstaverners.org) to find out more. This is work you should all feel very proud of and every one of you reading this message has played their part in helping us achieve this impact. I hope you’ll join me in striving for having even more of an impact on even more young people again this year.

We also hosted our first ever events to mark International Women’s Day in the first week of March. Our events in London and Birmingham shone a light on the progress we’ve made with female engagement within our programmes and what the long-term vision is, as we aim for equal participant representation long-term. Thank you to all our guests who spoke so passionately about their journeys in their respective industries and the importance of role models and representation in all aspects of life from women and girls. Look out for our women’s day events in 2025 and please visit our website to see what events you can attend in support of the charity in the coming months.

After lengthy discussion, we’ve decided to change the focus of one of our programmes to ensure it aligns with the rest of our activity and helps meet the need to make cricket more accessible to young people.

Moving forward, our recycling programme will focus solely on taking cricket kit donations and distributing it to those who need it most. We’re working with a number of partners to ensure we are doing all we can to make the game even more accessible, as the cost of equipment is one of the main barriers to entry for many of the communities we work with.

From now, the programme will be renamed Cricket Kit Recycling and please do get in touch if you have any questions about this or any of our other activity.

Our AGM will take place on Thursday 16 May from 11am at our new workspace in Victoria. Please be aware, this year’s AGM will be held in person – it will not be held online. Information ahead of the meeting will be sent to all members in April and I strongly recommend you both attend, to hear the latest about the direction of the charity and ensure that you have your say and help shape the future of the charity as we progress with our current strategy. And remember, please make sure you cast your vote as directed in the AGM pack that you will receive soon.

Our Trustee Board has been operating differently in recent months with each Trustee now acting as a sub-committee Chair to improve the efficiency of the board and how it operates in order to bring the board closer to the everyday workings of the charity and the staff team. This adaptation also helps us govern the charity in an improved way and gives all Trustees a greater insight into the organisation that can help them contribute to much more informed charity decision making.

As you can see, there is a huge amount of work happening across the charity to ensure we meet our vision to empower young people through cricket and there is so much more to look forward to as the sun (hopefully) starts to appear, and we look forward to getting together as Taverners and celebrating everything we have, and can achieve, collectively.

Thank you to everyone for your continued support of the charity and I look forward to seeing you in person at some Taverners activity very soon.

Best wishes,
Tim