Chairmans Newsletter
CHAIRMAN'S NEWSLETTER
NUMBER 1 - APRIL 2009
Dear Member
The new cricket season is almost upon us and I hope that it is an enjoyable and successful one for everyone.
I was honoured to be elected as your Chairman in January and together with my fellow committee members will be doing everything that I can to continue to move the Club forward on and off the field.
A very big thank you to those of you who were able to give up part of, or indeed all of, last weekend to offer your help in a wide variety of ways as once again the Club took part in the NatWest Cricket Force Weekend. I am very keen that we are able to improve our facilities, in particular the pavilion over a realistic timescale. In an ideal world, with money being no object I would like to see a brand new pavilion at our Quality Street ground. However, we are all too well aware of the difficult economic and financial climate that we find ourselves in and this must be taken into account when planning for the future. An alternative to a new building would be to improve and extend our current one whilst a third option could be to provide additional and more spacious changing room facilities in the pavilion as well as building a new clubhouse with a modern kitchen, bar and social area between the current pavilion and the garage.
It is of course that time of year when subscriptions are due and I do ask that you pay these in as quickly as possible. Please ensure that your cheque is forwarded directly to Rosemary Attridge - Membership and Subscription Secretary and not to a team captain or the Treasurer. The subscription rates have already been sent out to you and once again there has been no increase. Thank you for your help in paying these. Rosemary also coordinates the Tea Persons rota and I would be grateful if any wives, partners, girlfriends who are able to provide a tea or two at our home fixtures would make themselves known to her as soon as possible (male tea providers are not excluded!!). Year in, year out we receive many compliments from our opponents about the quality of our match teas - long may this continue.
The ever expanding Junior section has its Junior Registration evening on Friday 24th April and this will also be the first Junior training evening for the new season. Our Junior Coordinators, Simone Murrough and Mike Griffin, deserve our thanks for all the hard work that they do.
We are a welcoming and friendly Club, a Club at the heart of Merstham's community - we are not a commercial enterprise, indeed the joy of the club is that we are a members club. The Juniors have enjoyed some trophy success in recent years and it is very encouraging to see a number of our younger members being selected on merit to represent the Club in our senior teams.
I thank our team captains for accepting the captaincy responsibilty and all that goes with it. The Saturday 2nd XI, led by Ray Shinners, has been very close to promotion in the past two seasons, fifth in 2007, fourth in 2008, whilst the Saturday 1st XI, led by Dan Feist, finished fourth in 2007 and were eighth last year. Chris Lowe has stepped down as Saturday 3rd XI captain to become Club Captain and I thank him for his past efforts and for creating a really good spirit amongst his team. I wish John Young, our new Saturday 3rd XI captain every success this year. Richard Feist continues to lead our Sunday 1st XI side and good luck to Mark Robson who takes over the Sunday 2nd XI team. My thanks to Andy Pearce for his enthusiastic leadership of that team over the past few years. I hope that all team players will make a real effort to attend net practice/training sessions which will be held on Wednesday evenings this season. The old cricketing adage that catches win matches certainly rings true at Merstham and is perhaps an area we need to focus on this year. Cricket is by its very nature both a team and an individual sport and this is epitomised by the current England team. Stunning individual performances by the Flintoffs and Pietersens of this world are inspiring to watch but when they have an off day you most certainly need other players to step up to the mark with bat and ball, in the field or behind the stumps. It is important that we try to get off to a good start in the Fullers Brewery Leagues. Team morale is a key to success and the ability to encourage a team mate who is struggling a little can often have beneficial results.
With a number of changes to personnel on the committee it is important that you know who is who at the Club. A list of committee members will be displayed on the Club's website and on the notice board in the pavilion as will a list of key dates and social events for 2009. The new fixtures booklet will also be available to all members shortly. If I had a magic wand I would certainly wave it and we would have an uninterrupted season of sunny, warm, even hot weather, a season of enjoyable cricket for juniors and seniors alike. When the sun is shining and the wind has died down there is no more scenic a ground in the whole of Surrey than our own. We are close to achieving the ECB Clubmark accreditation, have exciting decisions to take regarding the pavilion and I look forward to seeing you during the course of the summer.
Yours,
Keith Rivers
Chairman