Dear All

Welcome to Richmond Cricket Club Colts for 2011. Richmond’s Colts section has gone from strength to strength over the last three years.

We are all looking forward to an exciting summer. The purpose of this letter is to bring you up to date with some of the key features of the coming season

The remainder of the letter sets out some of the key information you might like to know about the coming season

Our objectives

To those new Richmond Colts, I hope you find the Club welcoming and soon realise that our aims in the colts section are twofold. Firstly to provide an enjoyable and safe environment in which all children can develop their confidence and a love of the game and secondly to develop young cricketers to their maximum potential.

In the 6-11 age groups we focus on participation for everyone. In the older age groups we recognise that the Boys want to be competitive so we start to focus a little more on winning. However given that we now run at least 2 teams in every age group from 10-17 we can still provide a wide range of cricketing opportunities

To meet these goals, the club provides a wide range of activities- group coaching, competitive league cricket, cup cricket, friendly games, winter programmes, tours and individual coaching opportunities. As the youngsters get older, there is an increasingly structured and supported process to get them involved in the adult teams. The captains of the senior teams are highly supportive of colts’ cricket and are keen to encourage more to become involved in our adult programme when they are ready.

Registration

Please fill in the 2011 registration form which will have either been emailed to you or can be downloaded from the web-site. The form is a little cumbersome but we have to do this to comply with Club Mark policies; it’s not as bad its looks so if you could return it to the address given with payment as soon as possible that makes our lives at lot easier and we can concentrate on the cricket

Fixture Card

This season, we will continue with the Colts Membership Booklet and Fixture Card. This will not only contain all competitive fixtures but will also provide contact details for Age Group managers and coaches, as well as club policies about child safety both on the field and during practice. These booklets will be available once you have completed the Registration Form and paid your subscription.

 Training

The well-established Sunday mornings sessions for the Under 6’s to the Under 11’s will start on Sunday 1st May 2011 (10.00-12.00) and run to the 24th July. The Under 12’s and Under 13’s will train on Monday evenings, starting on Monday 2nd May 2011, whilst the Under 14’s Under 15’s and Under 17’s will have Net sessions on Friday evenings from 6.00-8.00 starting Friday 6th May 2011. Please confirm details with your age group managers

 Sunday Mornings

As many of you will now we now cater for a lot of boys aged 6-11 on Sunday morning we try not to put a restriction on numbers but we can only do this as long as we have enough coaching and support.

Volunteers

The colts section is supported by a combination of current and ex-Richmond players as well as parents. Some fall into both categories! There is a manager for each age group and contact details of everyone involved will be found in our new Colts fixtures card and membership book.

On Sunday mornings, the age group managers will be supported by some of the older colts and we try to have at least 3 coaches /helpers for each age group, but ideally we would like more. If you would like to become a coach/ helper please get in touch with me.

Senior Coaching Staff

In addition to our volunteer age-group managers, the Colts section is very fortunate to have the coaching services of our Cricket Development Manager, Ami Banerjee, a master at Hampton School and former first-class cricketer in India and our Child Welfare Officer, Alistair Evans Gordon, a stalwart of the club, a Level 2 Coach and a Sports Psychologist to boot. Our Adam Gilchrist Scholars for 2011 will also be engaged at our midweek nets and the Sunday morning programme. We are also pleased to say that Mark Price has gained a number of coaching qualifications over the winter and will become more involved in the colts. In addition a number of Age Group Managers completed their Level 2 courses in the winter which further deepens our coaching resource

Colts Team

The colts organising teams are

· Chairman – Doug King

· League Rep- Andrew Wright

· U-6-9 Manager Yvonne Fryer

· Welfare –Alistair Evans Gordon

· U-17 Andy Fryer

· U15 John Campbell

· U14 Mark Gregory

· U13 Mike Haworth

· U12 Shan Shori

· U11 Steve Spencer Jones

· U 10 Mikey Kalifia

· U9 Stuart Parfit

· U8 Nigel

· U7 Mark Price

· U6 Kamal

We welcome parents becoming involved in all age group but would particularly welcome a couple of parents coming forward to become involved in the U7’s on a regular basis.

Holiday Coaching Camps

Alistair Evans Gordon will be running the very popular cricket camps during the summer holidays. These are now in their 11th year and continue to be well-subscribed. Details of the dates for these can be found on the Club’s website, in the Membership Booklet and on the main Club notice-board. You can register at any time before the camps but sooner rather than later is preferred! Also if your son has friends who are not club members they are welcome to enrol for the holidays camps. The dates are given below

· Week 1 18th July 2011
· Week 2 25th July 2011
· Week 3 1st Aug 2011
· Week 4 15th Aug 2011
 
· £150 per week for a full day, full week but half day and part week bookings are also welcome and are charged on a pro rata basis
 

Fair Play

The colts’ teams over the years have won a number of trophies it would be good to continue but perhaps best of all, we have won the fair play award in both the Surrey league and the West Middlesex League over the last couple of years. This is voted by our peers and we would like to keep winning it by continuing to play hard but fair cricket at all levels.

Representative cricket

A number of our players have represented County or Areas teams and we will make every effort to promote and support our more talented and committed players to get a chance in representative cricket in 2011 and beyond. Competition for places is very fierce at both County and District level but we will do our best to ensure that Richmond’s talent is recognised.

Richmond in the Community

This is an area we are increasingly keen to develop currently we are in discussions with a couple of local senior schools where we are offering to support a range of cricket coaching and after school clubs. We are very happy to put in our time and club resources to support these, however as central funding reduces we have to think of ways of getting sponsorship to support these ideas, when we have finalised our plans for 2011, I may come back to you on this looking for some small sponsorships.

Fair Play

The colts’ teams over the years have won a number of trophies it would be good to continue but perhaps best of all, we have won the fair play award in both the Surrey league and the West Middlesex League over the last couple of years. This is voted by our peers and we would like to keep winning it by continuing to play hard but fair cricket at all levels.

Representative cricket

A number of our players have represented County or Areas teams and we will make every effort to promote and support our more talented and committed players to get a chance in representative cricket in 2011 and beyond. Competition for places is very fierce at both County and District level but we will do our best to ensure that Richmond’s talent is recognised.

Richmond in the Community

This is an area we are increasingly keen to develop currently we are in discussions with a couple of local senior schools where we are offering to support a range of cricket coaching and after school clubs. We are very happy to put in our time and club resources to support these, however as central funding reduces we have to think of ways of getting sponsorship to support these ideas, when we have finalised our plans for 2011, I may come back to you on this looking for some small sponsorships

Subscriptions

As you will see, we have maintained subscription levels. Despite the fact that the Colts section is run by volunteers the subscriptions are used to provide more professional coaching time ground hire and equipment. Colts membership will now be

· · Category C4 : On 1st September2010, aged 10 to 16 £85

· · Category C5 : On 1st September 2010, aged 6 to 9 £70