Old Elizabethans CC 2022 Net Fundraiser

Background

Old Elizabethans Cricket Club has been an active member of the local community since 1935.  Since that time thousands of people over the years of all ages have enjoyed the warm and convivial atmosphere, playing cricket, socialising and making friends for life.

The Impact of Covid-19

The club had exciting plans for 2020 but Covid-19 created a challenging situation for sports and cricket clubs alike. Old Elizabethans Cricket Club was no different. Financially, we rely heavily on member contributions to run the club, with our numerous bills to pay, and no income to speak of, we are now in urgent need of financial assistance. 

Covid also affected our plans to pay for our new nets. All sections of our club benefit from the use of these nets and our original forecast for a normal year would have allowed us to fundraise. It's now time to get back to fundraising and pay for our new nets! 

The Nets

For years OEs had to manage with old, battered nets where 2 out of the 4 nets were deemed completely unsafe and unusable. The other 2 were not far off from being in the same condition. Which causes problems when as a club, we are getting more and more members!

Growing the facilities to facilitate this growing membership is incredibly important. With the juniors training as a whole group on one evening each week it is important that we are able to give them the best possible practice facilities and the introduction of 4 state of the art lanes will increase our capacity by 50% enabling us to support the growth we have seen. 

Similarly, we often see 25+ members at senior training and with access to only 2 nets was a limiting factor at these sessions. The new net will enable us to support more people at training as well as provide versatile practice facilities that can be used in a number of different ways (such as the use of a bowling machine in one net, whilst the other nets are used for both batting and bowling).

Who are we?

We have many people that use the new net facilities affect. In particular, we have invested heavily in the development of our junior programmes, women's & girls and Visually Impaired Cricket. As well as joining up with Perrywood Football Club, Black Pear Joggers and Worcester Hockey Club.

The club has a thriving junior section, a women's team, four senior teams and a VI team. 

Senior Section

Old Elizabethans provides opportunities through its senior section for all playing members to receive coaching and competitive match-playing opportunities in structured senior playing competitions in the Worcestershire County League

The club has 4 Saturday teams in the Worcestershire Cricket Leagues and enters T20 competitions and training every Tuesday and Thursday night.

Women's Section 

The womens section at Old Elizabethans 1st started in 2003 and the number of female cricketers is growing more and more each year.

The club has teams playing in the Women’s Midlands 40-over League Div 1, Worcestershire Women’s T20 performance league, Super 8s and Worcestershire Women’s Indoor League.

Old Elizabethans is now a Worcestershire Women’s and Girls’ Cricket Hub.  This gives women and girls from other clubs the opportunity to play competitive cricket while remaining a member of their own club. 

Juniors Section 

Old Elizabethans has one of the strongest junior memberships in Worcestershire. Our regular Friday night practices throughout the summer are a fantastic fun time for the whole family.

We pride ourselves on offering coaching to children of all ages and gender and run teams from Under 9 through to Under 15.

We also operate the ECB's All Stars and Dynamos program during the summer which provides an introduction to cricket for younger children. 

Friday nights are well supported, and it would be right to say that it is one of THE most important days in the club week. Parents are encouraged to come and enjoy the atmosphere. The bar is open and we also provide food from our volunteer kitchen.

Visually Impaired (VI) Section

Worcestershire Elizabethans Blind / Visually Impaired section was founded in 2014.  2018 was the second season in Blind Cricket England and Wales Regional League North & West.

The squad benefits by attending each year the Brian Johnstone Blind Cricket Development Weekend at Leicester University in September, playing six matches in two days.  

New College Worcester is a satellite club of this section.  For the students involved it helps to broaden their horizons outside of the college environment.   

The section welcomes anyone interested in playing blind cricket, both sexes aged from 10 to OAPs, whether they have played cricket before or not.

This project is designed to pay a large chunk of the loan which we owe for our fantastic new nets, £20,000 will not cover all costs but will be a big dent in the figure and in doing so will lay the foundation for many years at Old Elizabethans Cricket Club for each of the sections. 

Thank you for visiting our page and for contributing to this vital project at Old Elizabethans Cricket Club.