It’s not very often I open with references to decent weather, but the last few weeks have been absolutely belting (which my thinning bonce will testify) and made for some cracking weekend’s at the club. My sun exposure was also complemented by five days golfing in Marbella and as I mentioned last month, something ‘special’ usually happens whilst I’m in my golf buggy. Suffice to say, the magic this time was not created by my golf but more so from Mr McArthur with his fantastic 138 against Sale. Between watching the updates from the games coming through via Twitter and the Tranmere play-off final at Wembley, it made for a very enjoyable Saturday afternoon for me!

Continuing the focus on cricket, it’s very encouraging to see four of our five senior sides competing at the top of their respective tables and shows the strength we have throughout the club from both our male and female players. We’re clearly doing something right both on and off the pitch as the support we are getting on both Saturday’s and Sunday’s seems to be growing each week. It’s also been really good fun putting on a bit of a ‘show’ with the couple of T20 games we’ve had, and hopefully the coloured kit and music hasn’t upset the traditionalists too much! On a serious note, it does go to show what we can do with a little bit of effort and I’m really grateful for the help we received in making them real showcases. There’s already been some outstanding individual performances throughout the sides, and it was great to see Ross Dixon represent Cheshire in their recent game against Cumberland – it’s been a rare sight to see an Upton player on the Cheshire team sheet (with the exception of Matt Ingram a couple of years ago) but a sign of how we are developing. Another great call out over the month has been Chris Stowell-Smith scoring his 6,000th league run against Davenham and Darren Warburton playing his 500th league game against Hyde – both who have progressed from the junior setup to go on to become fantastic servants of UCC. Steve McCormick is doing a great job of keeping his eyes on the stats to ensure future milestones get picked up on, so keep your eyes peeled as the season progresses.

Friday night’s continue to thrive and as I mentioned last month, the new ‘training fee’ structure seems to have gone down well and we’ve seen a year on year growth of juniors signing up. I’ve talked over the last couple of years about the need for more volunteers and those ‘pleas’ are paying off as we now have the right number of coaches and can offer some first class training to the children. I always find it interesting when I hear people on Friday nights talking about the junior setup and how well organised it which is testament to the work that Matt Owen and the coaches are doing – keep up the good work guys. A few things to bring to your attention ‘juniors’ wise….

1. You will hopefully have seen we’ve started to promote the partnership with Love My Club more and they are starting to come down on Friday nights periodically to have chats about the policies they have available. This is a great opportunity to not only benefit yourself, but the club as well as we receive a share of the commission. I’ve got a policy myself and it’s great as I get loads of benefits which far exceed the monthly premium I pay.
2. Paul & Rhys from Masters Sports Coaching are running a week long summer camp at the club (w/c 13th August) and it looks set to be a great week where the children will learn so much. Full details are available HERE

One of the less ‘exciting’ subjects that you will no doubt have seen or heard about is GDPR. Whilst we are ‘just’ a local cricket club it doesn’t mean we are exempt from this regulation but we have put things in place to ensure that we handle the data we hold in a compliant manner. Through updated membership forms we’ve captured the necessary details to ensure we process members data correctly and we’ve put a Data Privacy Policy on the clubs website which shows how we handle the data we hold. I was particularly proud to see that (through a LinkedIn network of like-minded cricket club officials throughout the UK) our approach to GDPR has been referenced and adopted by other clubs.

Looking ahead, June is always one of the busiest months for me personally as we head towards our annual ‘marquee’ weekend and just for an added bit of pressure this year we are heading towards our biggest events in 18 years of doing this! The Friday night ‘Audience with Ricky Tomlinson’ sold out a while ago and we have 240 guests attending. The Summer Ball on the Saturday night (30th June) I already generating a lot of interest and we’ve already surpassed last years numbers. If you haven’t got your tickets already, or need more then get in touch with me quickly (jezlamb@hotmail.com or 07887 743230).

So there you have it – once again, another busy month and an even busier one ahead.

Thanks for all the support from all those who do so much to make this club of ours great and lets keep on moving forward.

Cheers
Jez Lamb
Chairman