Leicestershire CEO Sean Jarvis' Monthly Report - June 2022
Fri 1 Jul 2022
Welcome to my latest update which reflects all the work gone on at Leicestershire during June.
In simple, we as a Club are continuing to change, but the changes we are implementing are intended to take our great Club forwards. I guess these are the foundations for a brighter future. This month you will see a common thread regarding recruiting the right people for the job at hand.
This month, I’ll start with our Community Pillar.
It has always been my strategy, for when we can, to appoint individuals to head up and be responsible for the five Pillars. Or in other words, bring people that can provide the expertise, dedicated time and attention to that area of the business, particularly when as CEO my time is limited.
I am pleased to report that we have now been able to do this, and we have undertaken a rigorous interview process to appoint a new Director of Community. They will begin working for us on 1st September and their remit will be to continue to build and expand on the work we are doing on programmes such as Chance to Shine, Dynamos and All Stars, as well as developing future coaches.
Additionally, they will look to touch base with our many communities and organisations here in Leicestershire and engage them with us and Cricket. We will of course make an official announcement on the successful candidate in due course and would urge you to follow our website or app for up-to-date info.
Continuing with the Community Pillar, for the remainder of 2022 we are planning a series of excellent community initiatives.
The first of which is the Community Cup run in association with the LCCDO. This will be played at the Uptonsteel County Ground on 28th August
The second event is a ‘Connecting Communities Game’ also to be held here at Grace Road. This is run in association with The High Sheriff and will be a profile raiser and fundraiser for our Foundation (particularly supporting grassroots cricket). The date we have planned is 6th September so please place in your diary. Again, more details will be brought to you via the website, but it promises to be an exciting day that glues together many of our diverse communities.
Our third event is a celebration of Diwali (which I know is huge here in Leicestershire), combined with celebrating 75 years of India’s independence. The finer details are being organised, but we are looking to hold a gala dinner and firework display on the 16th October. Again, keep your eyes peeled for more details.
Onto Cricket.
Much like the strategy above, it is my intention to have a dedicated Director of Cricket. As you know we have had Claude Henderson in place since October last year. This was very much a first step for our Club to see how this position went and was always a trial for us.
As a board, we have been pleased with the work undertaken in the Cricket Pillar and have now decided to make the role permanent, so we have decided to do exactly that and advertise the role. I anticipate we will bring you news of the appointment in July.
Cricket at the Club has also taken a marked upturn in the T20 campaign and as I write we have two games left. Qualification for the quarters is going to be tough but we are still in the race and with two home games vs Northants and Yorkshire, who knows what might happen.
I have been particularly impressed with our teams displays v Worcs, Durham and more recently a very impressive display at Trent Bridge versus our closest rivals Notts. Fingers crossed we can get to the finals and secure that fourth star.
A couple of other things to report on Cricket. It’s great to see Joey Evison join us albeit it on loan. Joey is regarded as one of the up-and-coming talents of the game and to get Joey to join us is a real coup. We hope he enjoys it here and makes Grace Road his permanent home.
Finally, it was a real privilege to host India over the four days (plus a couple of training days beforehand). What was brilliant to see is so many new faces come and watch us take on one of the best teams in the world.
Over the four days we had nearly 10,000 visitors come to the Uptonsteel County Ground. The India team were excellent too and really got into the spirit of the game. It was also really pleasing to witness many of the India team giving advice to our young players.
Onto Commercial.
Continuing the theme of recruiting dedicated directors, I have taken the decision, again as an experiment, to bring in a Director of Commercial to help drive commercial revenues. A familiar face to sport, Perry Deakin joins us from immediate effect and will be working with the three subdivisions of our commercial department, namely; Corporate, Marketing and, Conference and Banqueting.
His appointment does allow me some time now to focus on other parts of the business and for him to really work with our commercial team to also build on the work done to date.
As a Club, I do feel we are now well positioned to go onto another level with our commercial offering. With the introduction of the new entrance facility that includes the Club Shop and Ticket Office, this feels like a major development of the Club as we aim to professionalise our approach.
Of course, there will be teething problems but already we are beginning to see the benefits of the change. For example, in just three T20 matches, having the Club shop open we took 50% of the total sales of 2019 in just those three nights. What I have found really heartening too is that we are beginning to see more and more ‘green and red’ shirts popping up around the ground.
With regards to our Company Pillar, there is little to report this month. Ironically, I believe that is a good thing. Our Company Pillar is intended to make sure our systems, such as HR and Governance are as robust as they can be. We have certainly come a long way since the outbreak of Covid.
There has however been one change in our Company Pillar and Sandra Clark has left for pastures new. In her place Dan Archer (a long-term employee of the Club) has stepped up into her shoes and for the interim period (with the support of the ECB) will be our new Stadium Manager.
Finally, our Cash Pillar.
Costs as we all know are escalating and we at the Club are doing everything we can to try and mitigate against these, but it is becoming increasingly difficult and at some point we will need to review or pricing structure to help the economics of the Club.
However, at this stage, we took a bold decision to reduce ticket prices for our T20 games if bought in advance. As mentioned earlier we have two games to go (possibly three more on top), and once the campaign is completed we will have a look at the impact it has had on our revenues.
My message however is clear, the more people we can get supporting us then the easier it is for us to keep the costs down so please spread the word.
Here’s to a successful remaining part of the season.
Sean.
