Leicestershire Monthly Report - March 2022

This summer promises to be a special one!

 Over the winter the whole Club has continued to work extremely hard, and all being well we will begin to see the fruits of our collective labours as we embark on probably the most important season for the Club for some considerable time.

 As we know, 2021 was a good year for us as we witnessed several records broken both on and off the field including personal bests, commercial highs, and the all-time record in our financial results. These combined with the best home win ratio for some 20 years and overall win ratio for 15 years will be a distant memory or quickly forgotten if we don’t back it up with another season of progress. That is the challenge before all of us. As a Club we must not shy away from that. In fact, far from it we should embrace it and relish the challenge. I for one can’t wait to see how Leicestershire CCC progresses this year.

 Our Five Pillars are continuing to develop and build the right foundations. I’ll start with Cricket.

Having seen the team on the pre-season tour, if the title was given for team spirit, then give us the trophy now. What I witnessed was a special bond between the team. Yes, there are lots of individual characters but it’s clear all of them are Running Foxes and are keen to support each other.

 As mentioned in previous updates we have had some personnel changes within our Cricket Pillar. I am really pleased that Alfonso Thomas has joined Claude Henderson and Paul Nixon in our Coaching set up. Having now met Alfonso on several occasions I believe he will bring an added dimension to the Club. Additionally, I am equally pleased with that Jigar Naik has stepped up to the role of our Head of Pathway. We undertook a very rigorous and arduous interview process and am sure we have the right people in place. I will say however we are also continuing to look at the coaching recruitment as we continue to strive to improve and suspect there may be some more news soon.

 Finally on cricket, I am sure you will join me in wishing our First Team squad (and all the teams) the best of success for the season ahead.

 On to Commercial.

 The Commercial team from a business perspective have had to deal with all sorts of challenges over the past 2/3 years including Brexit, Covid and of course the War that is taking place now. These, as we know, all can have a detrimental effect on our economy in the UK. That said the Commercial team have persevered and have during the winter provided some impressive results including being up on sales by 16% compared to the last normal season of 2019. It is crucial our commercial sales continue to grow, because without these the Club will shrink. Consequently, my message is clear, if you are considering advertising, sponsoring, taking hospitality, or even becoming a member, please do so. Without your support we will find it very difficult to A: realise our potential and B:  grow to become a bigger and stronger club. We still have many opportunities for a variety of budgets so please get in touch.

 That’s said, it’s great to see so many sell-outs cropping up in our commercial offering including, player sponsorship, Boundary Club, the new Captain’s Club, and our upcoming golf day.

 Finally on commercial at the time of writing, we had just held our Season Launch with the President (Jack Birkenshaw) in the Charles Palmer. It was great to see over 200 businesses in the room, particularly for the first time we have held such an event. I must say that the room was full of positivity, and you can really feel a great vibe at the Club. Thanks also go to 365 People who sponsored the event

 Moving onto the Company Pillar.

Lots going on here too. I’ll start with Green, Green, and more Green. If you have been to the Uptonsteel County Ground recently, you will have noticed parts of the ground have received a makeover. In simple, anything that doesn’t move has been painted green. At this point, I would like to pay tribute to Johnstone’s Paint for supporting us and Fresh Start Properties for the painting work.

 One of the major changes in our Company Pillar has been the change of reporting procedures for the Ground Staff. As part of an experiment, I have moved the Ground Staff team to the Cricket Pillar, reporting to Claude Henderson. The reason for this is to make the Cricket Operations and preparations of the creases closer to the cricket team. They must work in tandem. Our Maintenance team (which is different to the ground staff) remain in the Company Pillar and reports to our Operations Manager. Their role is to ensure the Upton Steel County Ground is of the standard we expect and having watched them I am amazed at how much work is required on a day-to-day basis.

 Sticking with our Company Pillar, but this time on a HR front. It has been incredibly busy with several roles being recruited for. There is still lots to do but it has been a very busy time for all of the Pillars as they look to replace staff who have moved on from our organisation or filling new roles that we have. I do believe we are now starting to create the right foundations for the Club. For those that have seen me present they will have seen my DNA slide and what I expect from our people. It’s well documented that people are the business and I agree with that, so for us its crucial that we appoint the right ones to help us develop the company further.

 In terms of development, I am also very keen on training and personal development. It has been good to see all our staff undertake courses on Safeguarding and EDI.  

 Continuing on recruitment, but this time turning to the Community Pillar.

I can’t confirm but suspect we are the first Club in Cricket to look to appoint a Community and EDI Director. If you have been following our website and social media channels, you will have noticed we have invited applications for this role. I am pleased to report that we have had many CV’s and will be working through them over the coming weeks but looking to appoint as soon as we can. I am particularly excited about this appointment for several reasons. As set out at the end of 2021, one of the five steps in our 2022 Five-Step Strategy, was to undertake an internal Community audit and the board and I are unanimous that we need to pioneer in our community work and the appointment of this role will help us do that. We as a Club are very keen to build on the work undertaken already but create better and deeper links with our community on so many fronts. What I do see is an abundance of ideas from our communities and how we can get closer. Consequently, we must harness them and look at ways of implementing them, even if it is collating them into one big idea to start with. The Community Director will ultimately be responsible for our Community Pillar, Like Claude is for Cricket, and part of that will be building our Foundation too. Exciting times ahead.

 Finally, onto cash.

At the time of writing, I had just received our figures for month 5 of our financial year. I will look to try and provide more detail next month (as we get our half-yearly figures) but to date, the Club continues to progress. We are broadly on budget but there are some good comparisons I can draw from the latest figures, for example, our commercial income is up by 16.8% versus the same period in 2019 (I guess the last ‘normal’ year) and whilst expenditure is up by 8.4% versus the same period in 2019, it currently remains 1.5% under budget for this year.

 Hopefully, the attached gives you a small flavour of what is going on at the Club. Rest assured there is lots more, but these are the salient points.

 Here’s to a progressive 2022.

 Sean