Sean Jarvis: CEO Monthly Report - April 2023

Last month I focussed on our five-to-eight-year strategy. The purpose of that update was to give you an overall indication of the path we, the Club, are looking to follow including the annual sub strategies that help us achieve our goals and aspirations. Hopefully, you will have read and were encouraged by what we are aiming at. Naturally, I will update on our milestones as we progress.

However, this month, for my CEO blog I’ll revert to providing an update on the great work of the Club’s ‘Six Pillars’ (Cricket, Communications, Community, Company, Commercial and Cash).

Starting with the Cricket Pillar, it’s great to not only see the season up and running (and the ground looking stunning) but also the start the team have made. Winning at Headingley was an excellent achievement, but I will stress this wasn’t just a one off; it was clearly a result of the hard work by the players and coaching staff that had been put in over the winter months.

What has been equally excellent to see is backing that up with the two performances versus Derbyshire and Glamorgan at the Uptonsteel County Ground. If the weather had been a little kinder who knows what might have happened. Individual performances have been great but clearly there is a team spirit developing that we have not seen at the Club for quite some time.

And when looking at the Championship table, it’s really pleasing to see we currently sit second in the league (with a game in hand). There is obviously a long way to go but no one can deny this has been one of the best starts to the Championship campaign for some considerable time.

Speaking of culture, I also want to give praise to the second eleven. I had the pleasure to call in at Kibworth recently and it was evident that the spirit shown in the first team was carrying on in the second team. It feels as if we have now got a collective squad that is ‘building’ a Leicestershire way.

With regards to our academy, I am looking forward to seeing them begin their games and I aim to see a few of the matches over the summer months. I am pretty sure they will pick up the Leicestershire Way too.

Moving onto our Community Pillar. 

I was impressed by an event our Community team recently held. To attend the table cricket competition at Ellesmere College was a pleasure and it literally blew me away. Witnessing children play the game (along with some of our first team too) was not only an eye opener for me but seeing nearly 100 pupils participate was really encouraging and heart-warming. The work that our community team do is often missed, and I only wish more people could see more like this great event.

As always, there’s lots continuing to go on from our Community team that ranges from women and girl’s pathway and club development to indoor cricket finals to coach development to tape ball competitions to name just a few. What I am witnessing is that all parts of our community outreach work are on the up.

For example, women’s teams in the EMWCL are up by 60% compared to last year. I could almost spend the whole of my CEO update on the work that is currently underway in our Community division, but it would be nearly five pages in length.

The next pillar is Commercial.

The winter has been an equally busy month for this part of our business. And six months into the financial year, it is also evident that they as a team have worked extremely hard. For us to break through the 2000 membership ceiling is a great achievement and one not to be underestimated. As mentioned last month (and at the recent members forum) ‘Building’ is our sub strategy for 2023. Clearly by breaking the 2k barrier we are now beginning to build a growing membership. Having a healthy membership base is crucial for the ongoing future of the Club.

Very recently we held our pre-season launch in the Charles Palmer Suite at the ground and to get 200 people packed in the room was excellent to see. I think the common thread that came out of the event was that there is a buzz around the Club.

Commercially we still have a huge amount of work to do, and I would continue to urge you to support not only the cricket but also the events we put on here at the ground, including the upcoming Tom Jones concert and West End shows to name just a few. The support you provide for those types of events at the Club are crucial to generating income for the Club.

Speaking of a major revenue stream. The T20’s is imminent. Getting bumper crowds at those games is vital for us. And whilst the Commercial and Communications teams will endeavour to spread the word, I would encourage you, our supporters to equally help us get the message out there. The more people we can have supporting us at those games, the better it is for the Club. Our best ambassadors are of course you, our die-hard supporters, so please encourage as many people to come along as you can.

From a Company perspective there continues to be a lot of hard work. Over the next few days, we will be notifying our members of an SGM that will look to introduce some Club rule changes that we believe help benefit and continue to drive our Club forwards. Please keep your eyes peeled on our website that will notify you of the upcoming SGM date.

Communications wise, we have had a change in personnel. Amy Reed has moved on to pastures new and of course we thank her and wish her well in her next chapter. However, this pillar of our business will now be headed up by Ryan Murphy. Ryan has considerable experience having worked for British Athletics and will be looking to see how we can continually build on our communications and marketing to supporters old and new. This year we will aim to try a few new tactics but please feel free to contact us and let us know how we are doing and how we can improve.

The last of our six pillars is Cash.  Finance is of course crucial to our ongoing development and as we stand (6 months into the financial year) we are broadly on budget. Which is a good healthy position to be in, but we mustn’t rest our laurels. Encouragingly there has been some positive signs including growth in memberships along with increased numbers of corporate supporters, factors like these will help us achieve our strategies far quicker and hopefully reach our targets sooner rather than later.

Thanks for the continued support and I look forward to seeing you at Gracelands!