Sean Jarvis: CEO Monthly Report - October 2022

We must always look to evolve, improve, and develop.

This winter, there will be lots of activity (from all of our pillars) that will focus on the above sentence. In fact, it’s fair to say the work has already begun.

To start with, our coaching structure has progressed.

With the recruitment of former Leicestershire player James Taylor, I believe this adds a special ingredient to the Club. So, with Claude Henderson as Director of Cricket, Paul Nixon as Head Coach, Alfonso Thomas as Bowling Coach and now James as Batting Coach, we are well equipped to ensure our players have the tools for the forthcoming season. The ‘foursome’ have so much experience to offer and am sure we’ll see some great gains.

The coaching set up is also well supported by our 2^nd X1 Coach, Dips Patel as well as Jigar Naik as our Head of the Academy/Pathway, not forgetting all the other cricket coaches and departments, including Science, Medicine, Analysis, Strength and Conditioning, Operations and Grounds.  It fair to say it has taken us a bit of time to get where we would like but I do feel we now have a robust cricket structure. One that can always evolve and improve of course, but definitely a strong team in place. 

The challenge now is to have the hardest and best planned pre-season the Club has ever seen, with our squad ready for the task ahead.

The squad too continues to evolve with players leaving, extending their contracts, or joining the Club. Over the coming weeks I would urge you to keep a close look on the official media channels as there are several news articles planned. In the meantime, joining new recruits Sol Budinger and Michael Finan, we welcome Matt Salisbury joining us from Durham, along with Academy Graduate Josh Hull getting a pro contract.

I would also like to take this opportunity to congratulate Rehan Ahmed on getting a call up for the England Lions who travel to the UAE. It’s great to see and once again shows how our Club can produce talent for the national team.

Sticking with cricket I was privileged to be at our recent, well attended, Academy Presentation evening. Not only was it impressive to see so many present (including relatives and friends), it was also great to hear a recap of the season and how are teams are progressing. Having heard about the teams and players our future is most definitely bright.

Our off-the-field structure has also undertaken some changes. Firstly, as I mentioned in previous updates, we have created a new pillar of the Club entitled the Communications Pillar. In simple this is the marketing and branding arm of the business.

As such we have recruited Amy Reed to join us as Head of Communications, she brings with her considerable marketing experience and am sure will help us to develop our brand equity as well as improving our communications between members and the Club, including the likes of the website, app and e-communication.

Ryan Murphy has also joined us in the Commercial Department, as our new Head of Ticketing and Retail. Ryan is another great addition to the team and with him brings great experience having worked for UK Athletics, Derby County and Birmingham City. Ryan is already making inroads to improve our ticketing procedures and develop our retail offering.

Hot off the press, we have now also recruited a new Catering Manager, Stephen Carroll, who has nearly three decades of food industry expertise. He too will look to build on the previous good work by our catering team and continue to help Leicestershire progress.

As well as staff changes, we are making some changes to the Uptonsteel County Ground. Last year our focus was to get the main reception sorted along with the memorial garden. Both are working well but we mustn’t sit on our laurels.

Consequently, the team in our Company Pillar have got a hectic winter ahead. We have several projects underway including repairs to our seating canopies, expanding our changing rooms (to meet the CPA standards), developing a dedicated players’ lounge, clearing the area behind The Meet to create additional parking, installation of electric chargers, introducing more memorabilia into the Fox Bar and improving the area around the Morningside Marquee.  So, as you can see, we are going to have a busy winter.

Just to finish off my update and for the moment I would just like to reflect on the season just gone and some of the great stats you may have missed including ….

Corporate Sales +46.2%

Consumer Sales +47.0%

Conference and banqueting +27.6%

T20 Attendances +26.4%

Chance to Shine School Participants +68.1%

Chance to Shine Street Participants +372.3%

Matchday Hospitality +97.4%

Facebook Followers +16.6%

Membership +44.9%

Clubs offering Women and Girls Cricket +29.1%

I could probably go on with more stats but collectively I believe the above demonstrate the direction Leicestershire CCC are travelling in.

These remain exciting times (whilst challenging too) but we must continue to progress if we are to achieve our targets.

Onwards and Upwards

Sean