ACO NEWSLETTER - Ecb - England and Wales Cricket Board

ECB ACO National ConferenceThe Nursery Pavilion at Lord’s again played host to ECB ACO’s fourth annual National Conference, on abeautiful sunny day at the Home of Cricket.More than 300 members turned out for what was a fantastic day enhanced by the number of highprofile guests who shared their own experiences with us, but also by those presentations and workshopsthat were more related to recreational cricket.People startedpouring infrom 9:00when the doorsto the NurseryPavilionopened. Tea,coffee and biscuitsweresupplied onarrival and itgave themembers anopportunityto catch upwith friends,and introduce themselves to their fellow officials.Those attending were provided with theirown name badge, which also stipulatedwhich sessions they would be attending, asthey checked in for the day.Sue Jones, Berkshire, was on the welcomedesk…"I was invited to assist with check-in atthe "meet and greet" front desk at this year'sconference. It was a pleasure to be involvedwith saying hello to so many oldfriends and colleagues from the past numberof years, plus welcoming new membersattending for the first time. There were occasionswhen a small queue formed (wefigured it must have been a coach partyfrom distance or an influx of folk from thetube station!) but it wasn’t a problem.It was fun working closely with RegionalOfficers, Phillip Radcliffe from Yorkshireand Dave Carter from Wales, plus StuartWheeldon from the Membership Servicesteam at Edgbaston, so we had most of thecountry covered on our side of the desk!It enabled Head Office to be ‘on the hoof’and therefore freed them up to deal withany technical hitches or anything else thatrequired instant attention, such as missingspeakers. So, thank you for the invitation tolend a hand; though occasionally hectic, Ihad a most enjoyable time and was awarethat everyone who attended did too.”Members were also able to have a lookaround the market place which housed scoringplatforms NXCricket, Total CricketScorer and CricHQ, along with ECB ACOclothing manufacturers Duncan Fearnley,with some fantastic one-off conferencedeals.With nearly all of the attendees having arrived,at 10:00am everyone was called in tothe main hall, where the Annual GeneralMeeting was to commence.THE AGMSenior Executive Officer Nick Cousins welcomed those present to the Annual General Meeting,saying that he hoped a fabulous day would ensue, before introducing ECB ACO ChairmanRoger Knight to give his report.Roger spoke refreshingly about the Association. He began by thanking Nick Cousins, BenFrancis and the executive team for their hard work over the past 12 months before mentioningthe problems with direct debits and membership renewal. He also thanked the core volunteerworkforce saying that they are a huge strength of the Association.Roger mentioned the ECB ACO newsletter, commenting that it continued to go fromstrength to strength, and that it is something that as an Association, we should be proud of.Roger then handed back to Nick Cousins for his report. Nick restated the value of the corevolunteer workforce, and said that the Association should be proud of the 300+ people thatplay a huge part in the training and development of officials throughout the country. He talkedof the Membership Services team at Edgbaston, mentioning particularly Dave Gallagher, WinnieCrooks and Stuart Wheeldon. They had also done a great deal of work and he was confidentthat we will not be beset by the problems we had last year.The four regional meetings that had taken place during the two weeks leading up to the conferencewere deemed a success. Nick revealed that feedback had been extremely positive andthat more than 200 people had attended across the four meetings.Nick explained about the Membership Services Committee and its future role, as well as theneed for each County ACO to have its own MSC representative.Scorers are a huge focal point for ECB ACO, and the question regarding increasing scorernumbers was posed to those present. Cricket apps and platforms NXCricket, CricHQ and TotalCricket Scorer were also mentioned, with Nick stating that we, as an Association, are in fullsupport of all scoring platforms, and that it was a matter of personal choice which platform wasopted for.Nick concluded by highlighting the pathways that are now in place for those aspiring to officiateat the higher levels of the recreational game, leading in to the professional game. He thenhanded over to Deputy Chairman, Peter Mitchell, for his report on all matters financial.Peter ran through the financial report from 2011; the budget that was put in place for 2012,and the end of year figure,before Nick returned to leada short Q&A session on allthree reports.The topic of CRB disclosureswas raised with thecontinuing stance that allECB ACO members must beCRB checked being aggressivelyquestioned from thefloor. Nick concluded theQ&A by stating that policyDeputy Chairman of the Board, Peter Mitchell, during the financialreportECB ACO Chairman, Roger Knight, speaks during the AGMin this respect was a matterfor ECB Safeguarding butthat he would discuss the situationwith them in the NewYear as and when the nextset of Government guidelineswas promulgated.Nick then welcomedeveryone to the fourth annualECB ACO NationalConference and explainedwhere all of the first sessionswould be taking placeand announced the overallarrangements for the day.e-mail us at ecbaco@ecb.co.uk 4 contact us on 0121 446 2710