FRIENDS OF HLCC 

Friends of HLCC Quarterly Newsletter: April 2023

Welcome again to our quarterly update on life @ HLCC!  Its been a busy closed season both on and off the pitch @ HLCC.  We continue to make amazing progress towards our goal of becoming the friendly, sociable and inclusive community sports club that High Lane deserves. 

2023 will see the realisation of our vision to restore HLCC to a full complement of teams at all levels.  Our club will be entering three senior XIs & T20 in the DCCL thanks to our increasing membership and success of our youth policy.  In April, we welcomed our overseas player (Kelly Jones) for the 2023 season to help continue the journey of improving the standard and performance of cricket.

Thankyou for your continuing support and I hope to see you all at Middlewood as the season progresses.

Chris Simpson

HLCC Chairman

Delivering on our promises….

Our goal remains to build our club on solid foundations for the future.  Last year we continued this process, with our aim to complete a number of key projects by the start of the season:

Our Training facilities are being expanded and upgraded thanks to a hugely successful crowdfunding campaign which raised over £15K with the support of our local community and sponsors.  This will allow us to continue to expand junior and women’s cricket in the future.

Our Changing facilities are now complete signalling the completion of a £60K investment in the facilities for our members and guests. 

The club has invested heavily over the last three years to catch up and compete within today’s sporting and social environment.  In future years, we would anticipate a more targeted approach as grant funding becomes more challenging and we focus our attention on investing in cricket outcomes on the pitch.

Strong Foundations for the Future .... 

At a junior level, we continue to innovate and grow with some noteable steps forward.

We successfully launched the ECB All stars programme to support 5-8 year old kids wanting to try cricket for the first time.  Over 20 kids signed up and it proved such a success we are now launching ECB Dynamos for 8-11 year olds.

The quality of our junior section is being recognised within the Cheshire County with a number of our players progressing to advanced and excellence courses ahead of possible consideration for district teams.  We commit to continue to support parents in coaching and financially where we can.

As a consequence of expanding our senior section, our talented juniors can now get valuable experience playing weekend cricket through our 2nd and 3rd XI teams.

A sustainable future …

Whilst the economic environment has deteriorated rapidly in the last year, the club has been able to ride the storm thanks to the changes we made to broaden the use of the club throughout the year:

• Our Social Section has gone from strength to strength with regular hirings throughout the winter.  We have invested in our staff to lighten the load on our volunteer base.  We remain committed to focusing on the needs of our members and regular visitors and will retain appropriate pricing and rewards to recognise their loyalty to the club. The club have applied for a full premises license ahead of the new season to reflect the changing function and use of the club.
• Our Pavilion continues to be improved with the addition of new heating systems and solar generated power with support of the ECB.  Our goal is to ensure the club is sustainable both financially and environmentally for future generations. 
• Our partnership with HLFC continues to blossom with a full season across three pitches and rave reviews from players and visitors.  An annual investment in the outfield of £5K supported by the Football Foundation & HLFC and the purchase of machinery is showing real improvements in the playing surface despite increased use.