Page 3 - West Pennant Hills Cherrybrook Cricket Club Yearbook 2015-16

CHAIRPERSON’S REPORT
The 2015/16 season was our 85th and when I look at the quality and depth of our Leadership Team, our Volunteers and the energy and commitment right across our Club, I can see why our great Club has been so successful over so many years.
As this success has been built on volunteer effort it is something we can never take for granted. This brings to mind a quote I heard recently “Noah’s Ark was built by Volunteers and the Titanic by professionals”. So I would like to call out first up a very big thank you to all of our Volunteers – our Leadership Team, Team Coaches, Team Managers, Gear Stewards, Seniors Team Captains, scorers, umpires, BBQ folk, Pink Stumps Day organisers. At last count we had over 270 active volunteers – thank you!
I would like to note some highlights in what has been another successful season:
Club Strategy and Vision
One of the reasons for our long-term success is that we have a Strategy that has been stable for a number of years with fine-tuning when required. Thank you to Ross Anderson, our Club Operations Manager who used his time recovering from surgery to revisit our Strategy, supported by a detailed demographic analysis. This was reviewed by our Club Executive over a number of hours to set our direction for 2016-2019 when it will be refreshed again.
Our newest Life member – Andrew Fiedler
Life Membership is the ultimate acknowledgement our Club bestows on people who have made a significant contribution to our Club over a period of time. Andrew Fiedler has been inducted as our 20th Life Member acknowledging his long term contribution as a player plus off-field contribution in Juniors and Seniors. Congratulations Andrew. More detail is provided in the report by our Operations Director.
CNSW Volunteer Award
While speaking of Volunteers, congratulations to Graham Chivers, who was nominated by CNSW for Volunteer of the Year Award for the NSW Centre for Volunteering. To put this in context, there are only 12 nominations across NSW. Graham has received his nomination for his contribution to Girls cricket.
Association Volunteer Recognition
Integrity Award
Julian Bish was awarded the prestigious Integrity Award by the Association for “Exemplary Sportsmanship and / or Development of Cricket in the Local District”. This is a wonderful acknowledgement and makes Julian only the 2nd person in our Club to win this prestigious award.
Representative Secretary’s Award
Simon Reynolds won the Representative Secretary’s Award for his ongoing contribution to Rep cricket. Well done Julian and Simon.
Mark Rushton congratulations
Mark Rushton, one of the great contributors to our Association, a former President and Life Member, was awarded the NSW Volunteer of the Year Award (Adult Division) and NSW Volunteer of the Year (All categories). When you consider that there are approx. 2 million volunteers in NSW this is an amazing achievement and suitable recognition to a special person. Well done Mark from all of us at West Penno.
Girl’s cricket
Under Graham Chivers leadership, the number of Girls playing has grown beyond expectations with 3 x U13 Teams, 1 x U17 team and 35 x T20 Blast participants. We now have just on 70 Girls playing cricket and the momentum is good.
Pink Stumps day
Each year I have commented on the success of our U9s who run our Pink Stumps day in aid of the McGrath Foundation. Joseph Cooray U10 Age Convenor) represented us at Government House this season where we were acknowledged as being one of the biggest fund-raisers in Australia - $16,000 in 3-years. Thank you to our U9s this season, under the guidance of Steve Burrows, who raised over $2,000 for this great cause.
We also featured in a McGrath Foundation national promotional video and this can be viewed on – http:// pinkstumpsday2016.gofundraise.com.au/cms/videos
Chairman (President’s Award – Jim Fuggle Trophy)
This award was started in 1983/84 by David Steer – our President at that time. With the exception of Life
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