Page 6 - West Pennant Hills Cherrybrook Cricket Club Yearbook 2015-16

DIRECTOR OPERATIONS
The 2015/16 season was our 85th and yet again, a lot has been achieved. This season saw us enter the following Teams:
• 87 In2Cricket (Kanga)
• 70 Girls (35 T20 Blast plus 3 U13s and 1 U17 Team)
• 40 Junior Teams with 19 Teams between U8s and U11s
• 12 Senior Teams.
In the Juniors we entered the following Teams:
• U8 x 5 (last season – 4 Teams)
• U9 x 7 (6)
• U10 x 7 (6)
• U11 x 6 (3)
• U12 x 3 (4)
• U13 x 4 (3)
• U14 x 3 (2)
• U15 x 3 (2)
• U16 x 2 (1) Totals: 40 (31)
This is a record 881 registered players across all Grades. This is counter intuitive to what should be happening in our demographic. During the offseason we undertook a full re-fresh of our Club strategy including demographic analysis. The key themes are:
• In the 5 to 14 years cohort between 2006 and 2011, the number of children declined by 15% in Cherrybrook and 14% in WPH. Our growth in numbers is the opposite to these trends
• There has also been a shift in the socio mix with a greater percentage of people living in the District who do not come from areas with a natural disposition towards cricket with folk of Chinese heritage for example accounting for 15% of the Cherrybrook population and 18% in West Pennant Hills
• The major growth cohort in our District is in 55 years plus age group.
What this means is that we have achieved consistent numbers, with some cyclical trends, despite age trends that indicates that we should be in decline. The drivers for this are:
• In Juniors, our Participation Over Results Policy, combined with outstanding leadership over many years, has allowed a high retention rate of Juniors. An example of this is our U16s where we had 50% of the Competition and in our 2 Teams there were 13 players who first started in Kanga
• Our Schools Development Program that saw us run clinics for over 1,000 children. Our thanks goes to the Principals of Cherrybrook Public, WPH Public, Oakhill Drive and Murray Farm Public Schools.
• Our Executive Leadership Team who have brought energy and capability to all Divisions. A special mention to Graham Chivers (CNSW Volunteer of the Year nominee) for his work on developing Girls cricket.
Our newest Life Member – Andrew Fiedler
Congratulations to Andrew Fiedler who has been inducted as our 20th Life Member – a special achievement acknowledging achievement over many years. Andrew started playing for us in 1986/87 – 24 seasons, allowing for a break in the late 1980s. Andrew is one of our great players being the 3rd highest run scorer in our history with 6,312 runs. He has; Captained many Senior Teams over the years and won two Premierships.
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