We have selected our first 5 volunteers of the month for this summer!
From June through to September, we want to celebrate volunteers across Derbyshire that are going above and beyond for their clubs or communities. Each month we want to select 5 volunteers to receive a range of prizes for their efforts.
Here are our 5 winners for June:
Carol Rance
Carol commits so much time to her own club, Mickleover, and to the Derby & District Youth League.
She is the secretary of the Derby & District Youth League, meaning she runs the admin side of the league which is no easy job. With the weather in May, she has overseen ensuring that fixtures are rearranged & rescheduled, communicating with clubs at all ages groups. Carol does so much to ensure junior cricket matches throughout the parish go ahead.
In addition, Carol has managed Mickleover’s Allstars & Dynamos programmes communicating with 85 families, ensuring coaches and activators are present and ratios are correct. Not to mention printing & laminating coaching sheets; dealing with inclement weather & changing car parking facilities!
Carol also helped assisted us here at the DCF in the setup of the Sunday development league. She volunteered to help us organise the fixtures on play cricket which is now running very well, providing many players with more opportunities to play cricket across the county!
For all this hard work and commitment to the game, we have named Carol as one of our June winners! Congratulations Carol!
Matthew Coleman
Matthew is the groundsman at Dinting CC, who works single handedly as a volunteer around his full-time job.
He provides up to 7 different wickets every week for juniors aged 9 through to the open age teams. Matthew also maintains the outfield and our vast surroundings and keeps them looking pristine all year round.
As a novice, Matt has had to do his research on what to do and when to do it, and this has led to their grounds being the envy of all around them.
For this outstanding commitment and work for his club, Matthew is one of our June Winners! Well done Matthew!
Dawn Phillips
Dawn has contributed to the coaching of juniors at Chesterfield CC for many years. and especially how she plays a key role in transitioning younger players in the 8-11 year old age bracket from softball to hardball cricket.
She makes sure players enjoy the sessions and build their confidence ready to make the step from kwik cricket to harball cricket, and this season she has played a bigger role in this than ever, making sure the sessions are creative and varied, and putting core skills in place. Her training group has continued to grow, despite several players moving up to hardball as friends, school friends and siblings have got involved to join in the fun!
Dawn’s commitment is second to none – as well as running weekly training she has helped out to cover Kwik Cricket and hardball matches and used her knowledge and experience to support the club in various important areas such as safeguarding and ensuring COVID-secure sessions go ahead. Chesterfield CC would like to say a big thank you to Dawn for everything she does and her contribution to the development of our junior players.
For these reasons, Dawn is one of our June Winners! Congratulations Dawn!
Stuart Blake
Stuart is responsible for the junior section at Clifton CC.
The junior section at the club is growing significantly! Stuart chairs the junior sub-committee and manages the coaches and their responsibilities to ensure training and matches go ahead on a weekly basis. He listens to all concerns and provides support and solutions where required. He constantly watches for challenges and events that the junior section can attend or play in, increasing their exposure to cricket and building their confidence and skills.
Stuart has arranged and attends extra training on Saturday mornings, with help from 2 of the 1st XI team members, to ensure juniors are exposed to top level coaching. On a Wednesday night, he ensures everyone is sorted and things are happening and then goes off to coach the Dynamo’s! He manages our U17 team and often works with a local club to produce an U19s team.
On top of his work with the junior section, Stuart is an active club committee member and regular 1st team player. The club are ever grateful for the work and commitment that Stuart shows.
For this outstanding commitment and work for his club, Stuart is one of our June Winners! Well done Stuart!
Hannah Fuller
Hannah works tirelessly for Spondon Cricket Club and is constantly encouraging and supporting the young female players at the club.
Hannah doesn’t have a cricketing background but has taken the time to learn the game including scoring and organising many aspects of the game. She regularly pretty much single-handedly organises the Women & Girls fixtures, manages them, scores for them, arranges coaching sessions, on top of her own personal commitments with two young cricket players of her own to “ferry” about to their games.
Throughout the winter she runs similar teams for young female players at Willows and includes not only Spondon CC players but those from a range of clubs to ensure the Women & Girls game continues to grow and they all have the opportunity to continue playing.
In addition to this workload, she is also the club’s key Dynamos coordinator and coach which is showing success on getting more keen youngsters into the club.
For this outstanding commitment and work to support the growth of Women and Girls Cricket, Hannah is one of our June Winners! Well done Hannah!
