Welcome!

Dear Parent / Carer,
Oxford Downs Cricket Club welcomes you and your children to the club. We hope that your child(ren) will enjoy
being a member, the cricket coaching, training, and matches, as well as the social aspects of ODCC. The aim
of this letter is to provide information that may be helpful to you as new members. Please do ask me – the Club
Safeguarding Officer or any committee member or coach if you have other questions not answered in this letter.

Contact Information

A full list of club officials, committee members and first aiders can be found on the club noticeboard and on the
ODCC website, but in summary, some important contacts:

Club Telephone – 01865 301764
Club Chairman – Tom Welch (07856 687935, tomwelch33@gmail.com)
Club Secretary – Nick Owens (07515 878307, mail@nickowens.co.uk)
Club Safeguarding Officer – Natasha Coates (07967 293589, safeguarding@oxforddowns.com)
Membership Secretary – Meg Potter (07875 105170, meg.potter536@gmail.com)
Head of Cricket – Stuart Armstrong (07776 053474, stuart.armstrong0603@gmail.com)

Safeguarding

As a ‘Clubmark’ club and we adhere to the ‘Safe Hands’ Policy for Safeguarding Children in Cricket. All of the adults at the club who work with children and meet the necessary criteria are vetted by the ECB.

Whilst we hope your child will be happy and content at the club, we understand that sometimes questions, concerns or difficulties may arise. Please feel able to raise these as soon as possible, so we can rectify things at the earliest opportunity. If you have a question regarding coaching, please approach the coach in the first instance. However, please do not interrupt coaching sessions, especially nets practice, as this may distract the coach when they need to be supervising the children. Our coaches will be happy to speak to you before or after training or at another convenient time.

If you have questions about kit requirements, training times, pick up arrangements, etc., please speak to myself
or your child’s coach.

If you have any concern about your child or another child, or about the behaviour of any adult at the club, please speak to me, the Club Safeguarding Officer using my contact details as above. If your concern is about me, you may contact the County Safeguarding Officer, Lesley Pykett. Email:
safeguarding@oxoncb.com or mobile: 07762 572558.

‘Safe hands’, ECB’s Policy for safeguarding Children in cricket, is available to view online at
https://www.ecb.co.uk/about/policies/safeguarding/policies-and-procedures or a copy is available at the club.

Information for Juniors

Training times:

U9: Wednesday 6:30 – 7:30pm
U11: Wednesday 6:30 – 8pm
Girls Softball: Wednesday 6:30 – 8pm
U13: Friday 6.15 – 7.15pm
U15: Friday 7.15 – 8.15pm
Girls Hardball: Friday 7.15 – 8.15pm

Please note that open age group teams (adults) train on Tuesdays and Thursdays, 6-8pm – as per ECB regulations, juniors below year 8 are not permitted to practise in these sessions. All year 8 junior members must have written parental consent to train with the adults. Please contact our head of cricket, Stuart Armstrong, using his contact details above with any queries.

Lead Coaches: 

U9 – James Florey 

U11 – Chaim Holder

Girls – Les Addison & Kirsty Dymond

U13 – Frankie Crouch & Chaim Holder

U15 – Frankie Crouch & Chaim Holder

U17 – Len Bodill

Support Coaches:

Luke Maslen, James Wilkes, Graeme Coates

Match Managers:

U9 festivals – James Florey

U11 – Warren and Jo Sheehan

Girls – Mat Bowden

U13 – Ben and Beth Garner

U15 – Nick Owens

U17 – Len Bodill

Support Coaches: Luke Maslen, James Wilkes, Graeme Coates

All Stars Cricket:

Our Activators this season are Emma Welch, Kate Whetter, Sacha Collins, Maddie Collins and Fiona Florey. All
Stars starts on Wednesday 15th May until 3rd July at 6 – 7pm.

Details: https://www.ecb.co.uk/play/all-stars

Drop off / Collection Arrangements for training:

It is expected that all parents/guardians stay at the club while junior training takes place (for any children in
U11s and U9s) and that parents/guardians collect their child(ren) from the relevant coach after training has
finished. If you can’t stay for the training session you need to provide the name of a responsible adult that will be
present at the ground during the training session.

Medication:

It is mandatory for any child with medication to have their medication with them at training / matches, in case of a medical emergency. Examples of medication (non-exhaustive list), would be: inhalers, epi-pens, etc. The coach may ask to see their medication to ensure they have it and a child will not be able to train if they don’t have it with them. For the same reason, it is important that any relevant medication is kept up-to-date on the membership database by parents. Having paid junior subs, parents should all have access to the membership database to do this – any queries contact Graeme Coates.

Email: membership-admin@oxforddowns.com.

Play area

It is the responsibility of parents/guardians to supervise their children in the play area. No glasses/bottles are to be taken onto play area. Children are also not permitted to climb on the top roofed area of the play park.

Dogs

Dogs, with the exception of assistance dogs, are not allowed on the club grounds on either Wednesday or Friday junior training sessions.

Donations

Over the past couple of seasons, the club has had a great deal of expenditure, for example the centenary nets, the boundary nets and fixing the play park. We had many generous donations to support these projects and would like to thank those that donated for your support. We are still looking for donations to support future
projects and the general cost of running the club. You can donate through the membership database upon sign-up ( https://www.oxforddowns.com/membership/ ).

Finally…

Our club is run by a number of volunteers and we welcome offers of help from all members, and hope that as you feel part of the club you will feel able to get involved. Please do consider helping out if you can – please contact Tom Welch or Meg Potter if you are able to do so!

All members are reminded of the club’s code of conduct for members and guests, the parents’ code of conduct and the code of conduct for children, which can all be found on the club safeguarding board in the entrance lobby to the club. All the information you need can be found on this safeguarding board and on the club website; including how to report accidents or incidents, a list of qualified first aiders and club policies. I would like to remind you all that we do have an anti-discrimination, inclusion, diversity and equity policy. Please take some time to familiarise yourself with the information posted on the safeguarding board or visit
https://www.oxforddowns.com/club/club-policies/.

We do hope that you and your child(ren) enjoy being a member of Oxford Downs Cricket Club, and if you have any concerns, do please let me know.

Yours

Natasha Coates (Club Safeguarding Officer)