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 – Darryl Woods (07879 422989, darrylwoodscricketcoaching@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, Vicki Selby. Email: safeguarding@oxoncb.com or mobile: 07907 718923.

Alternatively, scan the QR code ‘YOUR VOICE MATTERS’ that is available around the clubhouse or on the club website.

‘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
U13: Friday 6.15 – 7.15pm
U15: Friday 7.15 – 8.15pm

This season the girls will be training with the boys rather than having a separate girls’ only training session.

Please note that there has been an IMPORTANT change to the ECB regulations for ALL juniors playing open-aged cricket (under the age of 18 and at least in year 8). All juniors MUST have written parental consent to train

and play with the adults (this includes juniors playing in the women’s squad). A form will be sent out this week to all members and the form must be completed and signed by a parent/guardian before a junior is eligible to play. Open age group training times: Women’s Monday 6.30-8.30pm and Men’s Tuesdays 6-8pm – as per ECB regulations, juniors below year 8 (unless year 7 and in a county squad) are not permitted to practise in these sessions. Please contact our head of cricket, Darryl Woods, using his contact details above with any queries.

Lead Coaches: 

U9 – James Florey 

U11 – Luke Maslen, Louis Deport

U13 – Luke Maslen, Louis Deport

U15 – Frankie Crouch, Luke Maslen, Louis Deport

 

Match Managers:

U9 festivals – Fiona Florey

U11 – TBC

U13 – Ben Garner

U15 – Mat Bowden

All Stars Cricket:

Our Activators this season are Emma Welch, Kate Whetter, Sacha Collins, Dan Lowther, Olly Costar and Andrew Howe. All Stars starts on Wednesday 14th May until 2nd July at 6:15 – 7:15pm.

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.

Other Information:

Accident Reporting

This season, there is a new system for reporting of accidents that require first aid. Please scan the QR code ‘ACCIDENT REPORTING’ that is available around the clubhouse or on the club website.

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 or containers.

Dogs

Dogs, with the exception of assistance dogs, are not allowed on the club grounds on Wednesday 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 board and on the club website; including how to report accidents or safeguarding concerns (including QR codes for reporting), a list of qualified first aiders, and club policies. 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)