Barbados - Under 15's Tour, May-June 2008

Now then, don’t laugh.  When some of this year’s Year 9 players came up to us after an indoor practice session and said, “We want to go on tour”, I admit I had thought “Yorkshire”, or similar.  When I asked where they had in mind, and they replied ”The Caribbean – Barbados or Antigua” I also admit I laughed.  When it became apparent that this was serious, it was suggested that we would only look at it if they investigated it properly, costed it fully, and then gave me a formal printed proposal.  It came back a fortnight later – bound.

At the moment we are working on a touring party of some 15 children from the U15 age group next year (ie next year’s Year s 9 & 10), and five accompanying adults.  This would be made up from a mixture of parents and coaches.  These numbers are not set in stone, and I am led to believe that if there were more who wanted to go, this can easily be accommodated. As of now, we have 15 boys and 5 adults.....

It cannot be stressed enough – this has come from the children, is for them, and will be achieved by them, if at all possible.  This is not being treated as a holiday, but more of a trip of a lifetime.  In order for the children to go, they will have had to take part in activities to raise considerable amounts of money – with heavy direction and support from the committee, parents and the Club; they will also be required to write reports for the sponsors, take part in publicity to achieve these goals, and of course play some cricket!  This trip could offer huge developmental opportunity for a group of children to achieve an aspirational goal through self-organisation and hard work; it offers cultural awareness, and will hopefully also develop their own sense of community.  Getting there will be more of a challenge than being there – and it is they who will be doing much of the work to achieve this.  However if they are up for it, we would try and help them achieve their goal.  We also want to keep this trip as inclusive as possible, and so it is hoped that part of the funding would be raised to ensure that additional support may be available for children wanting to go from backgrounds whose means might not stretch to an activity or expenditure of this sort. It is a fact that the message coming out of this is “children from wealthier parts of the country and communities would not think twice about these sorts of trips; this is one way of saying to these children and their community at large that if there is something they want they too can achieve it for themselves.“

Lord Joicey is our Club’s President, and he has kindly offered to help us in our fundraising activities through his contacts and good offices. I am pleased to say that many businesses approached so far have been generous in their pledges, and it is with confidence that we now approach this activity.  We have also spoken to various arms of the press to ask them if they would support our campaign and activities if we go ahead; the answer has been a universal and resounding “Yes”, so I am assured that our sponsors will get the best return we can for their input.   In fact we have even had some requests from the press indicating that they will support our campaign by publishing diaries of the campaign.  

If you would like to know more about the campaign, or better still would like to support us in our efforts, please contact me on 07850 398 203. Thank you!

Iain Grieve, Fund raising co-ordinator