ECB WEEKLY MESSAGING UPDATE

Date: 19th March 2021

This week's bulletin contains guidance from the ECB, a National Programmes Update and information about NatWest CricketForce.

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Guidance for Clubs

We have been working closely with both the UK Government and the Welsh Government to provide clarity in what the easing of lockdown restrictions mean for recreational cricket across England and Wales. We know that our communities, players and volunteers will have missed the social, physical and health benefits of participating in our great game and we believe we have an important role to play in supporting the nations recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. Importantly, we also know that we have a collective responsibility to ensure the safety of our communities by ensuring compliance with both the latest Government guidance. The aim of the accompanying documents is to share with you the information we currently know about what the return to cricket at the end of March will look like, in order to help your planning. This is based on our ongoing conversations with the Government and key partners to date and information published on Gov.uk.

For England, we have produced a Roadmap and accompanying documents in order to provide you with the headline information on what activities are permissible during each step of the Roadmap. We will continue to update this document and will share those updates with you over the course of the season.

For Wales, we have worked closely with Sport Wales and Cricket Wales to provide the accompanying guidance.

We will continue to update the relevant information as and when we receive more information on the latest position across both England and Wales.

National Programmes

With the launch of the priority window for previous parents of All Stars and Dynamos Cricket on Tuesday we have seen an amazing response, with 13,000 sign-ups so far, which is an amazing response before we've even launched publicly. If you are yet to upload your courses to ClubSpark, then we'd encourage you to do this over the weekend to benefit from the surge of interest.

From Monday at 2pm we will be officially launching both National Programmes, with the start of our central paid media campaign and activity across both Communications and Digital, and we'd encourage you all to start your local promotion from Monday afternoon. Do visit the resource hub for lots of imagery and assets to help with your advertising.

We acknowledge that there are still some ongoing issues for certain clubs working through their Stripe verification, and we know that this is a difficult process. There are now over 1,500 clubs that are verified, and we'd encourage you to continue working through the step-by-step guide if you're having any issues.

NatWest CricketForce Get Set Weekend

For many years, NatWest CricketForce has been a focal point for clubs as you prepare your grounds and reconnect with your players and volunteers to get set for the season ahead.

Unfortunately, due to the COVID-19 restrictions, this year we will not be able to run NatWest CricketForce as a physical event. However, NatWest is running a new look virtual CricketForce with their Get Set Weekend.

We’d like to use this opportunity to invite everyone to join in and get involved on Saturday 10th and Sunday 11th April. We’re asking you to gather together, reconnect and sign-up to the Get Set Weekend online; where you can register for the Big Quiz featuring legends and England stars, and a special Get Set Panel event, hosted by Michael Vaughan, to help prepare for the new season. There will also be Back Garden Training features for teams posted throughout the weekend.

For more information or to register click here.

England & Wales Cricket Board, Lord's Cricket Ground, London, NW8 8QZ