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 and will enjoy the cricket coaching, training, and
matches, as well as the social interactions available. 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.

The 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.

Contact Information

A full list of club officials, committee members, first aiders and DBS holders 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)

Safeguarding

We are very proud as a club to say that we won an award for safeguarding at the 2021
Oxfordshire Cricket Awards. 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. This includes the enhanced DBS and
‘Barred List’ check.

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 he
or she needs 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 your child’s coach, or for any issues relating to juniors playing for open age
group (adult) teams, the team captain.

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, Stuart
Murphy. Email: oxfordshirecricketwelfare@gmail.com or mobile: 07766 110067).

‘Safe hands’, ECB’s Policy for safeguarding Children in cricket, is available to view online at
https://www.ecb.co.uk/safeguarding/policy-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
U11 and U13 girls: Wednesday 6:30-8pm
U13: Friday 6-7.15pm
U15: Friday 6-7.15pm:
U17: Tuesday 6-8pm

Lead Coaches: 

U9 – Charlie Walker
U11 – John Roebuck 
U11 and U13 girls – Les Addison 
U13 – Frankie Crouch, David Schrirout & Len Bodill 
U15 – Frankie Crouch, David Schrirout & Len Bodill

Match Managers:

U9 festivals – Charlie Walker
U11 11 aside – TBC
U11 Development – TBC
Girls – Mat Bowden
U13 11 aside 6 – Mark Hunt
U13 development – Tom Welch
U15 – Len Bodill

Support Coaches:

Martin Hunt, Lawrence Brock, Tom Costley and Ethan Davie.

All Stars Cricket:

Our Activators this season are Emma Welch, Debbie List, James Florey and Fiona Florey.
All Stars starts on Wednesday 11th May until 29th June 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 Match Manager after training has finished.

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.

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.

Finally…

The Club is always looking for parental help – 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
accident or incidents, a list of qualified first aiders and club policies. In-light of the events you
may have read about at Yorkshire Cricket, 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)