Welcome!

Dear Parent / Carer,

Oxford Downs Cricket Club welcomes you and your children to the club and to our very special centenary
season! 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.

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.

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 – James Ellwood (07983 998796, james@ussportstravel.co.uk)

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.
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 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/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
Girls Softball: Wednesday 6 – 7pm
Girls Hardball: Wednesday 7 – 8pm
U13: Friday 6 – 7pm
U15: Friday 7 – 8pm

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 (exceptionally, year 7 county
players may be permitted with parental consent). All year 8 junior members must have written parental consent
to train with the adults. Please contact our head of cricket, James Ellwood, using his contact details above with
any queries.

Lead Coaches: 
U9 – Charlie Walker 
U11 – John Roebuck 
U11 development – TBC
Girls – Les Addison 
U13 – Frankie Crouch
U15 – Frankie Crouch 

Support Coaches: Les Addison, Len Bodill, John Roebuck and David Schierhout.

Match Managers:

U9 festivals – Charlie Walker
U11 11 aside – Ben and Beth Garner
Girls Hardball – Graeme Coates & Mat Bowden
Girls Softball – TBC
U13 11 aside – TBC
U13 development – Graeme Coates & Mat Bowden
U15 – Len Bodill
U19 – Tom Welch

All Stars Cricket:

Our Activators this season are Emma Welch, Debbie List, Sacha Collins, James Florey and Fiona Florey. All
Stars starts on Wednesday 10th May until 28th 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 – 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.

Centenary

As many of you know it is our centenary year and we are running a fundraising campaign to help cover the cost
of the new nets we have installed. Donations are much appreciated to reach our target of £55,000. You can
donate either through the membership database upon sign-up (https://www.oxforddowns.com/membership/) or
by using our just giving page: (https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/odcc-nets?utm_term=6jjnxd7B2).

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 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)