2020 ANNUAL REPORT

MINUTES OF THE 2020 ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING 53 As the club entered a new decade, so too did theTrust – and what it achieved in its first decade in improving quality of life for so many people, and in the tangible savings it secured for local public services, surpassed the club’s own expecta- tions. Ms Pursehouse gave thanks to Rushcliffe Borough Council for its continued support of theTrust’s flagship programme, Positive Futures. AsTrent Bridge moved into the next five-year cycle, Ms Pursehouse revealed that the club’s core funding from the ECB has been confirmed and that the governing body had identified two major priorities for which it allocated additional pots available under a game-wide bidding process. The Community Investment Fund represented a significant investment of £20m into cricket during the period 2020-24. It was available for projects that used cricket as a tool to inspire individuals and commu- nities, delivered a social impact and measurably boosted participation, attendance and following. The club had invested in increased resource, particularly in its community and development and marketing teams, to ensure that the club was in a stronger position to take advantage of the opportunity.The fund was expected to go live in the last quarter of 2020. Each First-Class county had also been tasked with creating a strategic plan, including the development of their venue or venues and how they intended to meet the new ECB standards for facilities. The minimum standards had been designed to clearly define what was expected; audits were completed and a gap analysis produced – highlighting the projects that individual venues would need to undertake before April 2023 to remain compliant and retain their existing status. An Infrastructure Investment Fund was created to assist counties in that regard and help fund projects that delivered incremental revenue, reduced operating costs, enhanced the customer experience and created more sustainable stadia by saving water, improving waste management and reducing carbon footprint and energy use. The total investment from 2020-24 was £50m and it was expected that the fund would be live and accepting applications within the next few months. Any such investment was clearly welcome, but the quantum was woefully inadequate to enable venues across the country to deliver ambitious masterplans. In a year with noTest Match, and despite a small surplus of £20,000, the club’s financial results for 2019 continued to starkly emphasise the importance of international cricket – and in particular Test cricket – to its ongoing sustainability. Thankfully, the outcome of the club’s 2018 bid was positive, ensuring certainty of supply through to 2024. Critically, in that five-year cycle, there was only one year that did not contain a Test Match. Ms Pursehouse said that Trent Bridge was now one of only six venues in the country to have been awarded the right to host Test Match cricket until at least 2025 and that this was a significant achievement. Ms Pursehouse gave thanks to the club’s members, supporters and commercial partners and for the vital and ongoing partnerships with Local Authorities that had helped the club deliver that outcome. However, it was becoming abundantly clear that the financial demands of retaining the status as a leading county club andTest Match venue were increasing.The club would need to remain increasingly open to diversifying its offering by leveraging the year-round oppor- tunities provided by its venue to generate non-matchday income. The club was not alone in that realisation. Every other Test Match venue had done that in the last few years, embarking on ambitious projects ranging from hotels to dedicated conference centres and residential developments. Ms Pursehouse explained that Trent Bridge’s biggest challenge was not its ambition. It was its footprint. As the operational demands of staging major matches increased, space for non-cricket facilities became ever harder to accommodate. That did not mean it was impossible. It meant the club would need to find more creative solutions. It would need to adapt existing structures, build upwards and build multi- purpose, flexible facilities. That would be more costly, more time consuming and more compli- cated, but it is what would have to be done. The club would need to be bold, to innovate and clearly show its intention to remain at the forefront of English cricket. The relative security of the next five years needed to be used as a platform from which to build a long-term plan – a plan that ensuredTrent Bridge and cricket in all its formats through- out Nottinghamshire could prosper. Ms Pursehouse concluded by stating her belief that this was a positive mission. Mr T Palfreman asked whether the club would consider selling the naming rights toTrent Bridge. Ms Pursehouse replied that the decision would not be hers alone to make, but her personal preference was not to seek a naming rights partner, preferring other options for delivering sponsorship income. Ms Pursehouse further stated that venue naming rights were becoming more difficult to acquire. In fact, other venues had been unsuccess- fully searching for such a partner for concerted periods. Mr N Crockford stated that the naming rights income of rival venues might put Nottinghamshire at a cash disadvantage, but shared the view that it was unappealing to consider the same route forTrent Bridge.