ANNUAL REPORT 2019

15 COMMUNITY REPORT It is difficult to remember a summer for cricket more pivotal than the one just gone. From the advent of a home CricketWorld Cup to those dramatic super-over heroics and Ben Stokes’ unprecedented Ashes innings, our sport has captured the public imagination in stunning fashion. T I M E AT H E R I NG TON COMMUNI TY REPORT The task of our Community and Development team is to harness that interest to help safeguard the future of the game, while the Trent Bridge Community Trust uses sport as a vehicle for initiatives which raise the aspirations and improve the quality of life of local people. Both initiatives have recorded notable successes over the past 12 months. The summer of 2019 saw the launch of a landmark inner-city project designed to create what we described throughout the project as a modern-day cricket club. There can be no ignoring the fact that the traditional club cricket scene does not adequately cater for the full range of prospective partici- pants in a quickly-changing modern world. With the Haydn Road Community Cricket Club, our aim was to create a facility which would engage an inner-city audience on their own terms. In the 18 months leading up to the launch, we worked with the com- munity, rather than merely in the community, around Haydn Road. Our research took us into mosques and markets, into discussions with local stakeholders who could open doors for us, and into areas which would help us form lasting bonds with an audience which had previ- ously felt cricket was not for them. In the first three months since the facility opened, over 550 people have passed through its doors – including 274 children and 220 women. But while the headline statistics are encouraging, it is the growth of the relationship between the club and the community which has been most heartening. Through offering tasters of cricket alongside other non-cricket activities run in the centre – and by organis- ing softball, All Stars and walking cricket – we’ve begun to banish the ‘fusty’ image from which our sport can sometimes suffer. Opening cricket up to the full scope of audiences, ages and abilities is at the heart of everything we do – and we have made big strides in 2019. “OPENING CRICKET UP TO THE FULL SCOPE OF AUDIENCES, AGES AND ABILITIES IS AT THE HEART OF EVERYTHING WE DO – AND WE HAVE MADE BIG STRIDES IN 2019.” Tim Eatherington