NEWS PAGE - LAST UPDATED 14/01/12
MICKEY LOWE
GACU&S are sorry to announce the death of umpire Mickey Lowe, who died peacefully on 6th January 2012, aged 73 years. His funeral will be held at St.Paul's Church, Shurdington at 1pm on Friday 20th January.
BASIL SMITH
Unfortunately one of our long standing members Basil Smith has suffered a fall and is currently in hospital. GACU&S would like to wish Basil a swift recovery.
GCB ON FACEBOOK
The GCB are pleased to announce the launch of their new Facebook page - keeping you up to date with the development of cricket across the county.
Visit GCB FACEBOOK and 'Like' the page. The GCB Facebook will include:
- Brand new coaching videos & tips from Gloucestershire's top coaches & players
- Ticket offers for GCCC matches for Facebook subscribers
- Exciting special offers for clubs to help with their club & ground development
- Up-to-date match reports and scorecards from Gloucestershire Rep cricket matches
- Articles celebrating the hard work that is taking place in clubs across the county
- Access to the wider cricketing network within the county
- Easy communication to the Board including blogs and reports from your GCB team
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As a reward for the Facebook followers the GCB will regularly be running competitions only open to these subscribers. As a celebration for the launch of the Facebook page the first competition is to win a signed 2011 Gloucestershire County Cricket Club autographed bat. Simply head over to GCB FACEBOOK and 'Like' the GCB Facebook page. The winner will be chosen at random from the subscribers.Closing date 30th November 2011.
UMPIRES NEEDED FOR INDOOR CRICKET
The GCB are just about to start 3 new Indoor Cricket Competitions; 1 in Gloucester, 1 in Stroud and 1 in Bristol. These will all offer evening cricket to clubs and teams from the local area during the winter months and go some way to offering different versions of the game to a potential cricketing audience.
You may already be aware of the Cheltenham Indoor League which Jim Downes runs from Leisure@ in Cheltenham. This is the most established league in the County and the GCB are hoping that the Stroud, Gloucester and Bristol leagues can go some way to supporting the Cheltenham league.
The GCB would like to replicate the work that GACUS do in supporting the Cheltenham League by providing umpires for both the Stroud and the Gloucester leagues. In much the same way as the Cheltenham League, Umpires would be paid for their time at the same rate.
Stroud League matches take place on Friday’s between 6 and 8pm
Gloucester League matches take place on Sunday’s between 4:30 and 8:30pm
If anyone would like to get involved in standing at the games listed in the links contact Ross Farrer, Cricket Development Officer .
If you would like to stand in any of the Cheltenham indoor games, please contact Les Stenner.
END OF SEASON SEMINAR WEDNESDAY 12th OCTOBER
GACUS Chairman, Jeff Chandra, welcomed 27 members to the Victory Club for this annual gathering.To set the meeting off Jeff invited Bill Griffin to report on Boundary Edge Observations. Bill outlined how our initiative of using senior umpires in the Association allowed 58 observations in a season, badly affected by weather. Our initiative was being actively supported by Nick Cousins, who felt we should persist in seeking funding to continue this. Several recently trained colleagues expressed how supportive they had found the experience – music to Bill and Stan’s ears!
Bill outlined some key common areas to be addressed that were cropping up in reports and from his own observations. Firstly, in relation to signalling, it was important to talk before the game to the scorers about multi-signalling. Also he stressed the importance of calling and signalling loud and clear for everyone’s benefit and then particularly for wide balls, wait until the ball is obviously dead before repeating the signal for the scorers. Finally, Bill observed that if umpires want to progress they must reduce the head movement at the bowler’s end and just move the eyes after delivery.
Geoff Trett and Andy Marson confirmed that they felt communication had much improved between officials and the benefits for scorers of the increase in the use of pre-signals. This raised the point about the use of walky-talkies between the officials. After some detailed discussion about the benefits and drawbacks, Jeff said the Committee would explore this further. There was a significant show of hands from officials prepared to trial this in 2012.
The meeting then moved to the subject of umpires reports and the consistency that was required to gain credibility and the respect of the players and clubs. There followed a very useful and insightful discussion. Key elements included the importance of setting out our expectations at the pre-toss discussion and the key role of captains in getting to problems before the umpires have to! It was agreed that the committee would continue to work with the leagues to improve understanding and we would look at presenting scenarios for members at the pre-season seminar, which might help create a moderation exercise and further support for colleagues. Jeff emphasised to members that they would always receive full backing from the GACUS Committee and had, with one exception received full support from the leagues.
The other main bone of contention was the Captains’ Reports. While everyone welcomed the transparency, there were serious concerns about several matters. Firstly, many reports appeared not to be completed by the captains, there were no comments or grades and perhaps of most concern that things were written that had not been raised at the post-match meeting! Jeff confirmed that the report form had received complaints from many quarters and hoped it would be altered for 2012. Again, members were assured that the committee would be taking up the points and feeding them back to the appropriate league authorities.
Les Stenner asked colleagues about the “Who’s The Umpire” website and the plan to stop posting appointments on our own website. There were concerns expressed about the missing matches and whether all our appointments would be on the WTU website. If we use solely this website for availability, any officials who change that availability must contact Les Stenner or Linda Collinson as they are not automatically notified!
Geoff Trett, on behalf of Sue Drinkwater who was scoring at the indoor competition, updated colleagues on the issues for scorers. For 2012, the Level One training will be split into two – for absolute beginners and for those with some scoring experience. Check the GACUS website later on for news on the new Level 2 course, currently being piloted and on training for computerised scoring. Geoff also updated colleagues on assessment plans for those not keen on further training! Finally, Geoff reminded members of the impact of GACUS members officiating at a high level in representative fixtures, taking advantage of Sue’s absence to sing her praises as she wouldn’t do it herself!
Three other small points were made before we finished. Stan Bennett let everyone know that the updated MCC Open Learning Manual wold be on the MCC website very soon. Les Stenner had received only one offer from an umpire to officiate in the new Stroud and Gloucester Indoor competitions. Please let Les know if you can do this. Peter Sawyer informed members that, with GACUS fully adopting the ACO grading system, the letter from the GACUS Grading Committee to all active umpires would go out with the GACO letter informing members of their grade for 2012.
The meeting concluded with the presentations of certificates for Level 1 and Level 2 umpires.The Chairman invited Stan Bennett to present the Edexel-approved IICUS Level 2 certificates to Adrian Bressington, Chris Coleman, Mohamed Fadra and Mark Malone. Many congratulations to all four of you!
Then Bill Griffin presented the ACO Level 1 certificates to those present of the 23 who successfully completed this training. Those not present will be receiving them shortly through the post.
CONGRATULATIONS TO OUR OSCA NOMINEES
Congratulations to Chris Germaine, Andrew Marson and Geoff Trett who have all been nominated by the GCB for a 2011 Nat West OSCA award. Details of each of the Gloucestershire OSCA nominees can be found on the GCB website.
Special merit go to Chris and Geoff who have made the shortlist in their respective categories, detail of which can be found on the ECB website.
Let's hope that all three of them had a splendid day out at Lord's at the awards dinner on 17th October.
PLAYER MISBEHAVIOUR
This issue gets raised quite regularly and the GACUS committee are seriously concerned about inconsistencies in the reporting of players. Please click Chairman's Letter to read a letter from Jeff Chandra, the Chairman of GACUS, reminding all officials of the importance of not letting poor behaviour go unreported.
The letter does not include anything about how to go about this. Although there is a GACUS reporting form on the Home Page of our website, this has to be printed out, hand-written and then scanned or posted. This can add some considerable delay in reporting, so the GACUS committee have agreed the use of the GACO umpires report form which can be completed electronically and emailed directly to the GACUS secretary (Peter Sawyer). The GACO Umpires Report Form can therefore now be found on the Home Page of this website, directly underneath the GACUS report form.
The process is to forward the report to the GACUS secretary (Peter Sawyer), who will ensure it is forwarded to the leagues or appropriate authority and the clubs concerned. It is also good practice to give the secretary a phonecall to check that he has received it.
A message from Brian Hudson, Chairman - Senior Clubs and Competitions Development Group, Gloucestershire Cricket Board.
The Senior Clubs and Competitions Development Group is working on an initiative to enrol more prospective umpires on to courses, and then get them standing on Saturday afternoons!
A recent meeting started to talk to about the barriers to making this happen and one barrier mentioned was that prospective officials are put off by a perception of poor behaviour by players. There is also a perception that officials do not help themselves by failing to report poor behaviour.
Putting perceptions aside, all the leagues and associations want to make it clear that:
- A key priority is enjoyable Saturday afternoons and Wednesday evenings for players, officials, volunteers and spectators alike
- To achieve this they want to address, and address strongly, all occurrences of poor behaviour
- To assist them in doing this, the leagues and associations welcome Disciplinary Reports from appointed officials so that the necessary action can be taken.
Click on Law Changes 2010 for the full list of laws with highlighting on the amended worded/law changes.
Click on Stan Bennett's Notes for details of Stan's explanations on the law changes.
There were some awards made. The Cliff Mitchell Award for the Umpire of the Year was awarded by the Grading Committee to Bob Owen. Andrew Marson of Hatherley and Reddings CC received the Derek Hibbs Award as scorer of the year voted for by members of the Association. Finally, a presentation was made to Jim Downes who is stepping down as our Publicity Officer. Jim has done a fantastic job editing “Not Out” for members and has also offered so much more to GACUS and Gloucestershire cricket in general. He still hopes to be actively involved in running the Cheltenham Indoor competition and will still be around, but he received a very warm round of applause from colleagues in appreciation of his service.
Jeff closed the meeting by wishing all officials a happy and successful summer.
UMPIRE AND SCORER OF THE YEAR 2010
UMPIRE OF THE YEAR 2010 - is Bob Owen. This was decided on for the very first time by the Grading Committee.
SCORER OF THE YEAR 2010 - is Andrew Marson, who was runner-up in 2009. This award was voted for by Andrew's fellow members of the Association.
Congratulations go to both Bob and Andrew who have done a marvellous job in their role as an official during last season.
ECB GUIDELINES FOR JUNIOR CRICKET
The ECB have issued some guidelines for Junior's playing cricket. They can be found on the ECB website or by clicking on Junior Cricket.
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NOT OUT NEWSLETTER
The latest issues of Not Out can be accessed from the links below. These documents are in pdf format, viewed with Acrobat Reader.
Visit the Adobe Website to download it (free of charge), if you do not already have this software.
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VOTING FORM FOR DEREK HIBBS (SCORER) AWARD
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Please note the Cliff Mitchell (umpire's) award is now decided by grading points awarded during the past season and not by voting forms. |
| Click on the Derek Hibbs photo (above) to view the Scorers Award Voting Form. |
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