Portsmouth & Southsea Cricket Club

Dear All, 

 

I hope this mail finds you well and you are all looking forward to a fun season of (sun-drenched?) cricket.

 

With the advent of the ladies "development" Sharks team, Nikki and Roisin have sat down with Lou and me, as club secretary and chair respectively, to discuss how we might formalise the arrangements across the W10 section for the good of the players and the club as a whole.  

 

In order to align W10 with practices from within the mens and junior sections, it is felt there will be real benefit to have a captain appointed for the Sharks and I am inviting nominations for the role. 

 

As elected, Nikki will remain the Swans' (league team) captain and her responsibilities are also as detailed below. 

 

- Committee Member

- Team Selection

-  Team playing culture lead

- Completion of match day team sheet

- Arrange match umpire

- Arrange match scorer

- Upload scores to Playcricket (if home match) & Hitscricket (on all occasions)

- Match fee collection (if necessary) 

- Ground set up and shut down on match days

- Arrange teas (as necessary)

 

Please note, while a captain is responsible for the completion of these tasks, they can of course delegate any of them - in fact for their sanity and the engagement of the players, I would recommend they do delegate some things!

 

It is important to note how selection will take place. 

 

As the Swan's captain, Nikki will have a full cohort of players from which to select each Swans match team. 

This will include whoever the Sharks captain is to be. 

 

Once Nikki has selected her 10 players, the Sharks captain will have the remaining players to select from. 

Note: The Sharks captain will be available to play for both the Swans and Sharks in the same week should she choose to do so. However, any other Swans players selected that week will only come into to contention for selection after all other players have been offered the chance to play for the Sharks.  

 

Captains selection and match day responsibilities will also be reflected in any festival or tournament play. Which captain takes responsibility will be dictated by the rationale for the festival. If the invitation suggests it has a "participation" or "fun" focus the Sharks captain will select the teams etc. If the invitation suggests it has a "performance" or "competitive" focus, Nikki as the Swans captain will lead.  If it is unclear, the two captains and I will discuss where it is felt responsibility be best allocated. 

 

We also discussed the mechanism for making selections and communicating between the management group and any given selected teams. The idea is to keep the messaging clear and focused while avoiding conversations best kept between individuals or small groups in an appropriate forum. The agreed protocol is as follows:

 

The Captains (and, if necessary, I as an independent voice) will discuss team selections and other administrative activity in a WhatsApp group. The captains will take advice from the coaches as required to inform their sections.

 

Players will be notified of selections via email through the Hitscricket website (we will check all are able to receive such notices). Any questions or queries can be offered to the selecting captain by return email. Other team members will not have access to these responses. 

 

Once a team is selected the captain will open a WhatsApp group for the players involved in the relevant fixture to provide any additional details necessary and to allow for any last minute news sharing, such a bad weather cancellation, late arrivals, change of venue etc etc.

 

The social WhatApps groups currently in place are of course the members to use and enjoy however they choose, however, official club notifications will only take place as described above or on a 1 to 1 basis as necessary.

 

It's appreciated some players might want to see how the season looks to be developing for them, or indeed see how the tasks we've listed look in practice, before nominating themselves for the Sharks captaincy. With this in mind I propose to hold nominations open until 6pm on Saturday 25th May. 

 

On Sunday 26th May I will circulate a list of nominees and call for members votes. Voting will close on Wednesday 29th May with the announcement of the newly elected Sharks captain being on Friday 31st May.  Until then Roisin will continue to manage the Sharks.