Further Chairman's Statement

As a Cricket club (and Drapers as a sports club ) we, like the whole country, are facing an unprecedented period in our history.

All of the challenges we have to overcome pale into insignificance when people are losing their lives, facing isolation or working on the front line.

The current situation is that Drapers has lost its single income of the bar take whilst the cricket club faces loss of all sponsors, all membership fees and all match fees for 2020. If any cricket is played this year any revenues will be severely affected and company sponsorship which totals a large % of our income is highly likely to be not available to us. We are in touch with both the Rugby Club and Drapers Committees working together to keep across the situation.

Whilst of course our costs have been reduced there are still bills to pay, squares to prepare and a commitment to try and keep the club moving forward but obviously any work needs funding and an availability of people being allowed to work on any areas of facilities is limited.

The current situation is that members of the committee are working very hard to try and access emergency funding as well as applying for grants from Sport England and Essex and Southend Sports Trust whilst also reviewing budgets for 2020 and 2021.

The men’s and ladies leagues are looking at options based upon some cricket being played from July onwards but that has a lot of challenges. It is highly unlikely that holiday destinations will be opened up so we would hope that adult and colts players would be available to play matches across the whole of the summer. In reality without knowing how or when the lockdown will be lifted it is very difficult to make any firm plans but rest assured if we are able to get some cricket played we as a club are committed to make it happen. We have a Zoom Committee meeting this week where we will be discussing a way forward.

Please if anyone has any questions or suggestions of how they can help going forward or other possible finance streams please contact me or Paul Bardo.

Brownie