In 2023, Holme CC ran their first ever All Stars Cricket programme, and managed to achieve full capacity at the first time of asking.
We spoke to Lead Activator Lee Barnes to find out how they achieved this, and how other clubs can achieve the same goals.
Why did you want to set up an All Stars programme last year?
We were looking to get more people involved in the club, particularly young players, as well as get more funding. We already had a junior section (U11s), but it consisted of just one team which was just about getting enough players each week.
We looked into it and one of the recommendations was to have an All Stars programme set up.
As a result, we set up the programme and anticipated we would only be running small sessions. You hear stories of clubs only getting a few participants, so we were a bit nervous, but the next thing we knew, we were fully booked for the year!
We started off with a limit of 24 and then we had to up it to 32, and could have gone even bigger!
What do you think the main reasons are for the incredible turnout at the All Stars sessions?
I think a lot of it was down to the good community spirit in the village. There were a lot of people who wanted to get the kids involved in cricket, but weren’t sure where to start.
We advertised it in the local school, and they helped push it. The parents realised it becomes more of a social event and they’d be chatting about meeting at the sessions.
We picked Friday night as it’s quite a social night and people aren’t worrying about work or school commitments the next day. The bar is open and there’s a BBQ – we’ve had people stay long after the All Stars session has ended.
It’s brilliant to get new faces into the club, and they’ve started coming up to socialise at our games on the weekend as well.
To add to the fun element for the kids, we also had the first team play on a Friday night after All Stars, so the All Stars could form a guard of honour for them.
Some clubs have raised issues over potential conflicts of issues between All Stars and Dynamos programmes and their own junior teams. How do you address those and find a balance?
We’re pretty good!
This year, we have managed to get some of the older All Stars into the club junior team and are now expecting about 20 players in our junior team this year, whereas last year we averaged around 12.
Did you find it difficult to find volunteers to run the All Stars sessions?
Luckily, we’ve got a strong club who are willing to get stuck in, so not really.
Even if you sign up 15 participants, you only need two activators to run the session. You just need to find two people who can commit one hour a week, which I’m sure loads of players from clubs can do.
Even if you then increase that to 24 players in a session, you only need one activator and three helpers.
Overall, we’ve got 10 activators. Six or seven of those are male club players, and they’ve managed to get their female family and friends involved to help us appeal to young girls in the community.
We’re looking to increase the numbers of players involved this year, and are also trying to get the parents a bit more involved in helping out at the sessions. The more that they help, the better as it means we can always run the sessions and don’t struggle for activator numbers.
You mentioned the importance of attracting girls. Have you had many girls coming along to the sessions?
Thanks to Cumbria Cricket, we managed to get some free places for girls on the All Stars programme and we had 13 girls come along, which is a great proportion of the 32.
The fact our junior section is mixed also creates a pathway for the girls, and we can be flexible with the age groups to create more opportunities for young girls in the area, so that’s a great selling point for us.
Have you managed to create other events for the club off the back of the All Stars programme, and have you noticed a significant increase in Holme CC’s income?
We have an annual 6-a-side competition where teams have to have at least one female player and at least one U16 in the side to ensure everyone gets a go. We used to do it a long time ago, but it stopped in the mid-2000s, but now we have a lot more people involved in the club, especially those who haven’t come from cricketing backgrounds, we can run them again.
The increased income is invaluable. When we’ve kept some of the sessions going until 11pm and had the parents stay longer for the entertainment, we have made hundreds of pounds for the club.
Hosting the All Stars has also enabled us to open up to ECB grants through Cumbria Cricket, which we’ve applied for this year and hope to use on an artificial wicket so all members of the club can train whatever the weather.
Can you sense the impact you’ve had on members of the local community thanks to the All Stars programmes?
We have a couple of great stories which we are really proud of.
We managed to make contact with Lancashire CCC and arranged for the kids to do the guard of honour for Lancashire at a T20 Blast game (see gallery below), which was an amazing experience for them.
Another story that we’re really proud of is a player coming along who had learning difficulties. He was very clingy to his parents at the start, so they would come out and join in the session with him.
If he suddenly got distracted by something else away from the session, we’d allow him out of the session and he’d come back when he wanted. By the end, he was really taken with the sessions and got a new experience.
Photography by Matt Eachus
Now that you’ve dipped your toe in the water with All Stars, are you looking at providing Dynamos this year as well?
We’re hoping to start Dynamos this year and are hoping some of the All Stars will graduate into the Dynamos.
Finally, how was the process to set up initially and then renew this year?
It was easy!
We had most of the prerequisites already due to ECB requirements – Safe Hands Managers, public liability insure etc. It’s stuff that everyone already has in place, but people probably don’t realise how little you need just to set up a national programme.
If you manage to sign up 10 participants, you get kit sent out to you from the ECB, so that was a huge help.
This year we just had a chat to see what sessions we wanted to run, so everything’s ready to go!
