PROPOSAL TO FORM AW ILTSHIRE COUNTY CRICKET BOARD

							 WILTSHIRE ASSOCIATION OF CRICKET OFFICALS
              COUNTY EDUCATION OFFICER’S REPORT 2011

Courses. Since the report submitted at the 2010 AGM, the number of umpires
undergoing Level 1 training has gone down. Whilst that may seem as if it is a
downturn, as the County Education Officer I would suggest that the quality of the
education offered by Wiltshire ACO to the Wiltshire Cricket Clubs and to the
Wiltshire Aco membership is probably and ECB ACO leader.

January 2011 saw Wiltshire become the first county to run a Level 1A course within
the ECB ACO and 14 of our colleagues joined in what was a turned out to be a very
invigorating experience, both for those attending the course and those tutoring.

In October 2011 we ran our second Level 1A, for 15 umpires and again the quality of
the umpires attending were first class and set a high bench mark. As an indication of
how well these courses were progressing, Bob Hampshire (The Gloucestershire ACO
tutor) attended the last Saturday of the October 2001 course so as to gain first hand
experience of a Level 1A course before undertaking his own and he was very
complimentary about the quality of the umpires attending the course.

I hope that the success of the Level 1A will inspire those Level 1 umpires, after a
season of standing to push on to higher levels.

In November we undertook our first Level 2C Umpires course with six students, the
bare minimum for a course, but I think if you speak to those who attended they found
it another good course to attend.

The Level 1 courses will run in the following order of Priority.

       First to be filled will be the March 2012 Course to be run at Stanley Park.
       Second to be filled will be the February 2012 Course to be run in Salisbury,
       possibly at the new South Wilts CC Clubhouse.
       Thirdly, if required will be run in January 2012 possibly in Swindon.


Scheduling of Umpire Courses. As Wiltshire ACO is now in a position to delver
Level 1, 1A and 2C courses the recommended scheduling is as follows:

       Level 1A - to be run as soon as possible after the close season, usually in
       October, so that the candidates can remember matches from the season just
       finished. The rationale behind this is that the course involves studying
      scenarios that are likely to have happened in any match and candidates discuss
      the set scenario based on their recent match experiences. If this course had
      been left to the February or March immediately preceding the start of the new
      season most of the candidates would have forgotten the match experiences
      from the previous season.

      Level 2C - We run this course shortly after the Level 1A for the same reasons
      but as the attending umpires should be that much more experienced they have
      a greater depth of match experience to call on and therefore we run the course
      marginally later.

      Level 1 – The idea is to teach the Laws of Cricket on the Level 1 course and
      therefore to run the courses as close to the beginning of the start of the new
      season as possible so that there isn’t a long gap between learning the Laws and
      their first match. To date Wiltshire Cricket have a total of six Level 1
      enquiries which have resulted in firm bookings for the courses.

Additional Course Offered

      a. Wiltshire ACO is able to offer Cricket Clubs a 2 – 4 hour/one day seminar
      aimed at teaching the parents of the young players to understand the rudiments
      of umpiring, in the hope that they will stand in a clubs inter-age group
      matches. In an ideal world as their child progress from one age group to
      another, if the parent has taken the initial bait, they may come back to do a
      Level 1 course.

      b. “Understanding the Umpire” is a presentation designed and produced by
      Tony Hemmings, a tutor as well as being the County Performance Officer. It
      has been delivered to no less an august body as the ECB Centre of Excellence
      at Loughborough for the two Cricket Talent Testing weekends for Under 13
      and Under 16 respectively and has received rave reviews from David
      Graveney. It is an hour long presentation which is being offered to County
      Clubs/Academies in an effort to spread the word, particularly with regard to
      the Spirit of Cricket.

      Tutor Training. Thanks to the response to the advert on Whose The Umpire,
      six people volunteered and their names have been forwarded to ECB ACO.
      That is an excellent response and I just hope that Wiltshire’s determination to
      be a leading light in the ECB ACO is recognised with all six getting vacancies
      on the one training seminar “Train The Trainer”, being run over December
      2011 and January and February 2012.

      Summary. The quantity of Level 1 candidates has dropped and that is
      disappointing, but this has been far outweighed by the quality of our umpires
      coming forward to do Level 1A and 2C training. I think we can be justly
      proud of the quality of our umpires in Wiltshire ACO.