Meeting date: 22 October 2022
Guest Speaker: Mark Curtin (CEO of Lord’s Taverners)
Grace
Our President asked for a few moments of silence to remember our friend and long-standing member of the club, Ray Cook. Our Rev. David Brown followed with Grace.
Apologies for Absence
Barrington Lawes, Nick Colletta, Andrew Callender, Guy Curry, Bill Kempton, David Robinson, Joe Stansbury, Denis Hunt, Peter Ryder, MikeCoeshott, Mike Beardall, Keith Ebdon, Stephen Toogood, Roy Birch, Derek Coulson, Charles Wilkinson, Roger Gibbons, Bernard Frowd, Chrissie Marris, Brian Scrimshaw, Andrew Renshaw
The Steward
- Members were reminded of our raffle and the opportunity to win a free lunch.
- Future contributions will go towards the production of the new website, currently in production. More to follow later.
The President
- The President welcomed our members and their guests, along with our guest speaker Mark Curtin.
- Our thoughts and good wishes for a speedy recovery also went out to our past president, Brian Ford.
The Steward
The Raffle: Stephen Crew was the winner of our raffle prize (free luncheon). Funds received £170, less the speaker’s expenses (lunch and donation of £100 to Lord’s Taverners) and the raffle prize. Profit £5.
The President
- Treasurer resigning: Our Treasurer, Stephen Saunders, will be stepping down as Treasurer at our next meeting and will be handing over the post to Dave Allen.
- Website: A request for donations for our new website will be notified to our membership once the website goes live. Unfortunately, our outgoings outweigh our takings and …..
- Future payment method to change: Members will be requested to pay for their lunch when booking their place at future lunches. Details will be clearly set out on the new website. If members struggle with internet access, the Club’s banking details will be sent via email when bookings are made
- Robin Brodhurst: Robin, one of our members. Introduced his recent book The Altham-Bradman Letters with a foreword by the former England cricketer, Bob Barber. The letters were a correspondence between Sir Donald Bradman in Australia and Harry Altham, Robin’s grandfather, in England. In 1960, both men were members of the international (then) Imperial Cricket Conference (ICC), chaired by Altham and their correspondence addressed in detail many of the pressing issues for the ICC at the time, not least the matter of bowlers throwing. Other issues included the no-ball and LBW laws and the general spirit and conduct of the game.
Robin Brodhurst, 2000, The Altham-Bradman Letters, Christopher Saunders Publishing
The Toasts
The President asked members to be upstanding for the traditional Toasts: The Queen’s Mother, The King, Hambledon Club, Cricket, The immortal memory of Madge, The President: (Stephen Saunders asked members to toast the President).
Our President introduced Mark Curtin
Mark Curtin gave his talk to share with us how sports – especially cricket and football – had been significant influences on his life and how the Lord’s Taverners seek to do the same for many young people, in particular those who do not always benefit from life’s advantages.
He began his talk by describing his modest but happy upbringing. His father had come to North London from boyhood in a Catholic orphanage in Ireland. He met and married Mark’s mother and the family settled in Kilburn where at the age of seven or eight (the mid-1980s) Mark first encountered cricket and was thrilled to follow the news of Gatting’s team as they won the ‘Ashes’ – the last time for some years.
He began playing for a colts team at Hampstead but found the experience somewhat discouraging as even back then the requirement to bring your own kit was prohibitive except for the better-off so Mark concentrated more on football. When he was 12, Mark’s father died and while he was not doing particularly well at school he found refuge and success in sports. The family then moved to Milton Keynes and however difficult things seemed, that would change when he crossed the white line, whether football or, having gone back to the summer game, the cricket boundary. For Mark it meant friendships, and an absence of judgement and opportunities and those experiences from his early teenage years, have continued to inform his view of the world and his endeavours.
In his early post-school years, Mark worked as a ‘soccer’ coach in the USA, particularly in New York where he was involved with young people who were often close to knife crime and gang warfare. From his personal experiences, he was now able to observe the benefits of sport for other young people, and since he returned to England some 20 years ago he has spent his life enabling that to happen. He has worked variously in the worlds of sports development, involved with different charities and in education.
Mark’s wife is a gymnast who took part in the Commonwealth Games in 1994 and now works as a teacher so they share their experiences of using sport to work with a broad range of young people, including those with ‘special needs’, whether physical or learning difficulties. Mark stressed that for real progress to be possible, it required a good mix of volunteers and experienced coaches who believe in sport as a tool for personal and social change. He stressed the importance of the coach as a leader, mentor and role model, who is able to make cricket appealing to young people.
Mark then told us something of the history and work of the Lord’s Taverners which had been founded about seventy years ago by a small group of friends watching a game from the old Tavern inside the ground. These men wished to find ways of sharing and extending the pleasure they took from the game with others, especially young people, who might not otherwise encounter cricket in a meaningful way. The Lord’s Taverners was initially a men-only members’ club but from the mid-1960s it became a charity, and these days is open to men and women to be involved and contribute however they might, with a policy always stressing inclusivity.
The Lord’s Taverners involve many well-known people from the worlds of sports, cricket and showbiz and they play matches around the country as part of their fund-raising – supported generously by the ECB. This enables them to provide facilities and items such as minibuses, wheelchairs, sensory rooms, and coaching programmes of two kinds at various centres around the country – “Wickets” focused in areas of social deprivation including Southampton, St Mary’s, and “Super Ones”, with 39 centres. Their work currently involves some 12,000 young people and one of their most successful projects is ‘Table Cricket’ with regional and national finals.
Mark concluded by presenting the Hambledon Club with a Lord’s Taverners’ plaque which will display at future meetings, and the club reciprocated with one of our ties and a £100 cheque towards their fund-raising.
The President thanked Mark for joining us with special appreciation for his willingness to take a break from his holiday in Devon to join us; and thanked the management and staff for looking after us, with a reminder to everyone to pay on their way out, if not already done so.
Any Other Business: Non
Next Meeting: TBC
Newsletter 43