In order to finance cricket at Sleaford we run a bar throughout the year and for as long as I can remember this has been the Iifeline of cricket. As far as the pub enterprise is concerned we have so far been able to buck the national trend (which for the last several years has been in serious decline) by showing an increase in consumption.

Cricket nationally over a number of years has also shown a decline in interest and participation, but at Sleaford Cricket Club we are hopefully bucking the national trend again with our enterprise in developing a Third Xl (mainly for youngsters) next season and by increasing the number of feature days of cricket held at the London Road ground.

It is important to know that this Club is run without the support of a winter sport (unlike many clubs) or without the financial support of a benefactor (again unlike a number of clubs). In short we stand independently on our own two commercial feet and with annual costs close to £30,000 we cannot sit back; instead we must continue to develop and extend our business approach to the running of the Club. At this point I would like to thank all our volunteers and indeed everyone who has helped this Club in the last year, be it an individual or a business/organisation.

In spite of the business difficulties there has been much progress and many achievements since my last report. On the cricket scene we made a major decision to join the newly formed Lincolnshire Cricket Board Premier League 2000, along with nine other clubs in the county. This will provide many challenges for not only our First team but also the Seconds who will come up against more First Xl's in the newly recognised South Lincs & Border League Div. 1. Both our senior teams had excellent seasons and I congratulate Richard Tomlin and Vince Markham and their teams. Our Feature Games and especially the U19 England v Australia match were extremely well organised and gained us much prestige. It is pleasing to see a lot of enthusiasm in our Junior teams and I sincerely hope we can harvest and develop this area in the years to come.

We have made major changes to) our pub enterprise as well, one of which, the move to a professional bar manager I informed you about in June and the other, of course was the dedication and official opening of the "Peter Hollingworth Bar". In addition better trading terms have been achieved with our brewers, new bar equipment has been purchased and we are now developing our entertainment provision. During the long winter months and dominoes play an important role and it has been encouraging to see the Bowlers make up a third Domino team playing in the Club.

Many other improvements have taken place, too numerous to mention here in detail hut collectively they all help to provide members with the facilities they want. There are i'm sure many challenges ahead - it would he naïve to think otherwise. It would however be good if we could have a period of stability and consolidation or is that being naïve as well!