An update from our CEO

Hi all,

I hope you’re looking forward to a long bank holiday weekend and the cricket season getting underway!

We have a jam-packed March to update you on as we begin to enter the summer months. This is always an important time of year for us with all our various fundraising events and impactful cricket programme activity coming into view.

Our Regional Table Cricket Finals are now complete thanks to the hard work of our staff team, network of Development Officers and volunteers. It’s been a privilege to travel around the country and attend five of the nine regional finals over the past three weeks, seeing participants enjoying an incredible experience while representing their school and vying for a place in a National Final at Lord’s.

Hearing about the difference access to the game is making from teachers, support workers and participants themselves is the best part of my job, and being able to witness this impact first-hand in different parts of the country over the past three weeks has been inspiring. One teacher told me about two sisters who live with multiple disabilities. Just nine months ago neither of them had the confidence to be in a room with strangers, it was a real challenge that even stopped them attending school which obviously had a devastating impact on their education and life more broadly. Fast forward to this spring and both were leading their teammates in a room packed full of people while a regional finals competition took place. The teacher told me that table cricket and the work of the Taverners had that impact for the two 13-year-old girls. They were happier, more confident and now back in the classroom and doing more around their communities as a direct result of the confidence they had re-discovered through playing table cricket – an incredibly powerful testament to the impact table cricket has for young people that goes way, way beyond the game itself! I don’t mind saying that I left that feeling both proud and emotional! So, huge congratulations to all of those schools who have qualified for our National Finals Day at Lord’s on 15 May, we can’t wait to see you there and see and hear more incredible stories about the outcomes our young people achieve by participating on our programmes.

If this story inspires you, please do visit our Facebook and Instagram pages to meet some more of the participants and hear what they have to say about their table cricket experience. What your support enables is truly incredible, and nothing highlights that more than what young people say themselves about the benefits they’ve felt since they started experiencing and playing the game.

In amongst the Regional Table Cricket Finals I was fortunate enough to attend, I joined some of our Development Officers, SEND school teachers and Youth Ambassadors at 10 Downing Street for a reception with Lisa Nandy, MP the Minister for Culture, Media and Sport and the Prime Minister to celebrate community sport alongside our fellow cricket charities, colleagues from national governing bodies and many others doing amazing things across the sport for social development space.

Collectively there is a lot of incredible work being done in the sport for development space all over the UK and we’re recognised as being one of the charities right at the forefront of that. To be recognised and invited to such an occasion is a great endorsement of the impactful work we’re all enabling in communities across the UK. It is something the whole Lord’s Taverners community of participants, members, supporters, volunteers and staff should be very proud.

I closed out a busy month on the road by attending Anthropy 2026 at the Eden Project in Cornwall. Anthropy is a growing movement of organisational leaders, influencers and other key people from across the public and private sectors who come together for what has been described as the ‘Davos of the civil society’. The overarching theme was ‘Inspiring a better Britain’ – I was invited as a guest of Postcode Lottery, along with CEOs of the other charities that they long term fund, and several people from the commercial and public sectors in attendance as well. Over 2,000 delegates were in attendance.

It was an incredibly impactful and inspiring few days. I learned a lot and came away with much more to consider as well as a few key contacts to follow up with who can work with the Taverners in various ways from funders to new partners. Having the opportunity to engage with so many likeminded people facing the same questions and challenges that the Taverners faces was hugely beneficial, and I look forward to progressing the conversations I had with others to take us forward with a lot of the work we’re currently undertaking.

Looking ahead, we’ve got so much to look forward to in the coming months – traditional Taverners social and fundraising events, programme activity (with our National Table Cricket Finals Day on 15 May coming up soon!) and much, much more… It is always busy at Lord’s Taverners. But for now, I hope you all have a great extended bank holiday, Happy Easter for those who celebrate the festivities and I look forward to seeing you very soon.

Thank you all for your support!
Mark