Gloucs stars help Cirencester

11 April 2006

Gloucestershire stars Jon Lewis and Chris Taylor took part in the national NatWest Cricket Force 2006 event.

The players joined 70 other volunteers at Cirencester Cricket Club to help rejuvenate the facilities at the historic Club, delivering various projects in the Pavilion and around the ground.

Co-project director of NatWest CricketForce at Cirencester CC, Nikki Woodcock, allocated Taylor and Lewis the task of painting the pavilion railings. The players quickly got involved with the task as well as welcoming new additions to the volunteer force.

Over 1,000 cricket clubs across the country took part, involving enough volunteers to fill the Millennium Stadium (70,000 people).

The event, modelled on popular television programmes like "Ground Force" and "Changing Rooms", aims to encourage local communities and businesses to help their local cricket clubs.

This enables the clubs to renovate their facilities with a nationally combined volunteer contribution value and business support totalling £20-£25 million of investment.

Brian Hudson, Chairman of Cirencester Cricket Club, said: "We have had a marvellous weekend and our volunteers, many of whom worked for the full two days, completed the list of planned projects and they will provide a quantum improvement to the club's facilities.

“We would like to thank Chris and Jon for their help and for giving up a significant part of their day, we really appreciate it."