Young Leaders In Cricket Programme

What is the Young Leaders In Cricket Programme?

In 2025, we will once again be participating in the Young Leaders In Cricket programme - it will be our 8th year as a club.

At SMCC, this programme is targeted at Under 15s boys and girls (school year 10) only as part of our SMCC & 360 Cricket Junior Coaching Pathway, though Young Leaders is certainly not all about coaching, and indeed does not need to involve any coaching. This helps us to have more predictable numbers of players doing the programme each year, at the most suitable age.

Young Leaders is a programme run by in many other clubs in the Kent and Surrey region. In 2024, the programme had over 350 participants across the Surrey region alone.

The programme gives teenagers the opportunity to develop useful life skills in the context of volunteering at their cricket club.

• Coaching - this is a one day 'activator' course (similar to a the ECB Support Coach course) that will cover the basics of helping a qualified coach to run a session with a focus on how to organise children to train with enjoyably but safely

• First aid - this course is very interesting and a great life skill - you will learn life-saving skills such as putting an unconscious person in the recovery position, how to perform CPR and how to apply a defibrillator (which we have at SMCC)

• Scoring - gain confidence in a skill that is an essential for any player as he/she moves into playing senior cricket

• Umpiring - again, gain confidence in a skill that is an essential for any player as he/she moves into playing senior cricket

• Grounds maintenance - a primer in how cricket grounds are looked after and how to minimise environmental impact

• Mental toughness workshop

In addition to attending sessions to learn about the above, players are required to do a minimum of 20 hours of volunteering. 

When and were are the training modules held?

There is normally online training taking place from February onwards and the face-to-Face modules are normally delivered mainly during the Easter holidays with dates also available in the May half term and summer holidays for anyone needing to complete the course.

The training is held at various cricket clubs across the Surrey and Kent regions. Modules are listed on the Young Leaders in Cricket website.

Programme cost (2025)

The course costs £70.

Players are asked to fundraise an additional £60 each as part of the programme to contribute to the costs of the course modules.

How can I register my interest?

For further information about the 2025 programme, parents and players should join one of the online Q&A sessions by completing the below form.

You will need to say which of the following dates you want to attend:

• Tue November 12th at 19.30pm

• Wed November 20th at 19.30pm

• Thu November 28th at 19.30pm

• Mon December 2nd at 19.30pm

• Tue December 10th at 19.30pm

How do I sign-up?

A sign up form will open on the Young Leaders website after the Q&A sessions.

Slidepack (2022)

PDF of slides introducing the programme (2022). This is still a good overview of the programme, but please refer to the Young Leaders website for latest information.

Volunteering and fundraising - what can you do?

In previous years, Young Leaders have done this in many different ways, including:

• helped with grounds and facilities maintenance as part of CricketForce (usually just before or at the beginning of the Easter holidays)

• volunteered as a support coach with the younger juniors (for which we require at least one parent volunteer to coordinate schedules)

• run our annual second-hand kit bring & buy sales at training sessions at the beginning of the outdoor season 

• baked cakes to sell at events

• helped run a raffle at the annual family fun & awards day

Some new ideas to try in 2025:

• Put new grip tape on our plastic bats (club will provide the tape)

• Help advise new players and parents what cricket kit they need and how to know what is the right size

• Help parents of the Under 5-9s games on Saturday mornings with umpiring and scoring

• Make, edit and publish a videos about the club - about the Young Leaders programme, interviews with interesting people about the club, match reports... (which we can share on our websites and social media)

• Lead a consultation with parents and other junior players to propose and update to our junior Code of Conduct (idea comes from the Surrey Performance Programme, where their code was written by their older juniors)

• Source, get printed (plan and request some budget from club) and install more imagery of female cricket to put up on walls around the club

• Run a barbecue at an event

• Distribute flyers promoting women & girls cricket to neighbourhoods near SMCC

But there are many other possibilities and creativity is very much encouraged. 

Your volunteering doesn't all have to be at the SMCC; it could also be at your school, for example. 

What happens after the course?

At the end of the course, all of the Young Leaders are usually invited to a celebratory evening at Lord's Cricket Ground, which is attended by hundreds of Young Leaders from across the region.

Who runs the programme? Is it run for profit?

The Young Leaders programme is led by two amazing volunteers named Chris and Andy (you'll see Chris in the video above), who started the whole programme a few years ago. They dedicate many, many hours per year to organising and running the programme - not for profit; just for the love of seeing teenage cricketers enjoy learning new skills, having the opportunity to give something back to their clubs and communities, and feeling confident about the transition into senior cricket. The Cricket Leaders Community Interest Company is a not-for-profit, social enterprise.