Association of Cricket Officials Issue 30 | Page 5

Beyond the Boundary A Safer Community for All Officials Please select which of the following is important, and which you had already thought about: • How long before I am sued for my on-field decisions? • What is being safe worth to me? • The MCC bat thickness regulation is not enough to save me. • All that pain and I didn't even make the match on time. These questions and comments (and the concerns they prompt), do not apply to you, because you are a member of the ACO, and are – happily – covered by our all-embracing insurance. Why then have I highlighted them? To do two things: reaffirm to you the absolute and increasingly vital need for the insurance safety net to be there for you; and underscore what should be your hope – that a colleague or friend that you may officiate with might be helped by you bringing the safety of insurance to his or her attention. 'Community' is the pivot word these days because we really all do wish to 'belong'. That small group of friends, the mates down at whichever club draws you out – it is mutual in that you need the link with them and they with you. So why would you not wish to extend this sense of belonging to your cricketing fraternity? An argument could be made for a new format for ‘registration’, creating a simple entry point without frills, requirements or exacting conditions. How much better for all aspects of cricket that those who are prepared to turn out week after week in their love for the game can belong to our community of officials without having to commit to any programme of regulated training, or be involved in committees, panels or attendance requirements – unless they wish to? With a one-off registration fee, the new registrant would be enrolled into the ECB ACO fraternity and will receive general data relating to umpiring/scoring tips, updates on online apps that would enable self-tuition, and invites to regional or county events, where they would meet their ‘graded’ colleagues. To lock all this together, there is a need for much hard negotiation to bring in a base-level insurance cover that would suit this entry mechanism. Meanwhile, we invite them to enter our community with the hope that once in, they will want to do, and be, more than just a registrant. We would then be able to help better educate and support all officials, so that you could always stand with a colleague, rather than someone who loyally puts on a white coat or picks up a pencil. Remember, we are at about 8,500 members and if each one of us was to encourage just one other, we would then be interacting with the vast majority of officials that appear every weekend up and down the country. This is your opportunity to become a ‘Goodwill Ambassador’ to those around you who are or might become officials, for your colleagues and friends in your 'home' club, and for all those you meet at cricket grounds, who observing your ECB ACO identity, might wish to know more. Of course, it would help greatly if those umpires on the ECB First Class List and on the Minor Counties Panel displayed the ACO emblem on their jackets. This has been mentioned before in the context that, technically, they are listed as members of ACO and have, in their contracts, an expression of anticipation that they will assist in the work of ACO whenever relevant. As we move from the active season into the winter months of review/planning, please think on these elements and come back to us and tell us what you think – on these and any other topic. Pierre Tartari email us at [email protected] contact us on 0121 446 2710 5