Countess Wear Cricket Club benefits from sports biggest makeover

Exeter based staff from the bank’s Business, Private and Branch banking divisions joined other volunteers to give the Club a spring clean ahead of the new season, which saw them undertake a range of jobs including: sanding, painting, weeding, and laying paving stones.

This award wining grassroots initiative, in partnership with the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB), has snowballed in popularity since it began in 2002. In 2011 a record 1,914 clubs and an estimated 87,000 volunteers took part, and the 2012 NatWest CricketForce promises to be just as big – attracting enough volunteers to fill Lord’s Cricket Ground three times over.

Commenting on the event, Steve Aldridge, NatWest’s local CEO for Exeter who was one of the NatWest volunteers, said: “We all worked really hard, but had a lot of fun too and it’s great to see what we have achieved for Countess Wear Cricket Club in such a short space of time. NatWest is committed to being a key part of local communities and, together with the ECB, we recognise the huge contribution volunteers make to cricket. I’m therefore thrilled that my employers see developing grassroots cricket in this way, as an important part of our well known involvement in the game.”

"We very much appreciate the attendance and help given by the NatWest staff who even outnumbered the club volunteers."

Mike Fernbank, Countess Wear Cricket Club