Merchandise 2018-19 Season – Finished

Posted on November 5, 2018 by WACUA

Merchandise ordering for season 2018-19 season has now been closed. If you’re wishing to see if there is spare merchandise available, please contact secretary@wacua.asn.au

Committee Report – October 2018

Posted on October 8, 2018 by WACUA

Perth Metro Property Group – WACUA Major Sponsor for Season 2018-19

President’s Report

Welcome to Season 18-19 everyone! Thanks once again for allowing me to be your President. I absolutely love this role and while it’s no secret that I haven’t been enjoying the on field part of umpiring as much as I ought to, I really enjoy seeing the success and growth of this association. This season will be no exception!

Firstly, I want to make thank our major sponsors Perth Metro Property Group and in particular Mick Martell for once again providing $1000.00 towards the merchandise we get. This season’s contribution went straight to the awesome bags we’ve got so it’s no doubt that without this decade long sponsorship the WACUA wouldn’t be the same as it is today! Awesome stuff Mick. Members make sure to contact Mick and his team on the advert above to get the best property market knowledge in town. They do free appraisals.

On a sadder note, the start of the season has seen the recent departures of former president Vic Stevens and life member Jim D’Arcy Evans. Both Vic and Jim were massive parts of this association and our thoughts and prayers go out to their family and close friends. As I’ve mentioned a few times before “it’s cricket that brings us together, but it’s family that makes us inseparable”. We mourn their passing and I hope everyone takes the opportunity to reflect on just how important family is to cricket umpiring.

The committee has been hard at work already this season planning for all the awesome events coming up and getting our merchandise ordered. We’ve got some new faces on the committee and their fresh ideas have already seen some really positive changes. Here’s what’s happening:

Reduce email clutter and our new communication strategy: You may have already noticed that this season we’re really stepping up our game on being better communicators not only to our membership but also the broader umpiring community. An excellent example of this is how we’ve limited the amount of emails to all umpires (4 emails this season compared to 12 same time last season) and how we’re again making much greater use of technology. Examples of the technology usage are this online committee report, our much simpler registration and merchandise request forms, and our events web page at www.wacua.asn.au/events. The great news is that it looks like we’re already seeing the new strategy working with our membership registrations astronomically up compared to this time last season (109 vs 68) with us asking less this season. Logistics around merchandise has been so much easier with payments also coming a lot quicker than before. The committee will continue to work hard on this space moving forward.
Memorandum of Understanding: The new committee has picked up where the last committee left off and is working on completing a revised version of the MOU. We’re due to send this off to the WACA by the end of this month for us to ideally meet at the end of November/start of December to get this ready. We’ll get a draft version out to everyone as soon as both parties agree on its contents!
Pay rates: Our proposed pay rates were approved in full by the WACA board which is absolutely fantastic news. However an issue has arisen with the pays for finals cricket which we’re currently working with the WACA on. Obviously we’ve got a bit of time to resolve this so we’re hoping for the best possibly outcome for our members.
Events: We touched on this earlier but this season we have a new events page. This is the one stop shop to know everything that’s going on so check it out here: www.wacua.asn.au/events. On top of this the committee has already received some quotes for the Grand Final Breakfast and the Annual Season Dinner as a way to budget better and get news out to members sooner rather than later. Two pieces of exciting news to share with you is that the Annual Season Dinner this year will be hosted on a Friday night and we’re planning to put up bar tabs on Saturday nights at certain clubs and venues; watch this space!
Merchandise: Obviously this season has seen the introduction of the bags on top of the shirts and jackets we typically get. The 50 bags arrived last Friday and they look fantastic. Information to those who have ordered a bag will go out in the coming days if they want to collect it before next Tuesday’s meeting. With only 8 bags left unsold you’ll want to get in quick as we wont be making a second order on bags this season. As a gentle reminder, shirts and jackets ordered before September 13th are ready. Those ordered after this date will be ready in mid November at this stage as we’re wanting to make sure the order is big enough to make it as cost effective as possible.
Additional Merchandise: We’re currently working with suppliers to get some notepad covers, caps and some Swiss army ‘cards’ in. Watch this space and keep your eyes open for news on these as they come in.

That’s it from me. As always my report is stupidly long but one thing that will be different this season will be me saying on the night “My President’s Report is on the website, any questions?” and that will be it!

All the best for the season,

Trent Steenholdt
WACUA President

Secretary’s Report

Ashlee is away with the Under 17’s Male National Championships at present so I’m filling in for her. Approved members in order of registration are:

Trent Steenholdt
Andrew Micenko
Lloyd Tifflin
Paul Cassidy
Gemma Cassidy
John Sherry
Shrikant Ramadurg
Ian Robinson
Robert Osborn
John Gartner
Martin Brennan
Kirsten Funston
Garth McCrorie
Michael Kovalevs
Paul Wilson
Trevor Krink
Wayne Barron
Vijay Kumar
Stephen Farrell
James Rodgers
Andrew Jones
Nathan Batskos
Daniel Smith
Shane Boyle
Andrew Mollatt
Ahmad Shaaf Khan
Steve Rose
Reuben Garlett
Tyler Kaljee
Matthew Hall
Peter Graham
Nathan Gilders
Kate Holloman
Wayne Barnes
Stephen O’Dea
Samuel Moses
Jamie Thomas

Lorenzo Fogliani
Jack Paterson
Daniel Gibbons
Ashlee Gibbons
Michael Harvey
Ciaran Sanders
Colin Ogilvie
T R Singh Singh
John Taylor
Sidney Rajanayagam
Steven Wenban
Andrew Edwards
Mahesh Gopukuttan
Rhodri Harris
Steve Dubier
Chad Manos
Jeff Brookes
Ernest Chua
Darryl Power
Gowri Shankar Sugavanam
Michael Tindall
Graham Capper
Thomas Johnston
Leslie Bruce Banyard
Darren Oliver
Tyler Kaljee
Tony Rutter
Wayne Barron
James Hewitt
Thomas Leishman
Brenton Cockman
Luke Sargent
Neville Dhanaraj
Scott Hazebroek
Nico Gill
Andrew Mollatt

Syed Naseer
Alex Crowhurst
Vijay Kumar
Dean Trigg
Drew Anthony
Merv Rudrum
Wendy Oliver
Paul Clarke
Terance Carter
Nathan Johnstone
Ashok Tewatia
Justin Shakeshaft
Glen Morgan
Mark Wootton
Fred Davis
Darryl Sinclair
Nicholas Walters
Jamie Spark
Nathan Burg
Daniel Knowles
Graham Zemunik
Stephen Lamb
Manish Janiyani
Mark Charlesworth
Daniel Skinn
Alex Hall
Howard Prosser
Rex Evans
David Krieg
Conrad de Bruin
Alan Wilson
John Fairclough
Steve Dubier
Junaid Chishtie
Bruce Harris
Stephen Denys

If you have chosen to pay via EFT fund transfer, please pay ASAP.

If your name is not on this list above, please register at www.wacua.asn.au/register

Correspondence in (since last general meeting):

Thank you card and letter from Pam D’Arcy Evan’s in relation to letter we sent about loss of Jim.
Email from Stephen Denys informing that he cannot reach Matthew Hall currently to discuss explosion from umpiring in WA.
Emails from Matthew Hall around pay rates.
Emails from Ace Promotions and other suppliers about merchandise.
Email from VCAUSA secretary in planning a potential national conference between all the umpire associations, subject to WACUA driving it.
Email from WAFCC Chairperson Peter Silinger thanking us for end of season review report into improving the competition.
Email from State Umpiring Coach to confirm not conflicts occur between State Panel Umpires and WACUA meetings.
Email from Matthew Hall with Umpire Handbook attached.
Email from Victorian Cricket Umpires and Scorers’ Association thanking us for response and providing copy of their annual report.
Follow up from Jerry at VCUSA proposing an annual meeting of association presidents.
Email from Ace Promotions re merchandise.
Email from Matthew Hall re pay rates for 2018-19 season.
Email from Stephen Denys about not being appointed to umpire. Trent responded suggesting to Stephen to approach the WACA/WADCC about the issue.
Emails from Matthew Hall re attending next committee meeting.
Emails from Peter Silinger re meeting to discuss the working party feedback.
Email from Matthew Hall in response to the survey document. He’d like to attend a WACUA committee meeting where the survey is discussed.
Trent organised a meeting with Alan Johansen regarding the MOU but the meeting had to be postponed due to Alan being unavailable.
Invoices for annual dinner.
Invoice for grand final breakfast.
Email re new umpire for next year.
Email from Matthew Hall re grievance process.

Correspondence out (since last general meeting) :

Emails to Matthew Hall around pay rates.
Email to Matthew Hall informing him that Stephen Denys has registered to be a member this season, subject to EFT fund transfer coming through.
Emails to Ace Promotions and other suppliers (Plastics Unique) about merchandise.
Letter to Pam D’Arcy Evans passing on our condolences.
Email response to State Umpiring Coach.
Email response to Stephen Denys informing him we’re available to help set up a mediation session with WACA if requested.
Email to Victorian Cricket Umpires and Scorers’ Association responding to their request for information. Discussion with Jerry and Alan – VCUSA and Cricket Victoria are currently in a similar position to where the WACUA is at with the WACA regarding an MOU.
Email to Ace Promotions re merchandise
Email to Matthew Hall in response to email re pay rates for 2018-19 season.
Emails to Matthew Hall re attendance at next committee meeting.
Email to Alan Johanson re attendance at next committee meeting.
Emails to Peter Silinger re meeting to discuss the working party feedback.
4 emails from Trent to the WACA stakeholders about the survey.
Invoice to Matthew Hall re grand final breakfast.
Email to members regarding email.
Email invitations for Olly Cooley and Karen Read to members.
Refund for members who had paid membership fee twice.
Email to Alan Johanson about MOU.

Treasurer’s Report

Hello everyone, and welcome to season 2018/2019! Those of you who have been keeping up with our AGM proceedings will know that I’m heading into my second year as the WACUA treasurer, and I’m looking forward to working with this year’s committee which includes some new faces.

The first thing I want to mention is that we’ve already had quite a bit of turnover this financial year, with membership fees, merchandise payments and sponsorship already coming in and payments going out for the AGM, shirts, jackets, bags and our post-seminar social drinks. Most of our merchandise orders have already been paid for, which is much appreciated.

One of the talking points at the AGM was the fact that we finished the previous financial year with $2000 more than what we started with. I explained some of the reasons at the time, and also promised to put the extra money to good use this year. A major component of that has already taken place, with the WACUA committee voting to subsidise our new bags on top of Perth Metro Property Group’s $1000 sponsorship. Over time more and more of our gear will transition from navy and gold to the WA themed black and gold. I’m excited to get my hands on one of the new bags myself!

As always, we will provide the latest financial statements at the general meeting, but I want to take this opportunity to present a snapshot of the budget for the financial year.

This is a rough estimate at this stage. Some items have already been locked in but others are subject to change. You’ll notice that this budget has us spending $1175 more than we’ll be bringing in. This is intentional to offset the extra money we brought in last year. Since this is not set in stone, if you have any ideas about how we can better make use of our money, feel free to let me or anyone else on the committee know!

Finally, here are the numbers (correct at time of writing):
Cheque account: $2,791.12
Savings account: $13,916.39
Cash: $0.00
Total: $16,707.51

I think that’s my longest report ever, so I’ll leave it there! Thanks for reading.

Andrew Micenko
WACUA Treasurer

Previous Committee Reports for Season 17-18

Posted on October 7, 2018 by WACUA

Previous committee reports for Season 17-18 are available as PDF’s on the minutes page at www.wacua.asn.au/information/minutes/

Jim D’Arcy Evans (1935-2018)

Posted on September 6, 2018 by WACUA

It is with great sadness that we learn today of the passing of WACUA Life Member, Jim D’Arcy-Evans.

Jim stood in 14 First-Class, 2 Limited Overs and 1 Women’s Test match. He also serviced WA Premier Cricket for 15 years and was a member of the former umpire’s appointment board.

Our thoughts and prayers are with Pam, Jim’s wife of 58 years, and the entire D’Arcy-Evans family during this time.

Jim’s funeral is being held on Friday, September 7th at 1:30pm at Oakwood Funerals, 506 Marmion Street, Booragoon WA 6154. A private cremation is to follow after the service.

Letters added to website

Posted on November 22, 2017 by WACUA

A new page on the website has been created to contain all the letters sent out by the management committee. You can go to this page by navigating to the following URL.

http://www.wacua.asn.au/information/letters/

The Croatian Cricket Experience

Posted on July 24, 2017 by WACUA

by Tom Polich – WACUA Life Member

Many good people in Australia and some from overseas can be excused for scoffing when told there was to be an International Cricket Tournament in Croatia. I may have been one of those myself some time ago but after an exhilarant 6 days of competition now have the view that there is potential for this Country and those who participated in developing the game further.

What I did find disappointing was the lack of support, in a physical and financial sense, from the International Cricket Council and those countries which are now playing Test cricket. One cannot expect the countries at the next level down to provide any substantial support as they are still struggling to establish the game in their own countries e.g. Afghanistan recently admitted to the Test playing countries circuit.

The Croatian experience was something to savior as what was missing in quality was more than made up by the enthusiasm of those cricketers taking part. Estonia, Croatia, Romania all fielded national sides and the latter 2 had their second sides in the competition. The competition was conducted on a Twenty 20 basis. All matches were played at the Kastel Resnick a suburb of the very fine Dalmatian City of Split. It was within 2 km’s of the Split Airport and the resort which hosted the matches had a very fine beach and Adriatic Ocean outlook. Very pleasant for players and spectators alike.

There were 3 games on each of days 1 & 2 and two games on each of the other days conducted on a round robin series. While the overall standard was not that of a cricket playing nation it nevertheless did have it highlights in the form of 3 or 4 players from each side were able to show good techniques and a player from Romania scored 97 runs off 31 balls, being caught on the boundary in trying to reach his 100. The Estonian Captain in one match made 148 runs of 60 odd balls

The deciding game came down to the last game of the tournament when Romania played the Croatian second team and all the permutations were worked out so it was on. I had the privilege of being selected to umpire this game together with my Belgian colleague. Romania scored something like 5/299 from their 20 overs and needed to dismiss the Croatians before 13.5 overs had been bowled. However, this was not to be as the Croatians had a real go at reaching this massive 20/20 score by being 8/248 at the end of their allotted 20 overs.

Tournaments such as these are conducted all over Europe during the summer among the lesser known European cricketing nations and even in Switzerland they play cricket in the winter time on ice! The pitch is made up of synthetic turf and the players wear long spikes to field in. The ice needs to be pretty thick as in one game a player was “lost” in an ice crack.

This tournament will be conducted again in 2018 in Split with the addition of a team from the Ukraine and possibly Denmark. Cricket is alive in Europe.

Sydney Premier Cricket Exchange Trip – by Andrew Micenko

Posted on July 8, 2017 by WACUA

I was recently given the opportunity to travel to Sydney on an exchange trip to officiate in Sydney Premier Cricket.

In the few days before the trip, I was emailed by Darren Goodger from Cricket NSW. He provided me with the playing conditions, and also let me know that there were going to be eight visiting umpires in Sydney that weekend! He gave me details of a social function that was planned for the Saturday night, where I would get to meet everybody. He later phoned me to discuss the trip and answer any questions that I had. He also assured me that I’d be well looked after, and he let me know who I would be umpiring with so that we could get in touch.

When I arrived in Sydney, I was greeted at the airport by my partner for the weekend, Laurie Borg. Laurie seems to be the Todd Rann of Sydney – he’s umpired hundreds of games over a long period of time! At the lunch break on Saturday we were talking about the number of Test players that we’ve umpired. I only had two, but he had more than he could remember! There must have been at least thirty. Anyway, we used the short trip back to my hotel to discuss trip logistics and also talk about the playing conditions. It seemed like they were a lot closer to Sheffield Shield cricket than our competition is. They use Kookaburra Turf balls, and play 96 overs in a day with three 2 hour sessions and a 40 minute lunch break. There are also some small details in the playing conditions that I thought were interesting, such as the umpires being required to retain the team sheets for the whole season.

On game day, I was once again picked up by Laurie, who also had Al Bonney from country NSW in the car with him. We were all headed to Ashfield, where Western Suburbs’s grounds were located. We dropped Al off at his ground first, then headed to Pratten Park about 5 minutes away. When we arrived, I was impressed firstly by the white picket fence around the entire boundary, and also by the full sized electronic scoreboard, which compares in size to the WACA’s secondary screen! At the ground I met the scorers and the groundsman, and also Billy Hendricks – a NSWCUSA umpire observer. Billy was a bit jet lagged having just arrived back from a trip to South Africa, so when we found out that he thought the start time was 30 minutes earlier than it actually was we made sure to give him plenty of stick for it! Billy gave me some very useful tips at the lunch break.

The game proceeded fairly smoothly. We had a small shower just at the starting time, and also had cause to report one of the batsmen. Western Suburbs had earlier won the toss against Campbelltown-Camden and had chosen to bat on a greenish pitch with some drizzle around. They scored fairly freely through the day, notching up 8/307. The bowler was on a hat trick when they declared! I thought it was a really good score given how slow the outfield was. I think the only time I’ve seen slower was when I played at Rosalie Park in Shenton Park. Coincidentally, I was playing against Western Suburbs in the WASTCA – maybe slow outfields and Western Suburbs go together. Western Suburbs bowled for 10 overs at the end of the day and managed to have Campbelltown at 2/24 overnight.

After play, we drove straight to Club RydeX where I met Darren and many other umpires, both locals and visitors. It was a really interesting evening where we swapped stories of the day and discussed differences in how everything works around the country. It had been a really hot and muggy day, so a recurring comment that I got was that I must be used to it being in Perth. In all honesty I wasn’t used to it at all – Sydney was really humid that day and around 33 degrees. The following day would be worse, still being 42 degrees at 5:30pm!

Sunday was a bit of fun. The club was hosting a “Return to Pratten” event that day for former club members to get back to the ground. There was a bouncy castle set up for the kids, and some clever guys set up an inflatable pool below the scoreboard. I’m not sure if it was filled with water or beer, but those guys definitely had plenty of alcohol available! By the last session, they had some good chants going and were really getting involved, going up for appeals with the players and giving us plenty of instructions on when to put the finger up! Darren wasn’t umpiring on Sunday, so he was also there for almost the whole day, and he gave me a lot of helpful advice after the game.

Western Suburbs won the first innings at 2:32pm and decided to enforce the follow on to attempt an outright. Given the temperature, this was tough news to take, but we managed to battle through the day. We made sure to have plenty of drinks breaks. Laurie was pouring water over his head each time!

To complete the great hospitality shown by Cricket NSW, Laurie invited Al and I back to his house after the game for a home-cooked dinner that was prepared by his lovely wife Sue. We filled out the match reports and the player report (for an audible obscenity) before Laurie drove me back to the hotel. I stayed the night there and flew back to Perth the next morning.

All in all I had a great experience where I learned a lot. Hopefully I had something to offer everyone in NSW too! I really have to thank Matthew Hall, Darren Goodger, Laurie Borg and everyone else at the WACA and Cricket NSW for making everything happen. It was a worthwhile trip and I hope it can continue well into the future!