Durham Cricket and its Association of Cricket Officials are launching a challenge to clubs across the county encouraging them to recruit as many of their players and members on the free online ECB Stage 1 Umpire course.
ECB ACO released the course during lockdown and more than 3,000 people nationally have registered to complete is, as the course became available online for the first time.
Clubs across Durham are encouraged to promote the course as widely as possible and get as many of their players and members signed up as they can for a chance to win the competition and receive some great prizes.
We will publish weekly updates showing how clubs are progressing on our social media channels and will ensure there are prizes for the top three performing clubs.
Prizes will be confirmed in due course.
To get involved:
- Sign up for the course
- Select you club during the registration process
- Complete the course once you receive access to the e-Learning portal (the course takes 3-4 hours to complete but can be done in parts)
- Encourage your teammates and fellow club members to do the same!
Durham Cricket ACO Chairman Harry Stephenson said: “I am delighted that the Association can work with Durham Cricket to launch this initiative. This is an excellent opportunity to introduce more people to umpiring and promote officiating within clubs across the county.
“I think that clubs will benefit from upskilling their players as this course will give the wider cricket network a deeper understanding of the Laws of the Game and can help build a pool of potential volunteers that can stand in games with no official umpires.
“It’s brilliant to see that ECB ACO have moved the Stage 1 Umpire course online during this period giving many people an opportunity to get a taste of what umpiring is like and we want to encourage as many people as possible to have a go.
“I hope the initiative takes off and I’m sure that, by working together in this way, everyone will benefit from it.”