Welcomm Sponsor Nevill Holt Cricket Club

… and join a new charitable community.

After the success of the ‘Bonkers Bake Off’, a charity event that raised over £10K for LOROS Hospice earlier this year, an exciting partnership formed with one of our bakers – the most connected man in Leicestershire, Mr Ian Guyler of Ian Guyler Business Consulting.

As a result of this new collaboration, Welcomm have embarked upon a number of new initiatives to support the Leicestershire business community. From ‘business netwalking’ to connect local business leaders, to expanding our chamber involvement… our latest joint project has been to sponsor the Nevill Holt Cricket Club, who are organising a celebrity cricket match to raise funds for charity next month.

To learn more about what sponsorship means to the club, and why it was important for Welcomm to get involved, we spoke with Ian Guyler, local business owner and Nevill Holt Cricket Club Chairman.

Tell us about the Nevill Holt Cricket Club?

“The Nevill Holt Cricket Club has been going for 20 years now, although we didn’t have a committee until last year. Tucked away in the Leicestershire countryside on the grounds of Nevill Holt estate, we are a team that want to play friendly, reasonably competitive (but not obsessive) cricket.

Our members are mainly local people, with a few based in London and Nottingham – all with Leicestershire roots. We play 14 games a year, including a couple on tour to Oxford University, so are a lot smaller than most cricket clubs.”

You’ve got some amazing sponsors lined up Ian. Why is it important for the club to get sponsorship from local businesses, and what difference does this make?

“Keen to get involved and join the community we’ve built, getting support for the club has been fairly straight forward to date. I think this is because our members are all well-connected people with strong business networks. The club is in such a great setting that people want to be associated with, and we are all very grateful to owner, David Ross for letting us use the grounds.

Even to run a small cricket club costs money. We have to look after the wicket and the infrastructure. That is why it’s great that Welcomm are getting involved – their enthusiasm and support is fantastic.”

Tell us about the charity cricket match taking place on Friday July 9th?

“The event has been organised primarily as a thank you to our sponsors. On the day, people from sponsor organisations will be playing against ex-Leicester Tigers players including Martin Johnson, Neil Back, Tim Stimpson and Leon Lloyd!

The ex-Tigers players love to be a part of a team event, and so we thought, why don’t we have a charity cricket match? All funds raised can then be split between the club and a charity, and the Matt Hampson Foundation is the perfect choice.

A fiver for adults to attend, this event is sure to be a really fun family day out. Come and watch rugby players and people you might know play cricket with a picnic, and then stay for a post-match BBQ with friends.”

Why is this cause important to the club?

“A charity that we have fundraised for before, the Matt Hampson Foundation provides advice, support, relief and treatment to anyone suffering serious injury or disability which has arisen from any cause, but in particular from participation in or training for any sport or sporting activity.

A lot of our cricketers play rugby as well. For Matt Hampson to choose to ‘get busy living’ after sustaining a life-changing injury is incredibly inspiring to our members, which is why the foundation is important to us and to sport.”

Why did Welcomm get involved?

To understand why Welcomm chose to support the Nevill Holt Cricket Club, we spoke with Welcomm’s Finance Director and Leicestershire sporting fanatic Chris Ruddle:

“Consisting of many of our customers and neighbours in Market Harborough, the community of sponsors Ian has confirmed for the club is a stellar line up, that we are proud to be a part of. We hire a lot of local people in the region, and so it makes sense for us to support local – plus after the state we left Ian’s kitchen in after the Bonkers Bake Off, we definitely owed him one!

We love to get involved in lots of different causes throughout the year, to do good in our community and connect our teams. We have a lot of sportspeople at Welcomm that I know will get behind our latest sponsorship by supporting Ian and his club for the upcoming charity match. Wishing you all the best of luck – I hope together we can raise lots of money for such a good cause.”