The Festival of Cricket Medal
The Festival of Cricket Medal has been introduced to recognise the many people who have given so much to the game but generally go unnoticed. Next year we will be calling for nominations for our 2008 winners for the two medals.
Each year the Medals are announced at the "Big Swing Cocktail Party" at the Festival. It is a relaxed evening where people have the opportunity to mix cricket legends and industry leaders. The aim of the evening is to raise funds for the Festival of Cricket Foundation - an initiative to assist the umpires, curators, coaches, equipment makers and underprivileged cricketers of the future.
Alan Jones OAM kindly gave up his time and together with Bill Brown OAM announced Mr Jim White as the worthy recipient of the Inaugural Medal for Service to Cricket in 2005. Mr Jim White was the founder of the Emu Club and was responsible to introducing many young children from the bush to cricket. The Emu Club also took teams overseas to places such as Argentina in a move to advance cricket worldwide while giving young players an experience of a lifetime. Congratulations to Mr Jim White.
A new Medal was introduced in 2006 for "Innovation in Cricket"
While we received many nominations for 2006, we selected the following people as winners and runners-up for each of the medals. They are:
"Service to Cricket Medal", sponsored by St Henri Property Group
Winner - Michael Linke
Over the years Michael has been involved as an administrator for the Australian Blind Cricket Council, NSW Blind Cricket and eventually for ACT Blind Cricket. He has given up countless hours during more than 20 years of service as a secretary, president and general volunteer for blind cricket. He has been instrumental in ensuring the Australian Blind Cricket Council developed, assisted NSW BCA with major fundraising and was a founding member of the ACTBCA ensuring many blind and vision impaired people enjoyed their cricket. Michael has represented Australia, NSW and SA over 15 tournaments with unbelievable statistics. Michael is currently the CEO of the RSPCA and devotes his endless time and effort into his work. He is married to Mardi and has 6 cats as pets
Runner - up - Mark Allan
Mark is the head Greenkeeping Teacher at Yallah TAFE. He is extremely passionate about his Trade and has assisted many fine apprentices to become Greenkeepers, particularly in the crickets wicket area. He has personally travelled to the Vic border, across to the Tumut area, Goulburn and west to promote greenkeeping as a trade and his College and to recruit. He is a greenkeeper by trade working for many years in the industry incl the Bankstown Oval, and is now teaching. Mark has earnt much respect and has many close ties in the industry and remains available to current and ex students for assistance.. No, he isn't a famous player, commentator or supporter.... he is much more. Mark provides the learning and encouragement and mentoring for our future cricket greenkeepers - without them............no wickets !
"Innovation in Cricket", sponsored by Swisse Vitamins and Emirates
Winner - The Batting Blade
Craig Adams has invented a cricket footwork training device which is the only one of its kind in the world. The Batting Blade is the first cricket training aid that actually helps novice players improve batting footwork, ball tracking skills and eye, hand and foot co-ordination.
All these skills are extremely difficult to teach by another single mechanism and the Batting Blade tackles them all together in a seamless and integrated manner.
The Batting Blade simply attaches to a novice player's front leg and allows the novice to track the ball from the bowlers or coaches hand right up until the point of impact with the blade. If the ball makes contact with the centre of the blade then the novice player receives immediate, positive feedback that they have placed their feet correctly to hit the ball with good technique and a technically proficient stroke should result.
Runner - Up - Bendamenda
Developed by Level 3 Cricket Coach & former Teacher, Michael Middleton, as an aid to help learners get the correct ‘feel' of a ‘legal' delivery in the bowling sequence.Research conducted by NSWCA, SA Women's Cricket Association, New Zealand, and University of NSW has shown that the use of the BendaMendaTM bowling aid can significantly improve the effectiveness and efficiency of learners, coaches and teachers at all levels. BendaMendaTM has been in use for some time in Australia and is now being distributed to an increasing number of cricket playing Countries.Testing shows by using BendaMendaTM with novices learning to bowl, a return of up to 70% better than traditional coaching, can be achieved.
