My over-riding memory of the 2008 Essex AutoGroup Southend Cricket Festival is the number of kids that attended every day. The Adventure Island under X1 Kwik cricket tournament between eight local cricket clubs was played in the lunch intervals on Wednesday to Friday and in the grand final on Sunday Benfleet CC beat Leigh CC to retain the title they won in 2007.

Hundreds of boys and girls visited the ECB Cricket Roadshow held on Thursday and Friday inside the ground at Garon Park and practised their batting, bowling and fielding skills under the watchful eyes of qualified coaches.

And Rochford's Rankins Cricket Club best sum up the spirit. They had some money for an outing and the kids voted where to go. They chose Garon Park for the Essex AutoGroup Southend Cricket Festival and 24 of them in their club yellow shirts had a great time on Friday watching the cricket, testing their skills at the ECB Roadshow and playing games during the intervals.

Making cricket fun and taking cricket to grounds where they can play on the outfield and in the surrounding areas is what festival cricket is all about.

The Mayor of Southend, leading councillors and executives of Southend Borough Council all showed their support for what we are trying to achieve in Southend by attending the formal opening of the new outdoor nets at the Garon Park Centre of Cricketing Excellence also on Friday.

The two charity raffles run by Essex and Southend Sports Trust (EASST) during the festival raised around £1,500. EASST has promised to match this amount from its own funds and we plan to use the £3,000 towards an irrigation system plus tree and hedge planting at Garon Park - hopefully to be carried out this winter.

My thanks to our very hard working committee and task force at Southend without whom the festival would not be possible and special tanks to deputy chairman Mike Smith who took on a particularly heavy work load this year

My wish for 2009's Southend Festival - five full days of both sunshine AND cricket!

Peter Butler
Chairman
Essex AutoGroup Southend Cricket Festival