MEMBERS of Yarm Cricket Club have taken part in a national volunteering initiative.

More than 650 clubs nationally registered for the NatWest CricketForce 2005 initiative, with 50,000 volunteers taking part.

Developed to be part of the NatWest volunteer programme, CricketForce is currently in its fourth year. Participation has grown from humble origins in 2002 when just one club took part.

Yarm Cricket Club members joined forces to get the field in Leven Road ready for the new season, and their first match on April 23, by rolling the grass, painting the pavilion and putting up new guttering and down pipes. Members were also busy mending and replacing equipment, including the nets and covers which had been vandalised.

They are erecting new perimeter fencing, have planted 35 new hawthorn bushes and have a new all-weather wicket.

Yarm Cricket Club, one of the oldest in the country, played its first match, against Stockton, in 1814, on a field near where Jennings's now stands on Yarm Road. The club moved to the Leven Road site in 1926.

The club is currently sponsored by Darlington Building Society. They play in the North Yorkshire and South Durham league and have four junior teams for under-11, under-13, under-15 and under-17 years.

There are also four senior teams and, during the winter, all teams have indoor nets and practice at Conyers School.

For more information about Yarm Cricket Club, contact club chairman John Towell on (01642) 599897, for the Yorkshire Cricket Board contact Ian Powell on (01287) 659748 or look up the website on www.ycb-yca.org.uk