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Equity, Diversity and inclusion plan 2022-23: One year on

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MCC IS COMMITTED TO ENSURING THAT CRICKET IS A GAME FOR ALL, AND THAT LORD'S IS A GROUND WHERE EVERYONE FEELS WELCOME.

These are the guiding principles which inform our Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) Plan, which was produced following publication of our first Enviromental, Social and Governance Report, Building a Sustainable Future, in November 2021. 

 

EDI Update 2022-23

MCC has now issued an update on its progress in this area, setting out the Club's 2023 commitments to ensure that everyone is warmly welcomed by MCC and Lord's through kindness and respect, whether they are a member of staff, MCC Member, player, spectator or any other visitor.

Some of the 2022 initiatives featured in this update include the launch of a refined membership application process in October. This has resulted in 24% female applicants in the first three months, an increase on the proportion currently on our waiting list to become Members.

Anti-racism and anti-discrimination training has been delivered across the Club, including the onboarding of Health and Wellbeing Ambassadors, who also embody MCC's Freedom to Speak Up platform. 

The MCC Heritage & Collections team has delivered exhibitions on the Evolution of Women's Cricket and England's Black Cricketers, along with a rehang of the Long Room and the installation of the Heyhoe Flint Gate as an everlasting legacy to this pioneer of the women's game.

Lord's welcomed the most diverse audience in The Hundred competition across all venues, including within its new alcohol-free and family-friendly stands. A second, larger multi faith room was opened in the Pavilion along with the provision of a second, permanent Changing Places washroom. The Home of Cricket also hosted its first community Iftar event to celebrate Ramadan and supported Pride Month during the Vitality Blast series.

At a grassroots level, the MCC Foundation delivered 74 Hubs to 2,807 under-privileged participants, whilst MCC Community's team featured 44% female participants in its after school cricket programmes.  They collaboratively delivered the Afghan Refugee Project, which subsequently won the Sports Industry Tessa Jowell Award.

The celebration of diversity at Lord's has been at the heart of our plan to ensure that Lord's is welcoming to all cricket supporters. With 91% of spectators surveyed in 2022 stating they were 'very likely' or 'likely' to return to Lord's, good progress has been made. Focus remains however, on future challenges and initiatives, with future commitments set out within this update. 

Click here to read the Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Plan 2022-23 in full.

MCC's EDI Plan has six main objectives:

  • To listen and learn from our stakeholders and the wider cricketing community to ensure MCC and Lord's are welcoming to a broad range of audiences

  • To share knowledge and help our audiences to understand how to play their part in ensuring MCC is a club built on fairness and respect

  • To communicate effectively to all audiences, explaining our plans and reporting progress

  • To enable more players, members and staff from a variety of backgrounds to be part of MCC

  • To make the enviroment at Lord's welcoming to all audiences

  • To have effective measures and processes in place for incident reporting, investigation and action

2022 milestones

1 - Insight

  • Largest Membership survey in a generation
  • EDI-related questions included in all post-match surveys
  • 91% of spectators were 'Very Likely' or 'Likely' to return to Lord's
  • Scored 8.6 (out of 10) for 'Warmth of welcome' in 2022
  • Incident Reporting System in place for all match days at Lord's

Data and insight are a key focus of MCC's EDI Plan. In order to measure and evaluate our progress moving forward, we must first understand our baselines. In order to achieve this, MCC undertook both a staff and a Member survey and now incorporates EDI-related questions within post-match surveys to the general public. 

The largest Membership survey in a generation sourcing demographical and attitudinal data has been analysed, shared with Members, and is now helping to inform a number of EDI-related initiatives which are outlined throughout this document.

A new incident reporting system is now in place on match days. Any person at the Ground, whether they are a spectator, Member or member of staff can now report incidents via a text message service. 

The details are incorporated within the match day messaging both prior to attending and on the day itself, including the scoreboards and LED perimeter boards. All reports were dealt with internally by the relevant department at MCC.

2 - Education

  • Committee, permanent and casual staff and volunteers have taken part in anti-racism and anti-discrimination training
  • Comprehensive Heritage & Collections review
  • Delivered a Long Room artwork rehang, exhibitions on the Evolution of Women's Cricket and England's Black Cricketers, and a Women's Cricket Symposium

Anti-discrimination training has been delivered to full-time staff via Show Racism The Red Card. 84% of current staff have taken part to date. That figure would have been 97%, however some December 2022 workshops had to be postponed to February 2023 due to transport strikes. 

Throughout the year, MCC employs a significant number of casual staff. Marshalls, an online training provider, launched a shorter version of the above training to incorporate within the casual staff induction process. To date, 572 casual members of staff and volunteers have taken part. In January 2022, ECB piloted an Inclusive Leadership Programme. MCC was one of the organisations who took part in the pilot and all Heads of Department complete the programme.

A full Collections Review was completed in 2021. The findings are now helping to inform Heritage & Collections' strategies and projects. A rehang of Long Room artwork has taken place, to ensure a diverse representation of great cricketers. 

To mark International Women's Day, a symposium was held to celebrate MCC's Women's Cricket Exhibition. A photographic exhibition by photographer Tom Shaw was installed for Black History Month, depicting the 21 black cricketers, male or female, to have represented England in international cricket. 

MCC's Digital team also produced a documentary to showcase the history of black cricketers at Lord's.

WATCH HERE

3 - Communication

  • Celebrated and recognised a diverse number of key events
  • Celebrated LGBTQ+ inclusion supporting Pride Month and Rainbow Laces campaign
  • Clare Connor was MCC President for nine months of 2022. Stephen Fry became MCC President on 1 October 2022
  • Behavioural campaign, Lord's A Ground for All, emphasises kindness and respect to provide a welcoming environment for everyone

Following on from Kumar Sangakkara and Clare Connor, MCC's first overseas and female Presidents respectively, MCC announced Stephen Fry as the next President of MCC, a champion for mental health issues and LGBTQ+ inclusion. 

MCC produced an EDI Calendar and recognised and supported a number of campaigns and events as a result, including Pride Month and Rainbow Laces, events marking Ramadan and National Holocaust Memorial Day amongst many others. MCC is keen to utilise its global platform to raise awareness of key areas and to celebrate a broad range of occasions relevant to its Membership, staff and community. 

Accessibility, faith and dietary related messaging has been prominently included in our pre-match communications to ticket holders, along with the live text message number and reporting form for incident reporting. Signage was installed at our gate lodges to reinforce wider in-Ground behavioural messaging to be respectful to those around us, in this case specifically our staff.

4 - Pathway

Cricket
  • Five additional women's matches played at Lord's
  • Highest attendance for a home bilateral England Women's fixture a the England v India Women's ODI
  • Tessa Jowell Community Award Winners for Afghan Refugee Project at Sports Industry Awards
  • 74 MCC Foundation Hubs delivered supporting 2,807 participants, with 14 new girls' Hubs
  • Increased female participation in after-school community cricket programme with 56% male / 44% female participants
Membership
  • Refined the Membership application process to encourage more diverse applicants
  • 24% female applicants and 9% ethnically diverse in first three months of the new process
Staff
  • Trained 14 employees to be Health and Wellbeing Ambassadors who also embody MCC's Freedom to Speak Up platform
  • Committed to recruitment agencies who champion diversity
  • 800 local residents took part in employment events

At grassroots, MCC worked in partnership with Middlesex to deliver a 50:50 gender split for its All Stars and Dynamos Centre bursaries. These were delivered across four local sites, increasing female participation with 44% of participants across all of MCC's after school cricket provision. 

MCC's Community department continues to work in partnership with the MCC Foundation across a number of projects. In May, MCC and the MCC Foundation's Afghan Refugee Project won the Tessa Jowell Community Award at the Sports Industry Awards. 

MCC's 2022-24 Cricket Strategy has been released and the impact already felt in the form of a more diverse fixture list. In 2022, MCC held an additional five women's fixtures, taking the total to 11 for the season.

MCC CRICKET STRATEGY

We refreshed our Membership Nomination process to make it simpler and attract a more diverse range of cricket fans and players to apply, in particular those from underrepresented groups. This includes the option for Members to nominate a second individual per year, if that second individual is a woman, in order to help address the imbalance in our gender diversity. 

MCC's Membership Nomination process has previously been paper based, and quite an arduous process from start to finish. In October, MCC launched a new digital process to replace the paper-based system. The number of endorsers required has been reduced from three to one and each Member can now endorse one male candidate and one female candidate, or two female candidates. 

Members' events have been reviewed to reflect more accurately today's society. In April, MCC launched the season by welcoming members of the local community to celebrate Ramadan and hosted an Iftar event. Over 80 people attended including Members, staff and members of our local community who came together to learn, share and celebrate the month of Ramadan together.

As part of the staff survey, it was highlighted that we need to provide more mental health support and a reporting mechanism that ensures concerns can be shared, responded to and actioned effectively. Fourteen Health & Wellbeing Ambassadors have been inducted in response to this, combining an upgraded Mental Health First Aid programme with deeper mental health training, and the integration of our Freedom to Speak Up Platform. 

A full review of recruitment processes has taken place, from the recruitment agencies we use through to the make up of interview panels. MCC has engaged a number of organisations to help support this process which will be confirmed in early 2023, once our new Chief People Officer is in post.

5 - Environment

  • Installed a second, larger multi-faith space, gendered ablution facilities and a second, permanent Changing Places washroom
  • Provision of low / alcohol-free drinks including the launch of San Miguel 0.0 on draught via 30 taps across the ground, the biggest draught distribution of San Miguel 0.0 in the UK
  • Introduction of alcohol-free and family-friendly stands for The Hundred
  • Wider range of food to appeal to diverse audiences
  • SGSA inspection referred to Lord's as 'best in class' for alcohol management
  • Heyhoe Flint Gate installed as an everlasting legacy to this pioneer of the women's game
  • Welcomed the local community to the first Iftar event at Lord's to celebrate Ramadan
  • Improved accessibility within the Grand Stand
  • Introduced an app to help visitors with special educational needs navigate around Lord's

A successful bid secured £100k of ECB funding towards a multi-use area that includes a second, larger multi-faith space, gendered ablution facilities and a second, permanent Changing Places washroom. The facility opened in the Pavilion basement for the England v New Zealand Test match. MCC maximised the on-site attendance of several senior faith leaders on Day 1 of the Test to visit and bless the facility. 

With one in three consumers now actively moderating their alcohol consumption, MCC launched San Miguel 0.0 on draught via 30 taps across the Ground. This marks the biggest draught distribution of San Miguel 0.0 in the UK and further affirms the Club's pledge to ensure it provides choice for a variety of visitor needs, as well as supporting crowd behaviour messaging to drink responsibly. 

The Heyhoe Flint Gate was officially unveiled on the first morning of the England v South Africa Men's Test match to honour the life of Baroness Rachael Heyhoe Flint and her contribution to cricket.

 

6 - Accountability

  • Increased gender and ethnic diversity on the MCC Committee and principal committees
  • MCC Committee EDI Lead appointed
  • Fully engaged with ICEC process written and oral evidence given

MCC has provided timely and comprehensive submissions as part of the Independent Commission for Equity in Cricket. Both the Club Chair, and Chief Executive & Secretary gave in-person evidence as part of the enquiry in September 2022. 

In 2022, the MCC Committee structure was amended to ensure a more diverse, skills-based board. As of 1 October 2022, the diversity has increased.

  2020-2021 2021-2022 2022-2023
GENDER 10% 18% 25%
ETHNICITY 10% 6% 17%
DISABILITY o% 0% 0%

 

 

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