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vic, don't you offer yourself up for any speeches.

Dundrum Cricket Club Dinner saturday evening - Maghera Inn. If there are any other club members in the area, you will be made very welcome to the after dinner entertainment. We need someone who can wrestle the microphone of Ronnie McAlpine! Hope you can't sing Vic.....

Wylie,
If the N.C.U. are stuck for a speaker or two for their after-dinner ceremony entertainment, I don't mind reciting some verses of poetry and I'm sure I could persuade Gerald to accompany me and tell a wee story or two, maybe sing an odd song as well.

He was telling me the other day about the conversation he overheard in Cafollas cafe, two ladies bumped into eachother after years of being apart from their childhood days, the conversation went thus:

Lady 1."Its lovely to meet you again after all this time, how's life been?

Lady 2. "Oh not bad, I got married you know".

Lady 1."Oh that's good"
Lady 2."Oh it's not so good, he's very old"!
Lady 1."Oh dear,thats bad".
Lady 2.Well it's not so bad, he's very rich" !
Lady 1."Oh, that's good"!
Lady 2."Well it's not so good, he's very mean"!
Lady 1."Oh dear,that's bad"!
Lady 2."Well it's not so bad, we live in a huge mansion"!
Lady 1."Oh well, that's good"!
Lady 2."Well it's not so good, it burned down to the ground, yesterday"!
Lady 1."Oh dear, that's bad"!
Lady 2."Well it's not so bad.....

.....He was in it"!!!

(Ps. No payment necessary !)

on the question of speakers and the NCU dinner - this is an "awards night" and the event will always be well supported by the winning clubs in a particular year and as such is completely different from club dinners. I don't honestly believe that the speaker adds too many more to the attendance. As the Ed. writes in the "feature", dinners are more about the socialising, etc. with a tasty dinner, a few drinks & an entertaining speaker. I can only quote the Muckamore experience where we have had good speakers over the past few years, Jim McDowell, Ken Reid, Carl Monteith and this year Philip Gregg - much more entertaining than hearing some guy going on about "when I played with so and so" - becomes a bit like listening to Mike Summerbee, Rodney Marsh, etc. telling the same old stories about George Best - gets a bit repetitive.

NCU Dinner
I have read with interest the comments on here about the NCU Dinner and would love the NCU to be able to bring over a "big name" guest to speak at it as in my time attending we have had some fantastic speakers attending. However Peter Wood hits the nail on the head when he says that to get a “big name” speaker is very costly these days, especially for a Saturday evening. I note that the cost of a ticket for the Lurgan dinner is £40 compared to the NCU dinner at £25 and I am pretty sure the cost of preparing a meal in Lurgan is not more expensive than a Belfast Hotel. So I assume the mark up on the price of a Lurgan ticket is to cover the costs associated with the guest.

If the NCU raised the price of a ticket to £40 that would easily cover the cost of bringing over a major cricket celebrity but would it put some people off because of the price or would the fact that a well known cricketer was going to attend attract more people to the dinner despite the £40 cost?
The numbers attending the dinner were in decline even when someone like this was in attendance at the NCU Dinner.

I for one would like to hear if people have alternative ideas.
I note that James from Belfast suggests the need for change without actually offering any ideas himself!

Division 1 Averages
Is Interested Spectator enquiring about all Division 1 sections or only the Premier League?
The Premier League averages have been published in the NCU’s annual report and appear on the CricketIreland web site. No averages are usually published for Sections 1, 2 and 3 as this is not something that the League Secretaries for those sections are requested to prepare. I think in the past Ryan McMaster did ask for clubs to send him their averages for Section 2 and he was going to compile these together but he received a very poor response from the clubs.

Any idea when the Division 1 NCU averages will be published?

Peter,
Sorry a slip on my part naming him Sir, but maybe I wasn't wrong. He did deserve a Knighthood!

Guys
The NCU dinner has died a death from what it used to be.
But to me that means trying to come up with something new rather than just a bad (being kind) version of what has gone before.
Innovative ideas, the format, guests, the whole thing could, and I would go so far as to say should, be re-vamped!
Ideas please forumites...

I remember several speeches from the late Fred Trueman. He was an excellent speaker when he kept the speech clean! Ask any of the more senior members Lisburn club about this!
Sadly, however, he never received a knighthood.
Thanks to Graham for the info re the Lurgan speakers, hope it goes well for you.

Peter, the guys that have come to the Lurgan dinner have all given speeches. However, I'm sure they would have done Q&A if we had requested this.
We have a great contact with Alec Stewart and he has sourced all the speakers for us.
This year we have Angus Fraser coming over on 29th October.
If anyone is interested in attending, please contact me on 07763 910565.
Players and members from other clubs are very welcome to attend - Ticket Price £40.

lol jeff, i think it was you who said i should do that to sir ian, i dont remember agreeing but then again there was plenty of free drink on board at that stage. If i paid up the forum would be too quiet

I remember an NCU Dinner in the 90's and the after dinner speaker was no other that the great Sir Fred Truman. I must say that if all after dinner speakers were like Sir Fred then 'bring them on'.
His speech was centered around the chraracters in cricket and he also explained to us what the 'Training Appeal' was. Brilliant story!! Does anyone else remember his speech?

RE NCU dinner unfortuately Dundrums dinner is again on same night but in my opinion that there is no need for after dinner speaker as id say 85% are their too see the trophies handed out and another chance too meet all their freinds from other clubs? Dundrums website has been hacked again so hopefully be back up again soon . PS TAYTO the reason ill allways mention YOU owning 40£ too charity is you had the BALL$ stand up an say too all in SIR IAN BOTHAMS q&a session in the free RSA TENT THAT U WOULD PAY SIR IANS CHARITY but then again TALK IS CHEAP .LOL

NCU dinner speaker - surely not?

Re the NCU Dinner.
I was involved for many years in obtaining the speaker for the NCU Dinner. We had some good ones (Mark Nicholas,Dermot Reeve, Mike Watkinson and Robin Smith come to mind) and some not so good ones ( eg David Gower and Steve Rhodes)
In reality it became a very expensive business as costs rose. Also many speakers did want to do a Saturday night Dinner and would mark up their fee. In view of the fact that the cost was putting £5-10 per head on the bill, the decision was made about 4 years ago to have a local speaker and we had the excellent Sean Crummey and Gerry Donnelly amongst others.
I have not been involved in the organisation this year but I can assure everybody that Michael Ridley is a very clever and engaging Speaker.
Maybe Lurgan and the Union could consider having their events over the same weekend so that the same speaker could do both - although it would be rather boring for anybody attending both!
Do the guys attending Lurgan (Alex Stewart, Graham Thorpe etc) do a speech or Q&A? Maybe Neil or Graham could advise.

Michael Ridley confirmed James.
That should pack the terraces!