High Sherrif's Community Awards, Community Festival and Charity Cricket Match

The community has come together to play in a cricket match, to bring together a festival and recognise unsung heroes at an awards reception.

The High Sheriff is supported by a team of people from the business and local community working on the festival and awards. Key players include Shirin Mansur, Simon Winfield, Uzair Makadam, Krupa Bhatt, Kauser Patel, Diana Esho, Feizal Hajat OBE and Jenny Cross.

Over the last few weeks, a tremendous amount of work has been done to collate the teams, pull together stalls, entertainment and organise a bake off to be judged by celebrity food blogger @Anisagrams.

A steel band, Bolly – Cric Hit, Zumba with Z Fit, music and entertainment from Eava FM is just some of the entertainment planned for the day.

The event will be rounded off with the High Sheriff hosting a private reception in the Charles Palmer Suite to celebrate the players and the winners of the Community Unsung Heroes awards.

'Connecting Communities was my aim as High Sheriff. I saw a charity cricket match as a wonderful way to do this and shared my idea with Sean Jarvis, LCCC CEO back in March. As we began to plan the match, the germ of an idea grew into a much bigger initiative, a festival at the County ground, involving the wider community. Inspired by the words of Mahatma Gandhi, 'The best way to find yourself, is to lose yourself in the service of others', I was keen to celebrate members of the community who have gone the extra mile on a regular basis to serve its people. It seemed befitting to celebrate the match players and the award winners at a reception after the game.

The event would not be possible without the support of all the people working tirelessly in their spare time on the initiative (mentioned above), the players, the volunteers, the LCCC Community team and the event sponsors. They are Headline Sponsor Overall Award - Anand International Ltd (Vic Sethi), Sport Award (ECB), Education Award (University of Leicester), Health Award (Mosaic 1898), Disability Award (Access Rating), Women and Girls Award (Tilton Conway), Children and Young People Award (Pukaar News)'

This collaboration between LCCC and the community is indicative of the Club's ongoing commitment to engagement with the diverse communities of the City and County. The festival also aims to engage women and girls, children and families who may never have visited the ground whilst a Hundred game is being played. We want everyone to find a reason to come down to the ground, enjoy the different activities that are going on and soak in some cricket at the same time.' Mehmooda Duke MBE DL.