In a few days time CWB will be entering its 10th year. It seems only yesterday that myself, Andy and Chris were sitting around a kitchen table talking about how we were going to coach cricket from Cairo to Cape Town.

One of the questions we asked, apart from will the trip even work, was whether we should we set up a Charity to do that? Chris looked into that and the decision was made to apply for Charity status. So 3 volunteers set up a charity, oblivious to what it really involved. But I guess sometimes that’s what you need in life a great idea and a why not attitude. There are just so many reasons not to do things in life. So we took a risk, gave up our jobs and set off from the Nursery Gates at Lords in October 2015 with a variety of plastic cricket sets, our passports and a copy of the Rough Guide to Africa.

They say that you invariably overestimate what you can achieve in 1 year and underestimate what you can do in 10 years. There may be some truth in that. If would have seemed remarkable and foolish if someone had told us that in 2015 CWB would still be around having coached over 130,000 children and trained over 3000 adults to be coaches, would be providing employment opportunities for young African adults, would have been the subject of a BBC radio documentary about and that almost all of this would be achieved by volunteers running the charity on a day to day level. But we have done that and much more. It just took a bit of bravery, great friendships, luck, passion and a unique concept.

So many of you have been part of this 10 year journey. It could not have been done without your support and encouragement.

I do hope you will be able to support us in our efforts at promoting and raising funds this year to ensure that we continue to help empower people to bowl AIDS out of Africa.

Heres to 2025.

Ed and the CWB Trustees