Two cricketers who live and breathe Pembrokeshire cricket and well known throughout the county, will be standing down at the annual gneral meeting of the Pembroke County Cricket Club to be held on Wednesday, February 29, in Haverfordwest Cricket Club at 7.30 pm.

After almost 30 years of dedicated service, current county secretary Bill Marchant will retire from the biggest job in Pembrokeshire cricket. When the agenda papers for the meeting were circulated to affiliated clubs and individual members, no nominations had been made to replace him.

In the interim period, it is understood that an experienced cricket administrator from an affiliated club has expressed an interest in the post and will be holding talks with Mr. Marchant to discuss things in more detail prior to the meeting.

It is essential that the post is filled as the County Club will be unable to function properly without a county secretary, so it is time for cricketers to stand up and be counted.

Another household name, Maurice Cole, of Cresselly, will also stand down as county president after completing his allotted five years in office. He will be succeeded by his former Cresselly team-mate and a former county chairman, Dave Morris, who lives in Fishguard.

There are the usual notices of motion for rule changes, many of which involve fines for clubs when fixtures are not played for various reasons and some adjustment to the fees paid to neutral umpires.

One very interesting proposal is the move to introduce the playing of semi-finals of cup competitions on neutral grounds.

At present, neutral grounds are only used for the semi-finals of the Harrison-Allen Bowl, so it would be a logical step for neutral grounds to be used for the remaining cup competitions organised by the County Club.

This proposal should attract widespread support, as the competing clubs will be able to organise a raffle to share for their coffers after paying the umpires and more grounds will be able to stage a prestigious cup match each season.

Work is well underway in the preparation of the 2012 County Handbook and Bill Marchant would like to know if there are any errors, omissions, or changes of personnel, telephone numbers and email addresses which need to be included in the new handbook.

An email amendment would be preferred, addressed to HYPERLINK "mailto:[email protected]">[email protected]" [email protected]">[email protected] otherwise he can be contacted on (01646) 600974.