John Holder (Test & First Class umpire), David Jukes (Tournament Director) and Graham Cooper (EDP Umpiring Consultant) visited the Netherlands over the weekend 8-9 March to hold a seminar to help local umpires in their preparations for the ICC European U19 World Cup Qualifier in August. Graham arrived some 18 hours later than planned, as a result of his Friday afternoon flight from Heathrow being cancelled, however, this did not affect the running of the seminar since John was able to start proceedings off on the Saturday morning, with Graham and David arriving at 11.30am to help him out.

The seminar was attended by 13 umpires who all found the mixture of discussion and formal presentations stimulating. John discussed the player-management side of umpiring, after which Graham dealt with ways in which umpires can help keep a game running smoothly and how umpires can help each other on the field of play. David and John then went through the various tournament regulations before Graham went through the laws on boundaries and caught, rounding off with the laws which deal with the introduction of the 5 penalty run situations. The attendees were encouraged to bring their experiences to the table throughout, which resulted in a number of beneficial discussions.

The Sunday was well spent with meetings between Graham, John, David (Tournament Director), Wim Neleman (Tournament Organiser) and Duco Ohm (Principle Umpire). Various matters were discussed and plans put into place in readiness for this important event. All in all it was a very successful weekend and we all look forward to the tournament itself in August.