Nice one stu. maybe we can do a link to ray's cricket photo's in the gallery section rather than adding pics by hand.

Rodneys 3 new bats are great !

Essentially we have learned that laying a proper 'concrete' cricket pitch is not financially prohibitive. Nor is flattening and grass seeding an outfield. Rent cost of land, however, is!

It would be interesting if everyone explored alternative options for having a cricket ground. My experience, finding a suitably large piece of land near vilnius centre is problematic.

If anyone can find a better plot of land then we can start preparing the ground immediately. Or we can sit around like a group of WOMEN'S INSTITUTE tea ladies and faff.

This ground is only the first we have been able to find. It is on over 7 hactares. There is more than enough space to build a good flat ground, and also in time to even have several sets of nets built to practice.
Yes 30km does sound far. But as stuart has said, most people already come in shared cars and the possible new ground is only 100m from the main highway. With the property actually running along the highway.
One main advantage of having our own ground wherever it is, that has not been mentioned yet is:
That as our own ground, we are all able to use it on whatever day we want. Even if a few friends want to go and have some batting and bowling practice after work, it is there for you.
The location allows for later use. Stuart, Alister and myself were there on Sunday evening at 8pm and there was still more than adequate light to be playing.

With such a large space, families will have more than enough room to play without being cramped on the very edge of the oval and risk getting hurt by wayward sixes and fours.

But this is only option 1 at the moment. If anyone has any other ground that we can look at, bring them on.
I challenge anyone to find a ground within 15-20km of Vilnius, that gives us the freedom to build exactly what we want and need and at a cost that will not be beyond any of our players budgets.
In small talking with the people who own the property, they are not wanting much for the property.
Our current talks have followed a 1 time annual membership payment by players/ members that will allow them full 7 day a week use of the ground for a small fee of approx.150Lt a year. Part of this money will go to the people who own the land for lease, and the rest will go towards maintenance.
Touring teams money will also be used for maintenance and ground keeping.

This is just talk and nothing is set in stone, but we should move soon on this, because we need to start work on whatever location we choose, so we have a fully operational pitch before the start of 2011 season, maybe even towards the end of this season.

I think that the ground is too far from the centre, whether there are buses or not. Many people can't afford to take an entire day to play cricket. Also, what of the connections from Kaunas? Will the boys there be left out on this?

I think a good way to solve this problem would be to find a ground closer to Vilnius. I know for a fact that many people own plots of land that they do absolutely nothing with. All the land was divided up and given out willy-nilly at the end of the Soviet pity-party.

We should get someone local to start looking for a ground near Vilnius that is unused. This could also be very cheap and it follows on to my next point...

A good way to finance the ground would be to have a club house with a sauna (Kaimo turizmas) that could be rented out for events, as well as being a place to store the equipment and pass out after a day of...erm cricket...I don't know how this could functionally be done other than for someone who owns land to build the house, but it would make money eventually.

Is it possible to get a grant from some EU org? Tell them that we are developing some social thing and they will give us €100,000 ?

Another way to make money would be to simply set up some alcohol sales at each match where a pint of beer costs 3.50 Lt or so. Not a huge profit, but it makes it cheap enough that people wouldn't bring their own, or might even bring friends along who just want to have a beer.

Yesterday, in response to several players asking for our new ground to be closer to Vilnius, I contacted several real estate agents who handle the sale and lease of land plots in and around Vilnius.

I did have some good response in the fact that there are 3 possible options for land. These are for sale, but possibly the owners would maybe lease.

Just to give you all an idea on them.
1: is 4.3 hactares, forrested partly with just over 2 hectares cleared. That is good. Small creek runs through the property. There is electricity and there is the possibility to run water from a neighbour(also the current owners of the property for sale/ rent).It is only 14km from Vilnius, so half the distance to Nemencine.
But that is where the positives end.
Only accessible by car on 4km of dirt tracks. No public transport after the dirt track starts, so a 4km walk from the bus stop. Owner wants 375,000Lt for the sale, or 55,000Lt a year rent. NOT AN OPTION

2: 25 hectares of fully forrested land 2km off the highway to Nemencine. Also only about 16km from Vilnius centre. Owner would clear the space and put in a track to the area we need and would rent out a smaller part, however, the owner wants a minimum of 20year lease. We would have to pay ourselves to have electricity and water. Price is not bad, at 4,000Lt/hectare/ year. And the owner would reserve the right to cancel the contract after a minimum of 5 years if sale or full lease of the land happened.

3: and in my opinion the best of these new possibilities.
4 hectares of land 12km from Vilnius off the highway not far from the Le meridian. About 1km from the closest public transport. Partly cleared. But mostly small hills and not much flat. So a lot of work to get it flat.
Electricity needs to be run to the property with about 1km of cables required. No water, but a bore can be drilled.
The owner prefers a sale, currently set at 650,000Lt ono., but would take a 10 year lease. And the ground used would have to be returned to its original state after we finish with it.

Unfortunately, as the real estate agent has said, many of these people who got land at the great hand-out, all have highly inflated prices in their heads of the value of land. This is for 2 reasons. 1. if you are a land owner, and are unemployed, the government will not give you any unemployment benefits because it puts a value of income obtainable from your land. And 2. They seem to think that the land of size outside of Vilnius, is the same value as land in the city.

The cost to run electricity to any premises runs at approx. 1000Lt per 100m. So quite expensive for the 2 options without electricity.
To bore for water is approx 7500Lt for a 40m hole, without the pumps etc.

So we still have the same problem, money.
I must add that we do not have any water on the premises in Nemencine, but we have a neighbour about 100m from the proposed site that we could talk to about this.
But we have electricity running right through the property there.

The price is not yet confirmed for the property in Nemencine, but it would be at or below 2-3000Lt per year.

Please everyone who cares about the distance to play, keep looking.

How about Gosh's Paddock