ABOUT 700 children may lose the chance to play cricket this summer after the Maitland and District Junior Cricket Association failed to receive any nominations for a secretary at this week's committee meeting.
Legally organisations must have a secretary to run competitions.
Outgoing secretary Libby Edwards stood down at Wednesday's meeting after three years in the role due to family and study commitments and association president Les Vickery said a replacement was needed within two weeks or Saturday morning club and representative competitions would be scrapped.
"Until we get a secretary we can't run the association," Mr Vickery said.
"We have 700 children, boys and girls, and we can't get a parent to do it."
Mr Vickery returned as president this season after a three-year break.
He was previously president for 14 years and no longer has children involved in the sport.
Mr Vickery has spent the past two weeks sounding out possible applicants for the role, but said his efforts had "fallen on deaf ears".
He was critical of parents who treated the association as "babysitters on a Saturday" and then "jump up and down when things aren't done".
"It's so antagonising that there's no [parent] out of 700 kids who doesn't have the time to do it.
"A lot of the committee members have been there for over 10 years and don't have any children playing."
The role of secretary would involve sending out letters and recording minutes at meetings.
All other positions such as treasurer and registrar have been filled.
Despite the bleak outlook, Mr Vickery was confident that going public would entice somebody to step forward.
"We can only use word of mouth and phone calls so much, at least this gets it out to a wider community and hopefully someone sees it and gets involved," he said.
Anyone interested in the role should contact Mr Vickery on 0405 198 042.