Open and transparent Yorkshire CCC chief executive Stephen Vaughan delivers hopeful message to the club's members

The times they are a-changin’ at Yorkshire CCC.

In stark contrast to the closed door policy of Lord Kamlesh Patel, the outgoing chairman whose meetings seemed to be harder to get into than North Korea, a new era of transparency has been ushered in with the arrival of Stephen Vaughan.

The new chief executive met the Yorkshire members for the first time last night, in the East Stand Long Room at Headingley cricket ground, and outlined his vision for the club going forward – essentially, for Yorkshire to be “a financially sustainable cricket club that members, players, staff and partners are proud to be associated with – inclusive and progressive”.

“It’s been a fairly up-and-down last couple of years,” said Vaughan, with magnificent understatement. “But we’re determined to go forward and make this club famous for cricket again. We’re determined that we get this place right back to the top table.”

Vaughan delivered an update on his first 50 days in office, speaking enthusiastically about “the passionate membership”, “a thriving women’s game”, “a pathway in good shape”, and so on.

He admitted that Headingley looked tired in a few areas (as previously reported, he wants to spruce up facilities to ensure that Yorkshire are “best in class”) and said that County Championship relegation had been difficult to swallow.

“But we’re not wearing the victim’s T-shirt,” he insisted. “That’s sport. We have to make sure that we’re better prepared (this year) and get back to that top table immediately in red-ball cricket. We want to chase silverware in white-ball too.”

Vaughan’s comments were echoed by Jonny Tattersall, who represented a playing squad currently hither and thither around the cricketing world.

“Obviously it was disappointing the way we finished off the season, but there’s lots of positives going forward,” said Tattersall. “We’ve some talented young players and the future is exciting. Everybody is working really hard, and we’re travelling in the right direction.”

Tim Boon, the experienced and respected coach, spoke well and also read out a few words from Darren Gough, the managing director of cricket, who is one of the hither and thither brigade himself – commentating on the new T20 tournament in South Africa.

“The trip has been worthwhile, allowing me to look at South African players and finalise the details of our pre-season tour,” said Gough. Yorkshire are heading to Cape Town in March and will play two red-ball games against Warwickshire and also T20s against Northamptonshire and, hopefully, Holland. A supporters’ tour is also in the pipeline.

There were presentations from Vaughan, Boon, Tattersall, Ed Owen (head of science and medicine), James Martin (head of the boys’ performance pathway), Will Saville (managing director of the Yorkshire Cricket Foundation) and Andy Dawson (Yorkshire’s chief operating officer).

Dawson spoke about the new membership scheme, which allows people to build their own membership.

“We’ve had a fantastic response,” he told the room. “You might say, ‘I would say that, wouldn’t I?’ But we’ve had a really positive response that we’re proud of.”

Not everyone is enamoured, of course – this is Yorkshire cricket, after all – but no one could deny the club’s ambition.

“We want to appeal to a far wider, younger and more diverse membership as well as obviously retaining our existing membership, which is equally as important to us,” said Dawson.

“We want to reduce the barriers of cost if we can.

"It hurts when I see Surrey on 17,500 members. Why can’t we get there? I believe that we will in the coming few years and have more members than any other first-class county.”

For a club some way short of that target at present, it is a determined strategy.

Dawson spoke too of attracting a better gender balance to the membership (currently 84 per cent men, 16 per cent women) and of bringing down the average age. Most, it is hardly a secret, are in and around bus pass territory.

Dawson also briefly turned interviewer, speaking to the Northern Diamonds players Sterre Kalis and Katie Levick, who were part of the team that won last year’s Rachael Heyhoe Flint Trophy.

It was perhaps the part of the evening he enjoyed the most, although there were not too many tough questions, if truth be told, and the sense of a room that has had its fill of controversy.

As Vaughan concluded: “At some point we have to move on, we have to be progressive.

"I want us to be proudly talking about Yorkshire as the No 1 cricket county in the country again. We’ve got a long way to go, but we’ll get there.”