[<<] [>>] by Quiller Barrett
9th September 2003 (CqE Official News)

Following the precedent set in 2002, Council's Report to members for the current year is being published now on the website, in advance of the AGM being held on 11th October 2003. We hope this will encourage members to ask questions and air their views at the meeting.

Council's Report to Members at the 2003 AGM

After last year's AGM, Council agreed the principal tasks that our committees would try to accomplish in 2003. Here is our end-of-term report on these tasks and other work: we have had successes, but in some areas it is taking us longer than we anticipated to get results. Judge for yourself on the progress made and tell us at this year's AGM what you think we should put at the top of our priorities list in 2004. The 2003 AGM is being held at the Victory (Services) Club, 63/79 Seymour Street, London W2 2HF on Saturday 11th October commencing at 11.00am.

Administration - Keeping Up with Information Technology

A Health and Safety policy has been agreed.

An IT sub-committee has reviewed the CA's hardware and software. It has already made some recommendations and work should be completed shortly.

Coaching - Trying to Cut the Cost of Some Courses

A number of successful courses were held including Advanced, Silver, Bronze and for Improvers, as well as Coaches Qualifying Courses for both association and golf croquet. In 2004 we hope to be able to offer more qualification courses, funded partly by the CA so that the cost for coaches attending them can be reduced.

The revision of the Association Coaching Manual and work on drafting an equivalent one for golf croquet are both behind schedule.

Development - Major Grants being Taken Up

Tangible evidence of Council's intention to assist four-lawn clubs in their development was illustrated with our approval of a major grant and loan to Sidmouth as they embark on levelling and relaying three of their courts. A major grant to Taunton supported their application to the lottery, which has enabled them to build three courts at a new sporting complex. We have also assured Pendle that top priority will be given to their application for financial assistance when their endeavours to find a new ground reach fruition. Smaller grants were made to Bristol and Sussex County. The survey of Federations was updated and we know of the needs of those clubs that responded to the questionnaire sent to all clubs as a follow-up to the Club Conferences.

A Skills Register of members has been started and the CA can already offer a limited consultancy service to clubs seeking advice about any aspect of recruitment or how best to develop the club and satisfy their members' needs. We intend to expand this service.

The CA is now a member of the Sports Turf Research Institute and some clubs have taken advantage of its inspection service. The lawns at Budleigh Salterton have improved significantly this year (grant-aided by the CA).

So far no appointments of Regional Officers, financed directly from the CA, have been made. We welcome enquiries from any member interested in helping to develop croquet in their region.

Equipment - Croquet Balls Officially Approved

There are now CA-approved balls, in both colour sets, manufactured by Barlow, Dawson and Sunshiny; also Willhoite first colours are approved.

Progress has been made with a new ball approval protocol but completion is still some way off.

Golf Croquet - The Attractions are Increasingly being Recognised

Most clubs now recognise that the golf game is an attractive variant of croquet for many of their members. The automatic handicapping system for the game is now run in and operates well if clubs follow the published guidelines for setting initial handicaps.

There is still scope for more competitions. Entries are unbalanced at north/south venues and we are finding there is little demand for tournaments offering a mix of golf/association games.

A top-level event has been introduced (Selectors Weekend) to encourage our players to prepare for international competition.

Work to publish one set of golf croquet laws for all levels of play worldwide continues via the World Croquet Federation Rules Committee. It seems unlikely that international agreement will be reached in the short term as national governing bodies are reluctant to compromise on long-established rules of play.

The CA has set up a committee to organise the 6th WCF World Golf Croquet Championships based at Southwick from 20th-27th June 2004.

Handicapping - An Eventful Year

The Handicap Guidelines and Procedures has been revised. Copies have been circulated to member clubs and handicappers, and it is also available on the CA website.

The list of handicappers has been updated so that only active handicappers are included. Procedures and criteria for the appointment of handicappers have been agreed and new handicappers are being appointed. We hope that there will be a registered club handicapper in each member club by the end of 2003.

In response to players' concerns, the CA is monitoring the operation of the Automatic Handicapping System (AHS) for the association game.

The CA and the World Croquet Federation are working together to provide a mechanism whereby national handicaps can be converted, so enabling players to include handicap games overseas within the AHS.

We continue to consider how best to handicap the one-ball game.

International - Preparing for Major International Events

The preparation of the MacRobertson Shield GB team included two of the doubles pairs playing together in the 2003 Opens, and a weekend of doubles and team discussion at Roehampton. All members of the team will prepare by playing in the President's Cup, which has been moved to October so that it is close to the MacRob itself.

The CA will host the WCF World Golf Croquet Championships at Southwick in 2004 and we have presented to the WCF detailed proposals for the 2005 WCF World Association Croquet Championships which will be held at Cheltenham.

The CA has nominated David Openshaw for the position of President of the WCF.

No special coaching has been given to juniors this year.

Laws - Reviewing the Role of Assistant Referees

The Basic Laws of Association Croquet publication has been written and will be published shortly.

The role, training and examination of assistant referees are being reviewed. Self-training material for new referees is being prepared for publication on the CA website. We plan to recruit more examining referees.

Marketing - Shop Sales Up and Lots of Help for Clubs to Recruit Members

A leaflet promoting CA clubs has been produced and is being distributed by Jacques and other parties, including the CA Shop, that are in contact with potential club members.

A booklet titled A guide for new croquet players has been developed and will form part of the membership canvassing kit we aim to make available for clubs in 2004.

The CA Shop continues to thrive under Jeff Dawson and turnover is running well ahead of the equivalent amount last year.

Our newly appointed Press Officer, Pat Francis, is working with Federations and clubs to improve publicity about croquet at regional and local levels.

We have started work on producing a leaflet advertising the benefits of CA membership for individuals and clubs. Individual Associate and Club membership of the CA are both down a little on last year: 1575 and 114 respectively.

In 2003 Lincoln Unit Trust Managers sponsored the CA Fixtures Calendar and some prestigious CA tournaments.

Publishing - Website and Gazette Improvements

Improvements have been made to the CA's website: the CA Shop is now fully on-line including accepting credit card payments; search facilities are more flexible; the history/news/technical sections have been reorganised following user feedback, and archives for 2001 and 2002 are in place; there are more down-loadable forms.

Publishing selected Gazette content on-line is still planned but is dependent on volunteer effort available.

The Gazette editor, James Hawkins, has started to produce pullout Tournament Digests and readers have welcomed this. Readership surveys are planned for the Gazette and website.

Don Gaunt is preparing a new booklet for CA publication in 2004 covering alternative and entertaining croquet games.

Tournaments - What to Do with the Ladies?

The CA Fixtures Calendar was again published on schedule due to the sterling efforts of Nigel Graves.

The Open Championships were held at Cheltenham very successfully; the Cheltenham club will also be the venue for the Opens in 2004.

In general, CA tournaments are being well supported; however, entries for the various Ladies events are still poor and we are considering what action to take.

We have yet to address how to encourage more entries to the initial qualification rounds of the All England Handicap Championship as entries remain fairly static at around 300 competitors.

CA Conferences - Useful for Members and Council

Two club conferences were held during the year - at Cheltenham and Huddersfield. Council members also attended Federation meetings in the South East and East Anglia. These occasions provided opportunities for members to discuss with Council the various initiatives being planned to develop the game. Our President, John Solomon, suggested the conferences, and the feedback they provided to Council members was very useful. It is helping us to compile the CA's Strategic Development Plan, a necessary document if we are to give proper help to clubs trying to obtain funds from third parties. We hope to repeat the conferences every two years.

Chairman Retires

I am now retiring after six years on Council - two of them in the chair. I take this opportunity to thank everyone who helped the Council to achieve quite a lot in, I hope, quite an enjoyable way.

Quiller Barrett
Chairman of Council