What happens next….

After Charles Jones’ horrific murder in Thailand, his body was repatriated to New Zealand and his funeral was last Saturday.  My sympathies to his family and friends.

After some thought, the Management Committee has decided to ask Amir Ramsis – who has been on the MC since 2003 – to take the role of Acting President for the next 4 months.  Amir is also Vice-President of the Egyptian Croquet Federation and frequently travels to GC events round the world.

The WCF Statutes envisage routine elections every November/ December for any roles on the MC that have become vacant through rotation and retirement – so we will include the election for the next President in this timetable.

In the next 4 months, we have just one event, the Women’s GCWC in New Zealand in November.  Amir was already planning to accompany the Egyptian women’s squad there, so will be able to present the prizes and speak on behalf of the WCF too.

Apart from that, the MC has been working through all the actions from the July Council Meeting.  We have been drafting revised Statutes to embody all the processes required by the decision to start a 2 year trial in January of the new email-based discussion and decision process of Council.  These are almost ready now to go to the Members for a consultation cycle prior to a formal postal vote (under the existing 60 day postal process, of course).

We’ve also been working on finalising the 10 Year Schedule of events and the format descriptions for each of the 8 approved event types, and these are again just about ready to go out to the Members along with a call for bids for events through to the end of 2014.  This will allow us to have a clear forward programme of events in place, for some years ahead.

Personally I’ve also been busy with several croquet tournaments (a late-season flourish, playing every weekend for the next 4 weeks), and also being very involved in the negotiations and planning to move my local croquet club (Ipswich CC) from its position in a local park, to a golf club a couple of miles out of town.  The improved facilities will make it much easier, we hope, to recruit and retain new members.   So a busy early Spring next year in prospect, with a hut to build and everything to arrange.

In the meantime, may your swing be straight and your aim true.