Where did September go?

I finally found how much croquet is 'too much' - playing every weekend for a couple of months - I did get to the point of arriving at an event thinking "I'd rather be at home catching up with xyz".  Not an ideal frame of mind!  Still, the season ended on a high - I played for Colchester in the CA's Interclub Championship final and we won.  Fellow MC-member, Ian Burridge was also on the team.  Bizarrely, this "last day of the season" was also the hottest weather I'd played in all year!

After Charles Jones' murder, we rallied and asked Amir Ramsis (MC member and Vice-President of Egyptian Croquet Fed) to take the role of Acting President, which he kindly accepted.  We've started the process for the annual elections in December and called for nominations for President and MC posts.

Our new website is getting closer, and our website committee has been looking at a partly complete new site prepared by James Hawkins.  It should be more attractive and easier to use and update, so I'm looking forward to it going live.  I continue to find it hard to keep the existing site current, as it can be a bit scarey to edit!

We've consulted with our Members on the changes to our Statutes necessary to implement the new email-based decision-making process, approved by Council in July.  We'll shortly take a revised copy of the Statutes to a vote (under the old 60 day postal vote scheme of course), and if passed, we'll then be into the 21st Century and able to work electronically!

We polled all the players in this July's championships (Golf Croquet at Hurlingham & Surbiton, and Under 21s at Hunstanton) and got feedback from about a third.  This has been shared in full with the organisers and host, and summarised on our website.  Generally, the events were both well-liked, though there are things to note for next time.

We're currently working on the detail to implement a decision of the "4 Governing Bodies" that control and play in the MacRobertson Shield - to pass the administration over to the WCF and make the Mac clearly Tier 1 of the Association Croquet World Team Championship.  This is how it was staged in August 2010 but we need now to cement that structure.  I hope we'll have a draft set of changes to our Statutes and Regs ready for the 4 Governing Bodies to consider very soon.

Finally, we're getting well-advanced now with preparations for the 4th Women's GC World Championship this November, in Bay of Plenty region, New Zealand, and 13th ACWC next April/ May in Adelaide, as well as making some initial progress too on the 1st Women's AC World Championship, which is likely to be next October. 

There always seems to be so much to do!

Martin French
Secretary-General