Reports back from the AC World Championship, underway in Adelaide at the moment, are all pretty positive, though it seems several of the seeds have struggled in the first round of the Knock Out. The event organisers have done a good job of getting the many lawns spread across a lot of small venues to as similar playing standard as possible - we just need a dry spell now to get the kind of testing conditions the best players like.
When Charles Jones, our President, was murdered last August, we wanted to do something special to commemorate him. So we've set up a page http://www.wcfcroquet.org/Organisation/CharlesJonesTrophy where anyone from the world croquet playing family can donate to the "Chares Jones Memorial Trophy" which will be first contested this October for the Women's AC World Championship at Cairnlea in Australia. If you, your club or association would like to help commemorate Charles, please make a contribution in his memory.
Speaking of trophies, David Openshaw has kindly offered to donate the trophy for the new GC World Team Championship, which is being contested in two divisions, in Jo'burg and Cairo, this November/ December. I hope over time, the "Openshaw Shield" will become as famous and important as the MacRobertson Shield is for the AC World Team Championship.
Having made good progress firming up details of a number of future events, I updated and published the latest WCF 10 Year Schedule (see http://www.wcfcroquet.org/Tournaments/WCF10YearSchedule.pdf). However, almost immediately after publishing it, it now looks unlikely that the 2013 GC World Championship will now go ahead on the West Coast of the USA. We have a possible back-up host, so I'll update the schedule once we have some news on that.
If you knew Charles and would like to commemorate the man and what he contributed to world croquet, please make a donation now. Thanks.
Martin French
