Author: Debbie Lines

GC Country Rankings as at 30th June 2021

The latest GC Team Rankings (as at 30 June 2021) are:

Position

Country

Average

Players

1

Egypt

2,553

6

2

England

2,460

6

3

New Zealand

2,394

6

4

Australia

2,298

6

5

Spain

2,258

6

6

USA

2,249

6

7

Wales

2,099

6

8

Sweden

2,073

6

9

Germany

2,035

6

10

Switzerland

2,011

6

11

Ireland

1,971

6

12

South Africa

1,964

6

13

Latvia

1,953

6

14

Czech Republic

1,902

6

15

Scotland

1,898

6

16

Austria

1,876

6

17

Norway

1,868

6

18

Mexico

1,620

3

19

Finland

1,803

2

20

Belgium

2,330

1

21

Jersey

2,008

1

July 2021 Newsletter

As we get halfway through 2021, the pandemic continues to disrupt our croquet activities around the world. A lot of croquet is being played within each member country, but very little travel is possible, and this situation is expected to continue for some time.

2021 Events
WCF GC World Team Championship Tier 2 – October 2021
Tier 2 of the Golf Croquet World Team Championship is due to be held in Spain from 11th to 16th October 2021 at the Real Club de Golf Vista Hermosa in Puerto Santa Maria, the Sherry Golf Jerez, and at the Real Club de Golf Novo Sancti Petri. Eight teams, namely the Czech Republic, Germany, Latvia, Norway, Scotland, Spain, Switzerland and Wales, will compete for the World Croquet Federation Salver.

At this time both Spain and the WCF hope that this event will go ahead as planned. A decision regarding this event will be made shortly.

2022 Events

The WCF recently announced that the three championships planned to be held in New Zealand in January and February 2022 will not now take place as scheduled. New Zealand is currently considering alternative dates for the Women’s AC World Championship and the U21 GC World Championships.

    • 2022 GC WC - the WCF is in discussions with the English CA and Sussex County Croquet Club with a view to hopefully being able to hold the  event in England.
    • 2022 GC World Team Championship Tier 3 (previously the 2020 event) - this is now due to take place at Guildford & Godalming, UK, next summer – dates and details to be confirmed soon. The teams competing are Iran, Mexico, Portugal and Uruguay.
    • 2022 AC World Team Championships Tiers 2 and 3 - this is due to be held at Budleigh Salterton, UK, from 9-14th August 2022.
    • 2022 AC World Team Championship Tier 1 (The MacRobertson Shield) - this is due to be held at Cairnlea, Victoria, Australia, from 12-28th November 2022.

2023 and beyond

A Member Consultation is currently in progress at the request of Croquet New Zealand. It considers the merits of a reduction in the number of WCF Singles Events to reduce both time pressure and costs for Players and Members. The suggestion from Croquet New Zealand is to move the Golf Croquet World Championships and Association Croquet World Championships to a four (4) year cycle and to extend the U21 Golf Croquet World Championships to every three (3) years. This would be a change to the current two year cycle.

This consultation ends on Sunday 1st August and the WCF will review the forward schedule after this date. The current WCF Upcoming Events calendar can be found at: https://worldcroquet.org/world-championships/upcoming-events/


Chris Clarke is appointed WCF Treasurer
The WCF is pleased to announce that Chris Clarke has been elected as the new WCF Treasurer.

For the news article, please visit the WCF Website: https://worldcroquet.org/new-wcf-treasurer-announced/

 

 


Ranking Regulations

The Ranking Regulations were published on 22nd June and can be found on our website. For the news article and for further information, please visit the WCF Website: https://worldcroquet.org/wcf-announce-publication-of-ranking-regulations/


New interest in joining the WCF

  • Hong Kong has approached the WCF requesting more information about joining. They currently play at the Hong Kong Cricket Club.
  • A group from France has also requested information. There are several small clubs playing a mix of garden croquet and GC.

We are still in discussions with these groups and hope to report more soon.


Advantage GC

The Advantage GC trial has now been operating for a couple of months and feedback, from both the official trial and others who are trying it, is all very positive. Suggestions for improvement are being collated, but we do not intend to make changes until the end of the trial at the end of the UK playing season. Please continue to give this a try and pass your thoughts on to us via our dedicated email address advantagegc@worldcroquet.org


Do you want to help run the WCF?
In the early autumn the WCF will be requesting nominees from our Members for three vacancies on the Management Committee. If you would like to know more, please feel free to contact any of the existing WCF Management Committee, or Debbie Lines, who will be happy to talk through what is involved. To be considered you will need to be formally nominated by your Member organisation when the request comes out in late September.

Update regarding the WCF World Championships scheduled for January & February 2022 in New Zealand

The MC has been in discussion with Croquet New Zealand regarding the three World Championships scheduled for early 2022. Current outbreaks in Australia have led to lockdowns in both Australia and New Zealand and their nationwide travel bubble is again on hold. Travel into New Zealand currently requires an expensive two week isolation in a hotel and there is little indication of when this requirement might be lifted.  Additionally, there is a clear risk that further lockdowns may be imposed in either country.

Given these circumstances and the considerable uncertainty that remains, it is felt inappropriate to try and hold any events in the first quarter of 2022 in New Zealand. Previous communications may have inferred that if there was any further delay, we would cancel some or all of these events. However, the Management Committee have considered each event separately and believe the following suggestions best meet the needs of the players and hosts:

Women’s AC World Championship: this will no longer be held in January 2022 in Christchurch, New Zealand. We are in discussion with CNZ with a view to holding the next occurrence of the event there in a future year to be confirmed.

Under 21 GC World Championship: this will no longer be held in February 2022 in Hamilton, New Zealand. We are in discussion with CNZ regarding the possibility of moving it to either later in the year or Jan/Feb 2023. This may not prove possible, and we will advise further as soon as possible.

(The intention would be that those who were eligible to play when the event had been initially scheduled in 2021 would be allowed to compete as per the previously approved temporary amendment to the Regulations (which we are aware presently only takes us to the end of 2022)).

GC World Championship: this event will no longer be held in February 2022 in Mount Manganui, New Zealand. We are considering other venues for 2022, potentially in England.

The forward calendar will be reviewed over the next few months.

WCF announce publication of Ranking Regulations

The WCF are pleased to report that Members have voted to approve the new Ranking Regulations. These are now available to view on the Statutes & Regulations page of the website > worldcroquet.org/wcf-business/statutes-regulations/

These Regulations govern the operation of the Association Croquet Grading System (ACGS) and the Golf Croquet Grading System (GCGS) which are used to generate ranking lists of individual players and teams in relation to AC and GC respectively.

The individual ranking lists are published on the internet and relevant links may be found at https://worldcroquet.org/wcf-world-rankings/. The country ranking lists will be published on the website shortly after the quarter ending 30th June is complete.

Implementation of these Regulations is now the responsibility of the Rankings Operations Committee (ROC) which is appointed by the WCF Management Committee.

On a day-to-day basis the ACGS and GCGS are each operated, in accordance with these regulations, by a Ranking Officer (RO) and, when appropriate and required due to workload, by one or more Assistant Ranking Officers (AROs) appointed by the MC on the recommendation of the ROC.

Current post holders are:

    • ROC: Stephen Mulliner, Chris Williams, James Hopgood, Paul Billings and Debbie Lines.
    • AC Ranking Officer: Chris Williams
    • GC Ranking Officer: Stephen Mulliner
    • There are currently four GC AROs: Peter Freer (AUS), Richard Bilton (ENG), Felipe Mestanza (ESP) and John Christie (NZL).

New WCF Treasurer announced

The WCF are pleased to announce that Chris Clarke has been elected as the new Treasurer.

 Chris won the election with 37 votes, beating strong competition from Tarek Abdou, who received eight votes and Jose-Maria Alonso-Gamo who received nine votes. The WCF are pleased to have had such strong candidates and thank the unsuccessful candidates for their interest.

Chris brings a wealth of experience to the role, both from a croquet and a finance perspective. He had a career in financial management and logistics before moving to New Zealand. He has many decades of experience in croquet administration, having supported our sport at both club, regional and national level. A UK citizen, with permanent residence in NZ, he understands the workings of the WCF, having previously acted as Secretary-General.  Twice WCF World AC Champion, and winner of over 50 other national titles he understands world class croquet and so will be able to draw on this experience to contribute to the Management Committees discussions and business. Chris has been inducted into both WCF Hall of Fame and the CNZ Hall of Fame.

 Chris starts his role immediately and his term ends 31.12.2024.

WCF Working Groups Update

The WCF coordinates the development of croquet around the globe and it is one of our highest priorities. There are currently four key initiatives being investigated:

A summary of the status of each working group can be found on the new page on our Website "Working Groups" which we will update regularly.

March 2021 Newsletter

Upcoming Events
Since our last newsletter the Covid vaccination program has begun to roll out and things appear to be improving at last. However, it is too early to confirm any events. We have already decided that the July GC World Team Championship Tier 3 at Guildford and Godalming will be postponed to 2022. With only smaller members participating, this can be done without otherwise disrupting our calendar of events.

Decisions will be made in the coming months with regard to the Tier 2 event scheduled for October in Spain and the three WCF New Zealand Events scheduled for early 2022.

The WCF Upcoming Events calendar can be found at: worldcroquet.org/world-championships/upcoming-events/

WCF Treasurer wanted
The closing date for applications is 31 March 2021. Those interested can see the full job notice at: worldcroquet.org/would-you-like-to-be-wcf-treasurer/

Our new look website
We launched the new website in late February worldcroquet.org/
We would like to ask for more pictures please, particularly for the Championship Archive page: worldcroquet.org/world-championships/championship-archives/ We are trying to use the site to collect and store photos from these past events for everyone to enjoy. If people have commentary or old tournament reports to share, these would also be welcome additions to the tournament archives.

Many people have previously asked the WCF to provide a global list of clubs and events. This would be extremely difficult to keep up to date but we have made some progress and would draw your attention to the following two website links:

WCF Membership page: links to the relevant pages of our Member organisations' websites are included for both Clubs and Upcoming Events, where these are available worldcroquet.org/member-countries/

Oxford Croquet: this website, maintained by Dr Ian Plummer, includes an interactive map of worldwide croquet clubs. www.oxfordcroquet.com/clubs/index.asp

YouTube Channel
Our YouTube Channel has proved very popular and this means we now have enough subscribers for YouTube to allow us to customise the URL. Please take a look to view and enjoy video footage from some of our past World Championships youtube.com/c/WorldCroquet

Regulations & Laws Updates:
- The 7th edition of the Association Croquet Laws was approved by Council on 24 January 2021: worldcroquet.org/croquet-information/association-croquet/the-laws-of-association-croquet/

- Version 5.1 of the Refereeing Regulations was approved on 7 March 2021: worldcroquet.org/wcf-business/statutes-regulations/

- Sports Regulations: a temporary amendment to Appendix 2 paragraph 2.3 was approved by Council on 21 February 2021. This recognises that, due to Covid, limited games may have been played and allows 24 months of ranking data to be used to determine eligibility for Ranking Places, instead of 12 months, for the next three WCF singles events. worldcroquet.org/temporary-amendment-to-sports-regulations/

- Ranking Regulation Consultation with Members: this closed on 7th March 2021. The comments will be considered before a version is proposed for approval by Council.

Latvia Project

Latvia new clubhouse.

Here is the latest photo from the new club being developed in Latvia with the help of WCF grant funding.

A walkway is to be built between the two huts.

Update to Refereeing Regulations

The WCF is pleased to announce that v5.1 of the Refereeing Regulations has been approved.

A new version was required following the recent approval of the 7th Edition of the Laws of Association Croquet. The opportunity has also been taken to improve the internal organisation and to clarify some aspects of GC refereeing.

WCF Refereeing Regulations_v1.5

A Changes Log is provided at the end of the document.

Version 1.5 has been approved by both the WCF AC Laws Committee and the WCF GC Rules Committee and has been approved by WCF Members.

The document can also be downloaded, along with our other Regulations on the Statutes & Regulations page of this website.