Category: Management Committee

Results of the Management Committee Elections

Pedro Echeguren
Pedro Echeguren

Welcome Pedro Echeguren to the WCF Management Committee!  and

Welcome back, Mohammed Raslan, Roberts Stafeckis, Graeme Roberts and Stephen Mulliner as Treasurer.

At the recent Management Committee election, the existing MC members Mohammed Raslan, Graeme Roberts and Roberts Stafeckis were successfully re-elected. Stephen Mulliner was the only nomination for Treasurer and was therefore elected unopposed.

Pedro Echeguren becomes a new member of the Management Committee and please see his information in the link.

The MC would like to thank all Members for voting, and we look forward to working with Pedro and Stephen in the near future.

Recruitment of new Secretary-General

Debbie Lines has advised that she does not intend to do a second term as Secretary-General and that she will therefore retire on 31st December 2025.

The Management Committee would like to recruit a replacement to start 1st September 2025, so that there is a four-month hand-over period.

New Secretary-General advertisement May25

For info: the WCF is currently going through the process of becoming a limited company. We do not expect this to impact the recruitment process or materially effect the job specification.

Applications and enquiries should be sent to this email address by 15th July 2025.

We strongly encourage candidates to talk to those familiar with the WCF and how it operates, before applying for the role. Both Debbie Lines and the current members of the Management Committee are all more than happy to respond to queries.

 

Results of the 2024 WCF Management Committee election

The MC are pleased to report that Jim Nicholls has been elected to the Management Committee, effective 1st January 2025. We look forward to welcoming Jim to the committee next year.

There were 34 votes for Jim and 18 for Andrew Hobbs.

We’d like to express our thanks to Andrew for putting himself forward. We very much hope he will try again another time.

Results of the 2023 WCF elections

Congratulations to the successful candidates in the recent WCF Elections. All three will serve a four year term of office starting from 1st January 2024.

WCF President: José Álvarez-Sala from Spain

José won the election with 36 votes. Jeff Soo polled 25 and Andrew Hobbs 2 votes.

Management Committee (2 positions): Samir Patel from England and Jeff Soo from USA.

Samir Patel gained 60 votes, Jeff Soo 49 and Stephen Wright 15.

All WCF Members voted in what was a close election.

Thank you to Lewis Palmer and Chris Williams for being the election scrutineers.

Thank you to all the candidates who we hope will try again in future.

Mohamed Raslan is elected to the Management Committee

The WCF is pleased to announce that the management committee will be joined by Mohamed Raslan from Egypt who successfully won the election that closed on 20th March 2022.

Mohamed Raslan will join the Management Committee immediately and serve until 31 December 2025.

Raslan’s croquet journey started in 1982 in Alexandria, Egypt as a player for Somouha and Alexandria sporting clubs. When he moved to Cairo, he joined Maadi club and within a few years, he became involved with the team management. As the head of the team’s management committee, he led the efforts to organize a successful annual national tournament. He also facilitated corporate sponsorship allowing the team to gain financial independence.

In December 2021, Raslan was elected president of the Egyptian Croquet Federation.

 

Would you like to help run the WCF?

Amir Ramsis resigned from the Management Committee (MC) on 26th December 2021. The MC wish to thank Amir for his many years of service, including his 8 years as President, and wish him well with all his future endeavours.

This leaves a vacant position on the MC. We will therefore run an election, firstly asking Members for nominations, then following with a Council vote should we get more than one candidate.

If you are interested in helping to run the WCF, please contact your governing body and they will explain in full what is required for your nomination. Applicants from RCOs are welcomed but you need to be aware that you must be nominated by a Full or Associate Member.

Nominations are required into the WCF by Sunday 13th February 2022 at the latest, so please allow time to liaise with your nominating Member so that they have time to process your application.

I am happy to talk to anybody who wishes to discuss what is involved.

Debbie Lines
WCF Secretary-General

Terms of Reference for the Management Committee

The MC shall settle urgent questions and have general administrative powers to carry out the work of the WCF and manage its financial affairs on a day-to-day basis, subject to the direction of Council.  The role includes condensing issues into a manageable size in order to facilitate Council considering them efficiently and in reasonable timeframes. Its terms of reference are:

    1. To implement policy and actions in pursuit of the agreed direction given by Council.
    2. To present to Council an annual plan for the following year including a budget.
    3. To manage the operating funds according to the budget.
    4. To inform Council regularly of progress, activity and issues.
    5. To prepare proposals and make recommendations as part of formal Consultations to Council.
    6. To distribute to relevant sub-committees the tasks they are to execute, to oversee their activity, to take decisions concerning the reports of these sub-committees, and to forward them to Council.
    7. To present to Council recommendations for the admission, the striking off the rolls, or expelling of Members, as well as for any sanctions which might be imposed.
    8. To monitor the Statutes with a view to identifying possible improvements for proposal to Council.
    9. To maintain and approve all WCF Regulations, subject to ratification by Council.
    10. To manage a rolling 10 Year Schedule of events, to solicit bids against this plan once approved by Council, to assess bids and reach formal agreement with the host Member, and to ensure the event is organised according to Statutes and Regulations.
    11. To publish the International Sporting Calendar for the year(s) ahead.
    12. To gain Council approval for any novel event types not already included in an approved 10 Year Championship Schedule, before soliciting bids.
    13. To promptly alert Council should the MC consider that the sporting interests of the WCF are not adequately defended in a particular territory.
    14. To appoint or dismiss the Secretary-General.

Peter Payne is elected as WCF Treasurer

The WCF is pleased to announce that Peter Payne has been elected as the new WCF Treasurer.

Peter won the election from Jose-Maria Alonso-Gamo. The WCF is pleased to have had such strong candidates and thank Jose for his interest in supporting us.

Peter had a career in banking for 44 years and now runs a financial consulting and services company.

Peter joined CERN Croquet Club in Geneva in 1989 and helped to create the Swiss CA in 1991 and the European Croquet Federation in 1993. He was on the WCF Management Committee for a while previously and during this time worked with the committee that first unified the rules of GC.

On the lawn, he was a keen and active player for many years before personal reasons led to a sabbatical from croquet in 2006. Since returning to the game in 2018 he has been improving his game (both AC and GC), and  recently was a proud member of the Swiss team that participated in the GC  World Team Championship (Tier 2) in Spain.

He is keen to contribute his time and energy to develop our sport in the future.

Peter starts his role from 1st January 2022 and his term ends 31st December 2025.

Changes to the WCF Management Committee

The WCF is pleased to announce that the Management Committee will be joined by Begoña Elzaburu (Spain) and Graeme Roberts (New Zealand).
They were both successfully elected to the Management Committee by Council earlier this month.
Also elected was Roberts Stafeckis who successfully stood for re-election.
All three officially take up their positions on the Management Committee from 1st January 2022, serving a four year term finishing on 31st December 2025.

Graeme Roberts

Graeme has been playing croquet since 1970 and has had a long and illustrious croquet history. He represented New Zealand in the MacRobertson Shield in 1982 and has played in the WCF World AC Championships twice, in 1990 and 2005.

Graeme has served on many croquet committees locally in Wellington and also at National and International level.

As a Championship referee he has officiated at many World Championships. He is one of the founding members of the NZCC Laws Committee and has served on the Committee since then. He is also New Zealand's representative on the AC Laws Committee (ACLC), and has been chair since 2017.

Graeme worked in New Zealand Public Service, within the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet and its predecessors. Over a period of almost 36 years he served as a physical sciences assessment analyst, assessments manager, intelligence coordinator, senior policy adviser and principal policy adviser.

Roberts Stafeckis

Roberts had a career in the diplomatic services for Latvia and went on to be Commissioner General of Latvia at the World Expos in Shanghai and Milan. He currently runs a private business advisory company.

He started playing croquet in 2009 when he established the Ogre Croquet Club in 2009, and Latvian Croquet Federation later the same year. He has been President of the Latvian Croquet Federation since 2009.

Robert has been a member of the WCF Management Committee since 2014. His objectives are the promotion of croquet (AC and GC) as a serious sport in the existing WCF Member countries, as well as reaching out to new territories. He is keen to foster croquet activities in mainland Europe through the new WCF European Regional Committee due to launch early in 2022.

Roberts has played in the 2012 and 2021 GC WTC, 2019 GC WC, 2015 and 2017 GC European Championships.

Begoña Elzaburu

Begoña, and her sons, are keen croquet enthusiasts and have supported croquet in Spain for many years. In particular, she was a founding member of the Croquet Committee of Real Club de la Puerta de Hierro, a large multi-sports club in Madrid with 16,000 members. Since 2016 Begona has helped drive growth at the club by organising coaching, marketing and organising events, and as a result the croquet section has grown from just 30 keen players to over 250 players. She is now involved in helping other clubs to grow and serves on the Spanish Federation Committee.

Begoña recently helped to organise and run the successful World Team Championships Tier 2 held in Spain in October 2021.

As a player, she is one of the top Spanish Women GC players and has played in the GC Women's World Championship. A keen croquet traveller she has also played in England, Egypt, Ireland and even in Senegal.

 

Retiring Management Committee Members

Peter Landrebe (Australia) and Geoff Young (New Zealand) finish their terms of office on 31st December 2021 after serving on the Management Committee for many years. We thank them both for their contributions and hard work and wish them every success on and off the lawns.

Would you like to help run the WCF?

Three members of the Management Committee (MC) reach the end of their four-year term of office on 31st December 2021. These are: Pete Landrebe, Roberts Stafeckis and Geoff Young. Roberts Stafeckis has indicated that he intends to stand for re-election.

I’d like to thank Pete and Geoff for their service over the past four years and wish them well with their future croquet endeavours. They have been valued members of the MC and their experience and insight will be missed.

In addition, Chris Clarke has found that the difficulties of managing the WCF Barclays Bank account from New Zealand cannot easily be resolved and he has therefore resigned. The MC has decided to change the bank account to one easier to use as an international organisation and is researching this now.  Nominations for the role of Treasurer are therefore being sought. All positions start 1st January 2022.

If you are interested in helping to run the WCF, please contact your governing body and they will explain in full what is required for your nomination. Applicants from RCOs are welcomed but you need to be aware that you must be nominated by a Full or Associate Member.

If we have more nominees than positions, elections will follow.

Nominations are required into the WCF by 31st October 2021 at the latest, so please allow time to liaise with your nominating Member so that they have time to process your application.

I am happy to talk to anybody who wishes to discuss what is involved.

Debbie Lines
WCF Secretary-General

Terms of Reference for the Treasurer

    1. To manage the finances of the WCF according to the Financial Regulations.
    2. To prepare the annual budget for approval by Council.
    3. To guide Council and the MC in all financial matters, and propose finance policy.
    4. To maintain a record of the non-financial assets of the WCF.
    5. To prepare annual audited accounts.
    6. To manage the WCF’s investments according to the approved investment policy..

Terms of Reference for the Management Committee

The MC shall settle urgent questions and have general administrative powers to carry out the work of the WCF and manage its financial affairs on a day-to-day basis, subject to the direction of Council.  The role includes condensing issues into a manageable size in order to facilitate Council considering them efficiently and in reasonable timeframes. Its terms of reference are:

    1. To implement policy and actions in pursuit of the agreed direction given by Council.
    2. To present to Council an annual plan for the following year including a budget.
    3. To manage the operating funds according to the budget.
    4. To inform Council regularly of progress, activity and issues.
    5. To prepare proposals and make recommendations as part of formal Consultations to Council.
    6. To distribute to relevant sub-committees the tasks they are to execute, to oversee their activity, to take decisions concerning the reports of these sub-committees, and to forward them to Council.
    7. To present to Council recommendations for the admission, the striking off the rolls, or expelling of Members, as well as for any sanctions which might be imposed.
    8. To monitor the Statutes with a view to identifying possible improvements for proposal to Council.
    9. To maintain and approve all WCF Regulations, subject to ratification by Council.
    10. To manage a rolling 10 Year Schedule of events, to solicit bids against this plan once approved by Council, to assess bids and reach formal agreement with the host Member, and to ensure the event is organised according to Statutes and Regulations.
    11. To publish the International Sporting Calendar for the year(s) ahead.
    12. To gain Council approval for any novel event types not already included in an approved 10 Year Championship Schedule, before soliciting bids.
    13. To promptly alert Council should the MC consider that the sporting interests of the WCF are not adequately defended in a particular territory.
    14. To appoint or dismiss the Secretary-General.

Stephen Mulliner retires as WCF Secretary-General 31.8.21

Stephen with his retirement gift presented by the WCF Management Committee.

Stephen Mulliner retired yesterday 31st August 2021 as Secretary-General of the WCF. During his tenure, the WCF has taken responsibility for managing the AC Laws, GC Rules and the Rankings as well as holding many successful championships.

Stephen has worked tirelessly to support croquet and will be missed by his colleagues on the Management Committee and all the Members he has supported so efficiently.

Stephen is replaced by Debbie Lines, who takes over from 1st September 2021, after shadowing Stephen as his Deputy for the past twelve months.

We wish Stephen all the best with his future endeavours and hope to see him at many croquet events over the coming years.