Category: European Regional Committee

We are pleased to announce an additional heat for the GC European Club League 2023.

It will be held at Novo Sancti Petri, Nr Cadiz (Spain) on the weekend of 20/21 May.

Priority entry will be given to non-Spanish teams entering before March 26th, thereafter entries (including Spanish teams) will be accepted in order or receipt (if over-subscribed entries will be allocated by ballot). If your club wishes to enter a 4 player team please e-mail me.

Full rules of the event can be found here European Club League Rules

Novo Sancti Petri croquet has two lawns at the Seve Ballesteros designed golf course https://www.iberostar.com/uk/real-novo-sancti-petri-golf-club/ It is a short walk from two Iberostar.com hotels, Andalucia Playa (5*) and Royal Andalus (4*), a discount is available at both for the event, using the discount code EUROPEANCLUB

One more host required
If you would like to participate in the League but do not want to travel we are still looking for one more host venue (2 lawns required), please contact me if you are interested.

Spaces in Existing Heats
There are still 2 places available in the heat at CERN (Switzerland) 10/11 June, to compete alongside CERN and Suedwest (Germany)

Two heats are fully subscribed, giving entries clubs from 7 different countries so far:-

Dulwich (England) 29/30 April - Dulwich (England), Sherry (Spain), Sussex County (England), Zurich (Switzerland)

Ikskile (Latvia) 8/9 July - Ikskile (Latvia), Ealing (England), Hamburg (Germany), Tolkis (Finland)

One heat has been played at the Algarve Club (Portugal), won by Roehampton (England) https://croquetscores.com/2022/gc/european-club-league-algarve-1

Heat winners will contest the Grand Final at Roehampton (England) 13-15th October

 

The ERC has had a few busy weeks.

- the European team championship fixed for August has had 11 countries wishing to participate. Further details to follow soon.

- the European club league, which already saw one play off in Portugal last year, now has another 3 play offs due to take place from May onwards, with the opportunity for more clubs to register an interest.  See previous post: European Club League: how to enter

- the entries for the European GC championship were finalised,  based on 17 Membership places and 15 Ranking places (based on D Grade). See previous post: 2023 GC European Open - Ranking Places

- only 19 nominations have been received by the original deadline for the Under-21 championship. More entries are invited.

- Kerstin Loretz (Switzerland) has agreed to act as the European co-ordinator of coaching and of referee courses.

Summary of the meeting of the ERC held on 12th December 2022

Roberts Stafeckis, Ian Burridge, Peter Payne, Begoña Elzaburu, Andrés Álvarez-Sala, Kerstin Loretz, Daniel Larsson, John Swabey. Apologies from Debbie Lines.

ERC Approved variation to the Sports Regulations
The ERC is currently finalising variations to the WCF Sports Regulations that will apply in ERC organised events. This means, in particular, adapting the allocation process for Member places and the sequence in which Ranking places are allotted versus extra places for the host country. These variations will be published on the Europe Page of the website when finalised.

European Clubs League
The rules and calendar for the European Clubs League are being finalised and will be published soon.

2023 Open Events in Continental Europe
The ERC plan to collate a list of Open events in Continental member countries. The list will be drawn up and published on the Euope page of the website. It is hoped this will encourage players to travel to other countries to play.
Note: Events in the UK (England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland) can already be found and entered on the English CA website: Fixtures Calendar

Summary of the meeting of the ERC held on 7th November 2022

Present: Roberts Stafeckis, Debbie Lines, Ian Burridge, Peter Payne, Begoña Elzaburu, Andrés Álvarez-Sala, John Swabey

ERC events 2023

a) Event agreements for the 2023 Teams Championship and 2023 Singles Championship are with their respective hosts for signature (Cheltenham and Budleigh).

b) Singles Championship

i) allocation principles. It is proposed to have a cap of 5 players per country, to avoid swamping with English / Spanish players. Ian to draft wording.
ii) Event Lead Ian Burridge

c) Team Championship

i) Squad size. Squad to be up to 5 players
ii) Cheltenham are happy to host coaching the day before the event. Funding still an open issue. Sarah Hayes happy to do AC coaching also the day before the Team event
iii) Event Lead Andrés

d) U21 Event, Latvia.

i) Format - to have maximum 28 players (4 blocks of 7)
ii) Potentiallly Begoña - tbc

ERC Budget

Overall budget for trophies to be 270 euro.

Team Championship trophy is with Tony Le Moignan. TBD whether Peter can pick it up or Gavin bring it to the Inter-Counties tournament in England, or get it couriered.

U21 should have a perpetual trophy (not too expensive?) plus a personal memento for the winner. Suggestions invited

European Clubs League

a) Grand Final … Madrid still doesn’t know if it will get local authority permit for extra lawns. Andrés to ask Madrid same question about hosting if delayed till 2024

b) last weekend’s event in Portugal was won by Roehampton club. Players seem to have enjoyed themselves overall despite issues over paying an unexpected green fee and for lunch. Clarity of communications with host clubs must be improved.

c) for 2023 there should be 4 heats announced (4 clubs want to act as hosts) and a 6 team final but if a lot more clubs want to play we can be flexible. The need is for there to be at least 3 lawns available

General issues

John will coordinate collecting a timetable of member countries Open events. Debbie to send him a link to the existing database

AOB

Roberts will draft a reply to the message from the German Federation request for the Team event to have 2 AC and 1 GC. The ERC maintains its position that we keep things as published but ask members for feedback after the event in 2023

Latvia will run their traditional Baltic Open GC 1-3 September 2023 and also want to host one of the weekends of the Clubs League

 

Summary of the meeting of the ERC held on 10th October  2022

Present: Roberts Stafeckis (Chairman), Kerstin Loretz, John Swabey, Andrés Álvarez-Sala, Daniel Larsson, Ian Burridge, Peter Payne, Begoña Elzaburu

Apologies: John Swabey, Samir Patel, Debbie Lines

ITEMS ON THE AGENDA
The items of the agenda were addressed as follows:

ERC event list
Discussion was held regarding the events held by the ERC.
No immediate comments were made regarding format nor amount of events. A window for comments or questions etc is open until October 12^th. They should be sent to the chairman of the ERC, Roberts Stafeckis.

Regarding the ERC events, they use the same template as the world events.

ERC budget 2023 (entry fees, event income, expenses)
Questions regarding perpetual trophies for certain events was discussed to keep costs down a bit. Otherwise the fees looked alright and should pose no real issue.

The ERC agreed that the WCF method of funding and costing events would be followed going forward. As such, the entry fee, if adopted by the WCF, will henceforth be £17 per player per day.  This will be split £10 to hosts and £7 to the ERC for singles events, and £15 to hosts and £2 to the ERC for team events.  It was further confirmed that there was no provision for the WCF to fund the ERC and that the ERC would need to stand, financially speaking, on its own two feet.

European Clubs League
A first trial heat will be held in Portugal in November, with 4 teams. Entry fee is 50 Pounds Stirling or 60 Euro.

It was decided that the payment of the entry fee will be postponed until a payment to the WCF is set up and ready later this year.

According tot he regulation, each team will compete with 4 players.

The host will arrange for meals etc, which brought up the discussion of accompanying people. Accompanying people is not part of the competition, therefore not covered for any costs otherwise covered by the host.

Situation regarding the Grand Final of the Club League
No updates has been received from the Spanish Association regarding this. They can’t comment on this matter until the regular tournaments in Spain are completed. The clubs in question will get back tot he ERC within a matter days.

Procedure and calendar for 2023
We can potentially get hosts from the clubs that has already experessed an interest. So far, 7 teams have shown an interest in the event.

Until end of October, we will know the host for the grand final. Once we have that, we can make another round of advertise, in November we till have the first heat done. After that we can start planning for the league next year.

Allocation principles for ERC singles events (distribution of membership places, limits of players per member)
By January, decisions regarding allocation for the ERC singles events will be made.

Since this is a ERC/WCF event. Depending on your membership status, you get different amount of seats.

The remaining seats are under advisement on how to allocate.

General issues - what can ERC do apart from events?
The possibility of the ERC arranging coaching courses was up for discussion. One way to achieve these is to place these courses adjacent to an event such as a championship or club league event. The ERC recognized that a coaching coordinator might be preferable for this task.

A wish for an international European calendar was requested where not only events held by the ERC is registered but also individual countries Open games.

That way players can easily access all open tournaments, happening in Europe.

AOB
Estonia has shown some interest in starting playing croquet. The chairman, Roberts Stafeckis of the ERC has had some communication with some of the people in Estonia regarding croquet.

This first heat was greeted with beautiful weather with no clouds whatsoever.

The four competing teams of Roehampton, Vilanueva, Algarve and SigLig all arrived safely and had a little practice on Friday evening.

Each day started with 30 minutes practice/preparation and then continued with 45 minutes games double-banking on our 2 lawns. We applied a 4-minutes rule to avoid delays.

All games went smoothly except for 2 where players forgot to measure their starting time, but these were resolved to achieve a fair result for both sides.

Each day we had a nice lunch at the club house from 13.00 to 14.00 and on Saturday we enjoyed lovely Portuguese food in the best restaurant in the area. Our club arranged the Buggy Bar right next to the lawn and provided cakes and biscuits for everyone free of charge.

As expected, the 1st place goes to Roehampton Team after they managed to win all 3 matches and were clearly the best squad by a comfortable margin.

All teams enjoyed the event thoroughly and assessed the quality of the lawns as good. There were no complaints received, so all in all, a great success.

Results: https://croquetscores.com/2022/gc/european-club-league-algarve-1/summary

Summary of the meeting of the ERC held on 23rd August 2022

The key items discussed were:

Under 21 Survey
It was agreed to publish the results to all WCF Members.

The high numbers of young players in Czech Republic are based on the initiative in a private school. In England most are around 20 years old and come from the Universities. In Latvia, most of those playing are children of club players.

It was felt that recruitment and retention of young players is a job for local clubs. The WCF and National Federations can only provide some guidance and best practice examples.

Events involving young players should ensure they have the necessary safety checks in place.

Future Events
The dates for 2023 events are fixed and can be found on the ERC page of the WCF Website.
Members are to be emailed asking for bids for 2024 and 2025.

European Club League
The Madrid venues, which had been the planned venue for the Grand Final, will not  be ready in time with sufficient lawns. Other clubs in Madrid are too small with only 2 lawns. England is not a good place for an event in October/November as season ends there much earlier than in Spain.       Potential solutions would be to host the event in Spain: 1) at Vista Hermosa and Seville (a total of 6 lawns), 2) at Vista Hermosa, Sancti Petri and Cherry (a total of 7 lawns).

Update re the trial events in 2022
Ian informed that 4 clubs are still in negotiations. There were 7 clubs for the events in September, but coordination has been difficult. Still there is a chance to hold an event in Portugal in November.

The format and dates for 2023 events are being discussed again given the above issues with lawns for the final.

• • The entry procedure has 2 steps: 1) find hosts and then 2) the clubs can apply for them. The hosts can offer the dates: 1 or 2 weekends.
  • The number of clubs at the Grand Final should be reduced from 12 to possibly 8(?) depending on the number of lawns available.
    Send out information in November, and move deadlines for 2023 entries earlier: 1) hosts till December, 2) other clubs till January.
    It would be better to allow a heat of just 3 clubs, if 4 not available
  • Number of clubs from a country in each heat should be limited to two (ideally one), but that might be difficult to achieve.

Ian agreed to make an improved version of ECL Regulation

Other Items

Referee courses are recommended prior to Championships. It was agreed that the Teams Event due to be held in Cheltenham next summer would potentially be a good time.

A coaching session prior to the U21 event should be offered to the young players one day upfront of the tournament.

The next ERC meeting will be held on September 27th at 7pm UK