Membership News
The below article describes their amazing growth.
2023 WCF Hall of Fame Inductees
In 2023 we welcomed three new inductees to the WCF Hall of Fame: Geoff Young (New Zealand), Joe Hogan (New Zealand) and Khaled Younis (Egypt). Two of them were presented with their certificates during the recent World Championships in New Zealand.
Dawson Balls update
The original Dawson ball recipe went out of production following changes to Australian product regulations which banned one of the substances used. Testing continues to recreate a recipe that meets the specification. The WCF have been advised that there has been some success. Final testing is underway so we hope production might start again soon.
Completed WCF Business
Topic 116 – Ranking Changes Proposal: amends to the algorithm to reduce under-ranking in developing countries was passed on 4th November and implemented on 18th December
Topic 117 – For singles events, we consulted on members preferences for Single or Multi-venue events. Feedback was inconclusive but leant towards a preference for single venues but maintaining the larger entry of 80 players. The MC will bear the feedback in mind, but basically no change to the policy.
Topic 118 – Forward Calendar: Croquet England proposed moving the MacRobertson Shield to 2026. Members voted and approved the change.
Topic 119 – Equipment Regulations consultation. Thank you for your feedback, this is being reviewed and new Regulations will be put to a member vote shortly.
Topic 120 - Brian Havill was re-elected as the WCF Independent Examiner
Topic 121 – 2023 Budget: Members approved the budget. This included increasing player entrance fees to £17 per player per day. This allowed us to increase payments to our Hosts to ensure events are viable. The host now gets £15 of this for Teams event and £10 for Singles events. The WCF retains the remainder to cover our costs.
Czech Moravian Croquet Association – expansion of the facility at Telc
Topic 122, was a request for a grant for €15,000 to increase the two lawn club in Telc to four lawns. This will greatly improve their ability to host tournaments and to grow their membership. Work to lay the new lawns started a few weeks ago.
ams competing were the Czech Republic, Iran, Mexico and Portugal.
Congratulations to Begoña Elzaburu, from Spain, winner of the 2022 European Women's GC Championship.
The WCF is pleased to announce that the management committee has been joined by Mohamed Raslan from Egypt who successfully won the election that closed on 20th March 2022. He will serve until 31 December 2025.
The Management Committee are pleased to announce that Richard Bilton has taken over from Stephen Mulliner as Golf Croquet Ranking Officer. Our thanks go to Stephen Mulliner for his many years of hard work.
On first January the Management Committee welcomed three new team members – Peter Payne as Treasurer and Begoña Elzaburu and Graeme Roberts as general committee members. We welcome them to the team.
The WCF statutes now provide for the creation of a European Regional Committee (ERC) that will, once fully functional, take care of European croquet affairs, and among other matters, will run the European Championships.
The 2021 trial was extremely well received and as a result this new variant has been added to the draft 6th edition of the GC Rules.
The WCF is pleased to announce that Chris Clarke has been elected as the new WCF Treasurer.
Debbie Lines (ENG) has been appointed as the WCF Deputy-Secretary General with effect from 1 September 2020. This is a succession planning position and it is intended that Debbie will take over from Stephen Mulliner as Secretary-General when his term of office ends on 31 August 2021.
Sweden have successfully applied to change their WCF membership status from Associate Member to Full Member. They become the WCF’s 11th Full Member.
“The groundworks are finished and the grass is growing. The grass is a mixture of 60% Chewing’s Fescue and 40% Creeping Red Fescue. Two and half months after seeding, it shows good results. A 20-foot sea container has been purchased for use a storage facility. A second-hand Toro Flex 2100 mower has been purchased and is being used for the courts as well as a household Hecht 5564 SXE mower for the green areas around the courts. Next on the agenda is the selection of a company to build the first of the two small buildings that will together serve as a clubhouse. The other one will be built next year as soon as the number of members increases.”
