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

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.

Temporary amendment to Sports Regulations

A temporary variation to WCF Sports Regulations Appendix 2 paragraph 2.3 for the purposes of the 2022 Women’s AC World Championship, the 2022 Under-21 GC World Championship and the 2022 GC World Championship only, has been approved by Members.

1st June update - please note that the AC Women's Championship and the Under-21 GC World Championships will now not take place until 2023. These events are therefore treated as 'new' not 'postponed'. This temporary amendment is therefore no longer applicable to these two events.

For these events, Appendix 2 paragraph 2.3 will read:

2.3 Subject to paragraph 7.4, no player shall be awarded a Ranking Place unless he or she has played a minimum of 10 ranked games in the 24 months ending on the Allocation Date or, if relevant, the date on which a vacancy arises. However, no minimum game requirement applies to the award of Membership Places or Wild Card Places or to entries to any Qualifying Tournament.”

This temporary change is to allow for the reduced numbers of games played by some players due to the pandemic during 2020 and 2021.

** Update 25th February 2022 **

It has recently come to light that this amendment does not fully cover what was intended and is unclear. The Management Committee (MC) minutes from January 2021, minuted that “The agreed alternative was to use the MaxGrade over 24 months and require 10 games in 24 months”.

Two other clauses within Appendix 2 of the Sports Regulations also make reference to the 10 games in 12 months, and as a result, the temporary amendment, as published above, is left ambiguous.

To clarify, the additional relevant clauses in Appendix 2, where 12 months should be replaced with 24 months are:

4.2.3 in the case of the Initial Allocation Ranking List and, subject to paragraph 7.4, the Replacement Ranking List, are based on a minimum of 5 ranked games (AC) or 10 ranked games (GC) in the 12 24 months ending on the relevant day and on the highest grade achieved by players in that period; and

7.4 Replacement Ranking List
The Replacement Ranking List may contain players who were not on the Initial Allocation Ranking List provided that they have played a minimum of 5 ranked games (AC) or 10 games (GC) in the 12 24 months ending on the date on which the vacancy arises and have informed the S-G by e-mail that they wish to play in the Event.

The Ranking Lists created for the upcoming GC World Championship will be created and applied using 24 months in all 3 clauses.

We apologise for any confusion this may have caused.

Would you like to be WCF Treasurer?

The post of WCF Treasurer is currently vacant following the resignation of Yousry Ghamry on 31 December 2020. The WCF Management Committee wishes to appoint a successor by no later than 30 April 2020.

Please see the detailed job specification below for more information.

WCF Treasurer job specification

The successful candidate will be given a detailed induction process on taking up the position to ensure a smooth handover.

Expressions of interest, requests for more information and formal applications supported by a CV should be sent to the Secretary-General at secretary@worldcroquet.org. The closing date for applications is 31 March 2021.

WCF announce refreshed website

Our new look website went live on Monday 22nd February 2021

We hope you like the new site. All the old content from our old website should still be here, plus there are a few new items:

Translate capability: click on the translate box at the top right of the screen. Translations are powered by Google and will not be perfect, but hopefully the text should be understandable in your chosen language. We hope this will be easier for anyone who does not read English well.

Historic Documents: a few old documents from when the WCF was formed have been added. Go to menu > About the WCF > WCF Historic Documents

Past Office Holders: a page showing all the past Presidents, Secretary-Generals and Treasurers. Go to menu > About the WCF > Past Office Holders

Roll of Honour tables: a page listing all our previous champions. Go to menu > World Championships > WCF Roll of Honour

Please get in touch using the Contact form if you have any ideas for content, or if you spot any errors (hopefully not!).

New custom name for our YouTube Channel

Laws of Association Croquet

The 7th Edition of the AC Laws was approved by the WCF Council on 24 January 2021.

Association Croquet is played in accordance with the Laws of Association Croquet ("the AC Laws") which are published by the World Croquet Association.

As well as the 7th edition laws, two other documents have been published to assist players and referees in applying the new Laws.

Laws 7th Edition

Introductory statement Laws 7th edition

AC Laws 7th edition Changes log

The 6th Edition of the AC Laws may be found here and the Official Rulings that supported the 6th Edition may be found here.

GC Rules now available in German

November 2020 newsletter

Coronavirus and the WCF 10 year Championship Schedule

The re-building of the schedule following the one year postponement of events is taking shape and there are now confirmed dates for all the events in 2021 and 2022 – which we hope will stand the test of time!

GC World Team Championship Tier 3

Dates: Tuesday 20 to Saturday 24 July 2021

Venue: Guildford & Godalming Croquet Club, England

GC World Team Championship Tier 2

Dates: Monday 11 to Saturday 16 October 2021

Venue: Real Club de Golf Vista Hermosa, Sherry Club and Real Novo Sancti Petri Golf Club, all of which are near Cadiz in southern Spain.

Women’s Association Croquet World Championship

Dates: Wednesday 5 to Wednesday 12 January 2022

Venue: Christchurch, New Zealand

Under 21 Golf Croquet World Championship

Dates: Sunday 6 to Thursday 10 February 2022

Venue: Claudelands, Hamilton East and Morrinsville Croquet Clubs, New Zealand

Golf Croquet World Championship

Dates: Saturday 12 to Sunday 20 February 2022

Venue: Croquet Mount Maunganui, Matamata, Tauranga and Whatakane Croquet Clubs, New Zealand

Association Croquet World Team Championships, Tiers 2 and 3

Dates: Tuesday 9 to Sunday 14 August 2022

Venue: Budleigh Salterton Croquet Club, England

All these arrangements are necessarily subject to the state of the pandemic and any restrictions placed on travel or overseas entry to the relevant countries. The MC is keeping the situation under review and will make an announcement about each event approximately six months before it is due to be held.

Looking further ahead, the plans for events in 2023 and 2024 are available on our Upcoming Events page at https://worldcroquet.org/world-croquet-federation/upcoming-events/

Members will be consulted shortly with a revised plan for 2025-2030 accommodating a MacRobertson Shield in 2025.

Hall of Fame

The WCF Hall of Fame was relaunched in 2019 after a five year hiatus and the WCF MC exercised its right to elect one member per annum by inducting Bryan Dawson (AUS), the inventor and developer of the Dawson 2000 croquet ball. Bryan was formally inducted during the opening ceremony of the 2020 Association Croquet World Championship which provided the players present with an opportunity to express their loud appreciation of his great contribution to the sport.

The WCF Hall of Fame Committee elected five new members in November 2020, all of whom have made a notable contribution to the game either as players, administrators or supporters.

Bob Alman (USA), a noted croquet organiser and populariser and the publisher of Croquet Online

Jose Alvarez-Sala (ESP), the founder and President of the Federación Española de Croquet

Jenny Clarke (NZL), one of the foremost women players of her generation

Salah Hassan (EGY), winner of the Golf Croquet World Championship in 1998 and 2000

Chris Hudson (ENG), the first Secretary-General of the WCF

Their citations can be found on our Hall of Fame pages here

Latvian Club project

This year, the WCF awarded its largest ever grant to the Latvian Croquet Federation to assist it in developing a new three-court club at Ikskile. Work began in May with major groundworks including the installation of an underground automatic watering system with 10 high power sprinklers. The courts were seeded by mid-July with a mixture of six different species of red fescue and has been growing well so far. The first of the two clubhouses has just been finished. The other clubhouse, which will have a large terrace for spectators, will be commissioned in January to be ready by April.

Regular play is expected to begin in May 2021. The first international tournament will be the 10th holding of the traditional Baltic Open GC tournament. This will take place as usual on the first weekend of September.

YouTube channel

The WCF MC is delighted to announce the launch of the WCF YouTube channel. It provides a great collection of croquet video footage and is available at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCeyP1BjtSwyDF3A5n142ffw/

Several playlists have been created that showcase some of the best croquet footage from recent World Championships. These include both Association Croquet and Golf Croquet and women’s and U21 events as well. There are also some other top class videos from European or national events.

When you click on the videos in the playlists, you will be taken into the original contributors’ YouTube channel. We hope you enjoy the collections and the WCF MC thanks the many excellent videographers who have taken the time to film these events over the years.

If you are aware of any footage that is missing and that you think should be included, please let us know.

Stephen Mulliner

Secretary-General

22 December 2020

Five new members of the Hall of Fame

The WCF Hall of Fame Committee has elected the following five individuals as members of the Hall of Fame:

Bob Alman (USA) - croquet promoter and organiser

Jose Alvarez-Sala (Spain) - founder and developer of the Federacion Espanol de Croquet

Jenny Clarke (NZL) - the most successful woman croquet player at both codes

Salah Hassan (EGY) - Golf Croquet World Champion and Over-50 World Champion

Chris Hudson (ENG) - croquet promoter and first Secretary-General of the WCF

The citations may be found at WCF Hall of Fame Members

WORLD CROQUET FEDERATION

Category: Latest News