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.