From the President

Dear All,

Despite the onset of the winter weather there have been good opportunities for playing croquet. We were basking in sunshine while playing AC last Saturday afternoon.

There was a good crowd of members present at the AGM when we congratulated Kathleen on her years of service to the club for over 20 years and her award of Life Membership.

The following Thursday I welcomed the new committee to the first meeting for the year 2022-2023. We worked out the areas of management for each committee member and an incomplete (I hope!) list of members willing to be involved in carrying out each task. If you are willing to volunteer help with any club tasks but have not yet added your name to the list, please let us know at the club or click the blue button below to add your name to the list.

On Saturday morning Jane, John S, and I headed to Plimmerton for the WCA meeting of all the clubs in the Wellington district. One issue which needs to be addressed at WCA and club level is the lack of sufficient referees for both GC and AC. We need to look at this ourselves.

Wayne Gair will have a session on GC rules on 11 Sept from 10 am to 3 pm, but before that Roger Hurnard will give us tuition at our club which I for one sorely need! Dates for this will be advertised soon.

Several clubs are trying out Advantage Croquet, using a point system instead of free turns. We will trial this, too. More details on that soon.

Here is a link to the latest version of the GC Rules, the 6th Edition, which came into force in New Zealand on 1 June 2022.

Kind regards

Mary Stevens

Click here to volunteer your help

From the Club Captain

Welcome to our new member Bruce Taylor

A warm welcome to Bruce, who has become a member and will be playing over the winter season.

Wellington Croquet Association AGM

The AGM included the presentation of trophies. There is now a trophy for the GC Wednesday interclub which was won by Jim Strachan and Mary Egley. The Gardner Memorial doubles trophy, first awarded in the 1940’s, but which hasn’t been contested in recent years, was presented to Wellington Municipal, in memory of the late Paul Skinley, who, with various partners, had won it a number of times.

Winter season - game duration and ladder competition

At our AGM, it was decided that, during winter, we would have two 30-minute GC games on Thursday and Saturday mornings before the tea break and then a 45-minute game.

Non-AHS GC and AC handicap challenge ladders will be underway soon. Contact me if you want to join the GC ladder, or Marion McInnes for the AC ladder.

Explanation of terms: AHS means Automatic Handicap System. Non-AHS means that the game result is not entered on players' competition record cards. When you are playing a handicap game, GC players may be allocated extra strokes based on their handicap compared with their opponents in the game. In AC, there are extra turns called bisques.

Coming up

Weekly GC Interclub (October - November)
Sunday mornings: Handicap: the two-person teams play one doubles game and two singles.

Wednesday mornings: There is a change to the format this year, following the very successful teams’ competition at Paraparaumu. It is now level play. The three-person teams play two doubles games and one singles. A team is made up of one person from each of the following handicap ranges: 0 - 5; 6 - 9; and 10+. A player in a more junior handicap range can play in a more senior handicap range.

Weekly AC Interclub (October - November)
Monday afternoons: Handicap doubles, time-limited game.

Wednesday afternoons: Teams - handicap - one doubles and two singles time-limited games.

New initiative - GC Handicap

As Mary noted, Advantage Croquet is being trialled by clubs in the Wellington region, but the existing handicap competitions will continue to be played under the current system of extra strokes.

Advantage Croquet is a form of handicap croquet where, instead of extra strokes, the junior player has an advantage by not having to make as many hoops as the senior player.

Instead of games starting with zero scores for both sides the senior player may have a minus score, and the junior player may have a plus score depending on the difference between their handicaps. For doubles the handicaps of a side are added together, then halved, and rounded up if necessary.

Some examples for first to seven-point games (full games):

A handicap 11 playing a handicap 8 needs to get 6 hoops to win.
5 playing an 8 needs to get 9 hoops to win.
10 playing an 11 needs 8 hoops to win.
7 playing an 11 needs 9 hoops to win.

See link to the chart - find the point where the weaker handicap player’s handicap intersects with the stronger player’s handicap to see what the adjustments are.