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From the PresidentHello Everyone, It has been a couple of months since I last wrote to you all so I shall endeavour to fill you in on the club happenings. Going back to December, after our Christmas lunch Dave and I delivered all the food and gifts our members donated to the Wellington City Mission in Newtown and they were extremely grateful and overwhelmed with the presents given for the children. We received a letter of thanks from them early in the New Year, which I forwarded to Lesley to file in our electronic archives. We had a nice morning tea farewell for Colin (our favourite Aussie mate) in early February. I secretly asked his wife Marita to come along as well, which she did do. It was all a big surprise to Colin and believe it or not he was quite overwhelmed. The Club presented him with a white cap with Kelburn Croquet on the front – but on the back was “COACH 2020 – 2024” His main gift was a photo of the Cable Car with a good section of our lawns in the background, which also had some people playing on them. I had specifically asked Simon Woolf to help me here and he did a great job of getting the perfect photo. We also gave Marita a pizza or cheese board in New Zealand woods. So far we haven’t heard from him since he returned home. There have been numerous tournaments around our district and several club members have enjoyed representing Kelburn and doing very well over the last couple of months. Pádraig represented us in the Don Reyland tournament but unfortunately was not able to play the winning hoop. Non the less he played well and we are lucky to have many good players representing our Club now. Denise also had a great day out at Wainuiomata recently and came away with a couple of good prizes. Well done to all our representatives for giving of their time and energy to represent us. Our corporates have been going well and we still have people booked to come in through to the end of March. Our Girl Guides are also back with us once a week on a Tuesday evening and they have asked for an evening of croquet which I am organising for them in March. We have been very pleased to welcome many new members to our club since Christmas and Jane’s “Have a Go” sessions are going well this year. Talking of new members, I am in the process of ordering name badges for them all, so if any current members who haven’t got a name badge would like them please contact me by email and I shall organize to get one for you, the price is $23.00 – the price has gone up but I am negotiating for our engravers to keep them the same price if possible. Another item I am organising are our club shirts. These are white with navy trim or navy with white trim for both men and ladies and it is up to the individual to choose what colour you would prefer to wear. Both will look very smart and I found my shirt very cooling on some of our hot days last month. They are also very easy to rinse out and drip dry for wearing again the next day. Unfortunately, our club is losing Lesley at the end of this croquet year. She and John have increasing family commitments and are also planning an extended trip overseas to visit family and friends. We are therefore looking for a new person who is very computer literate and able to take over the work Lesley does now – looking after the website, keeping our news up to date and recording various activities and tournament results etc. If there is someone who understands what I am saying and able to do this job we would gratefully appreciate you contacting Lesley and speaking with her. It would be a shame to see all Lesley’s great work wasted by not being able to keep it up to date. She would be available for the first few months to oversee and help. Last Monday we had 31 Australians visit us to play a golf croquet tournament. They are a group who have organized a cruise around New Zealand each year playing at different clubs on the way. This year they are playing at Dunedin, Christchurch, Wellington, Rotorua and Auckland. They have a day off in Napier and berth at Tauranga to visit Rotorua. They are well organized with special draws drawn up in advance, their own time clocks and everyone had their own mallet. They thoroughly enjoyed their day with us, although the gale force winds beat them to only play two of their planned three games. I had three extremely capable Ladies, Lyn, Pat and Jocelyn helping me prepare a lovely morning tea and a nourishing lunch for them and they were all very appreciative of our great hospitality. We have a framed certificate of their visit, and will be welcoming them back again next year on the 28 February. Apparently the group is already fully booked. Incidentally they haven’t started playing Advantage games and are not looking forward to it? We have just had our Committee meeting and we have six people leaving the Committee this year. Jane is one person who has come to the end of her three year term and according to Constitution rules must step down after three very generous and rewarding years committed to the Club. So if you feel you would like to join the Committee for a year or two please contact me and I shall gladly put your name forward. The Committee also decided it is time to involve club members in various small jobs around the grounds and clubhouse. We will be finalising this before the end of the club’s current year and introducing the new scheme in the new croquet year. This is enough from me for now, but Lesley will be putting through a message of what is involved with her job, and hopefully one of our members will be able to put their hand up to carry on her work. Take care everyone and best wishes, Mary Egley  |
From the Club CaptainWelcome to our new membersA very warm welcome to our new members: Allison Kirkman, Judith Witts, Lily de Groen, Robyn and Dave Reid, and Karen Balshaw. Enjoy the game! Lynette SquireI was saddened to hear of the passing of Lynette Squire late last year. Lynette, with her friend Mary Morris, joined a few years ago as a result of seeing a chalked message about a croquet Have a Go session. Although they didn’t come along very often they enjoyed their light-hearted games and appreciated the club’s heritage elements. Congratulations on recent tournament successCallum McKinnon
Baubre Murray
Janet Boutel
Pádraig O’Connor
Pádraig O'Connor and David Robinson
Jim Brough
Scott Wilson
Alison Robinson
David Robinson, Ron Rosenberg and Colette McKenzie
Lawns and equipment maintenanceHoop moving was done before the WCA Don Reyland competition. Thanks to John Corsham, and his team of Alison Robinson, David Robinson, Denise and Dougal Ongley and Brian Black. Update from Council liaison officer: “Just a bit of a pre-emptive message to let you know, our team acknowledges that the spraying for broadleaf and starweed needs to happen as soon as possible. Apologies for the delay this is due to the current weather which are not conducive to spraying a product of this nature. The optimal weather conditions for weed spraying factor in the temperature range, wind speed, humidity levels and sunlight conditions. These factors are assessed to ensure the chemicals are most active, and to promote and enhance the absorption and retention of the chemicals by the targeted weeds. The wind and drought conditions are the current barriers to completing these works. As soon as the weather allows the team will get the works completed." We are checking on our closing date the weekend of 13-14 April. Thanks to Brian Black for making Advantage posts. Hosting tournamentsWe hosted the WCA Don Reyland competition. The winner was Chris Magner from Paraparaumu, who started on a handicap of 10 and moved to 9 during the weekend. He will represent WCA at the national final. Thanks to Pádraig for representing Kelburn. Thanks to the Kelburn referees – Sandy Lawson, Caroline Townsend Green and Barry Simpson; and to Mike Theobald of Waimarie HV. Also, thanks to Dougal Ongley and David Robinson for setting the hoops each day under the guidance of the Tournament Referee, Wayne Gair, who was very pleased with their work. The home baking team of Mary S, Colette, Janice, Denise and Mahi were highly commended by the players and officials. The next WCA tournament we host will be the WCA Silver Badges on 16 and 17 March. Club competitionsQuite a bit of time is spent informing players of club competitions and following up with them. Thanks to Pádraig for updating members on tournaments elsewhere and overseeing entry process. With the increase in numbers on GC club days, requests to play matches may have to be declined. Players should note they cannot expect to play a competition match, single-banked, on a club day. It is not always possible. The GC twilight aggregate doubles on a Tuesday/Wednesday have been moved to Tuesday 5 and Wednesday 6 March, as the date of the visit from Khandallah had to be changed. The Saturday GC handicap doubles has been changed to 9 March. It would be good if some of our new members are encouraged to play in this event. Club daysColin has done a guide to doing the draw on GC club days. CoachingColin ran well-attended coaching sessions on Wednesday afternoons, and, also during club days oversaw members playing full game Advantage singles. There is interest in coaching being continued. Trophy administrationIt will soon be time for trophies to be returned; Kathleen Coleridge will continue to oversee return of trophies and liaise with Mayer and Toye to get them engraved for prizegiving. Jane Norman |
Members rank the Top 3 thingsThanks to everyone who contributed to the member consultation about planning for the future of our club. We will take the information and feed it into a draft plan for presentation to the Annual General Meeting in May. Unsurprisingly, “playing croquet" is the thing most people love about the club. Possible changes to Council services was deemed to be the biggest challenge facing the club. Most people supported having a single membership fee that covered the full year. There was strong acknowledgement of the need for members to continue to help support the club through voluntary work. There are lots of things we need volunteers to do in and around the club. Please let us know the sort of things you would like to volunteer for. Click here if you'd like to read the summary list of top responses. Jim Brough |
Opportunities for keen communicatorsCan you help the club by doing any of the following tasks? I can't continue to do these throughout this year, so I am scouting for a bunch of keen people to hand them over to, while I am still here to help show new people the ropes. Smartphone plus laptop and relevant experience would be helpful.
Lesley |
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