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James Thomas Wins Again

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Fylde Jubilee AC Handicap Tournament 27/28 July 2019

James Thomas in play

The club was delighted to offer two players a place in their first CA tournament, James Thomas from Llanfairfechan and Benedict O’Connor a teacher from Stonyhurst College. Benedict, under the wing of the NW Federation, is developing the game for the students. The other returning players showed their class in offering support and encouragement to these new tournament players. Tournament Referee Ken Jones did a great job helping them with the finer points as they came up.

As usual it was a strict Swiss event of 5 rounds, the draw being made with numbered sticks of Blackpool Rock. Light drizzle fell slowly all day but the new drainage system, partially funded by the CA, kept the lawns unpuddled and entirely playable all day.

An early lawn inspection took place on Sunday due to constant overnight rain. Despite the nearby Seniors Open Golf at Royal Lytham being postponed until 1pm, the Fylde Lawns were entirely playable. We started round four with James and Philip Bass both on 3/3.

Even the most optimistic of us thought this could be the final round. The ending of this game is worth a few words – six minutes remaining, Philip’s turn started on 4b and Rover, James on Penult and Rover. Philip was forced to play his Rover ball and leveled the scores by running it. He lined up a take-off from the reception ball to set a leave but in his croquet stroke failed to shake the ball. Instantly, he called the fault and James was able to secure a plus 2 win from there.

During the lunch break the rain had stopped and the drainage worked, so round five was able to proceed in what turned out to be the best session of the tournament.

James won his final game 26 – 0 with some bisques remaining, throwing in a well organised Rover peel while running 5. James also received the tournament handicapper’s reduction with delight. John Henderson put in a solid 4/5 as runner up.

Previous winners John Henderson and Stephen Skelton

Competitors: Alan Morton – Fylde; Peter Hallett – Bowdon; Dave Williamson – Crake; John Henderson – Penrith; Stephen Skelton – Keswick; Ken Jones – Bury; Philip Bass – Fylde; James Thomas – Llanfairfechan; Joe Lenon – Glasgow; Benedict O’Connor – Stonyhurst.

Croquet Newcomer Wins Regional Event

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NW MILLENNIUM SHORT AC EVENT 2019 – Hosted by Fylde CC, 11 May 2019. Report by Peter Wilson and Sarah Andrew.

James Thomas (Llanfairfechan) receives the Winners trophy from Federation Treasurer LizWilson (Photo provided by Sarah Andrew)

Teams of two from Fylde, Llanfairfechan, Bury and Bowdon gathered in the Sunshine for the tournament. However a chill wind from the North forced many to don extra layers covering their resplendent team colours. Two blocks of four separated the players by clubs and play progressed rapidly through the three rounds and a welcome hot lunch break. There was a bonus point (for tie breaking), awarded for pegging out but, after round three, no ties existed. Tony Philips (Bury) and James Thomas (Llanfairfechan) both remained unbeaten and contested a final game while others watched with afternoon tea or played a Swiss.

The final was won by newcomer James in two fine breaks which extended his long unbeaten run of games and earned another handicap reduction to 5 after the tournament.

James Thomas in play at Fylde (photo: Liz Wilson)

The Federation Secretary, Liz Wilson, presented the trophy and thanked both the individuals and clubs for supporting the Federation and Fylde by taking part in this event.  James thanked the organisers, Fylde Croquet Club, for an excellent day and lunch. 

This was the first external tournament James has entered – he is a student of Computer Science with the Open University and only started learning AC 11 months ago. James is a member of both Llanfairfechan and Chester Croquet Clubs and will have to decide which club to represent at the Federation Festival at Southport in June – perhaps he will choose which colour (purple of Chester or Brown of Llanfairfechan) is the more stylish!

Action Planning in Your Croquet Club

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National Development Officer, Dave Gunn, Points the Way

Club members discussing the Development tool

Seven north west croquet clubs were represented (sometimes by more than one member) at a Club Development Workshop on 12 January 2019, led by the CA National Development Officer, Dave Gunn.  The event was hosted by Bury Croquet Club at their Whitehead Park clubhouse.

The main object of the workshop was the use of a new on-line tool prepared by Sport England which can be downloaded here:

https://www.sportenglandclubmatters.com/club-improvement-tool/    

The idea of the tool is that it asks questions about many existing aspects of your club, together with your aspirations. At the end the tool summarises your answers, provides a plan of action and produces further links to other tools and media for you to consider using.

It was extremely worthwhile and thought provoking. Many clubs seemed to get ideas from it.

One criticism is the tool is designed for any Sports club and available nationally, so is trying to be one size and fit all. It becomes quite obvious some questions are irrelevant to your particular club but these can be skipped with a N/A button. Even having seven Croquet clubs in the same room highlighted this problem. Each club having their different number of members, strength, resources, etc.

There were early, and sometime heated, debates between the attendees. Time ran a bit short, this probably would not happen in the usual one club workshop format.

For any club wishing to have a look for themselves, Dave suggests that they visit his page on the CA website (https://www.croquet.org.uk/?p=clubs/croquetmatters) to find out a little more about the programme and then either contact him directly (07710 981 561) or alternatively approach the new Federation Development Officer Sarah Andrew, either of whom would be delighted to facilitate a dedicated club development workshop.

Bury provided a wonderful lunch, and there was much to talk about during that time.

Thanks must be given to Dave for presenting it, Bury CC for hosting it and the Federation for the idea of holding it.

Further Information: 

1  You can download the Presentation slides from the workshop here:-   Croquet Matters Workshop Presentation  

2  The link to his section on the CA website is https://www.croquet.org.uk/?p=clubs/croquetmatters. If you then click through to Marketing section, there are details re the club website template offering (including example clubs and also the online helpdesk where you can register interest or ask questions) and also a link to download the ‘How to get your club on to Facebook’ guide.

3  You can download the Blank Club Improvement Plan Questions here.  

4  You can download The Guide to ‘Croquet Matters’ here – this is for use by FDOs and other Fed Committee Members when supporting clubs…but can also be very useful for clubs themselves following them having experienced their own dedicated workshop or, possibly, having seen the ‘general taster’ at the workshop & then decide to plough on themselves.

5  The link for the lead contact at each club to register as an individual on the Club Matters website is https://learn.sportenglandclubmatters.com/login/index.php. They can then add their club as ‘a new club’. 

6  Any other club committee members and even general members can register using the same link and then search for their club on the system and ‘join it’ This will then allow all registered club members to see the various club development plans etc produced over time…. 

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Webmaster – Tony Thomas (tony@croquetnw.co.uk)