Solomon Trophy 2019

Pinehurst Resort (pictured during the 2015 Solomon Trophy) (Photo: Samir Patel)

The 25th Solomon Trophy between Great Britain and USA will be held at the Pinehurst Resort, North Carolina between 30 September and 4 October 2019. The fixture was last held at Pinehurst in 2015 (pictured), when Great Briain won 15-6

Details can be found in the Fixtures Calendar, and players eligible for Great Britain are encouraged to declare their availability through this website before 20 May.

CA Women take on the World

(Photo: Peter Freer)

Apart from Jenny (top seed) the other five CA members, the three England players and two Scottish players are all in block positions three to six, therefore will have played the top two seeds and the bottom seed in their respective blocks. This means that the final two days of block play are the most critical to them qualifying for the knockout. The top four will be qualifying from each block, resulting in a field of 32 players for the knockout stages.

By the way, I've had my croquet consultant helping write this.

Here is a little summary about our six players, please joining me in wishing them huge success for the second half of the block play.

Ann Brookes (A Block) will clearly be disappointed having lost her first three matches, however, her last three matches will always have been the ones which are critical to her qualifying. Now that she has had the time to acclimatise, I am sure she is looking forward to some better successes.

Jenny Clarke (A Block) has clearly produced outstanding play in all of her matches and has achieved four wins without dropping a game. Jenny is undoubtedly matching up to her seed 1 status and will surely be one of the first to qualify for the knockout stages.

Jane Pringle (B Block), as she would've hoped, has won her match against the bottom seed in the block. Although she has not been successful against the top two seeds, she can be delighted she took both the strong Egyptian players to the golden hoop in both second games.

Kath Burt (E Block) is currently in the block which is slightly behind schedule due to some lengthy tussles, but having won one out of her two matches she has made a steady start to her campaign. Kath, being the most experienced England player having played competitively since 1999, will I am sure be able to draw from her experiences and drive the last few days of play with positive momentum.

Lorna Dewar (F Block) has two wins out of three and has beaten the top seed in her block, having only been playing competitive croquet since 2017 this is a fabulous achievement. Lorna has been one of the most improved players in the UK during the last two seasons and we are excited to see what her future achievement will be.

Rosemary Saunders Robertson (G Block) has won one out of her three first matches, meaning that all is to play for during the next two days. As another relative newcomer to the sport, with her first competitive game in 2017, I am sure she will be enjoying the experience of playing against some of the best women croquet players in the world.

Jayne Stevens (H Block), having won all of her first four games, reached two match wins out of three after the first two days of play. Her one match yesterday was played against the top seed, and although she was not successful this time she will be in a positive position going into her final two days of play. As another fast improver to the sport, having only played competitively since 2015, Jayne will be drawing upon her tournament successes, most recently the National Forest Championship, to motivate her through the final matches.

Good luck ladies!

By Alison Maugham (And her glamorous assistant Tim King)

2019 European GC Championship

by Lionel Tibble [^]
30th January (International)

The 2019 European GC Championship will be hosted by Budleigh Salterton CC from 23rd May to 26th May 2019. On line entry for this will shortly be published via the CA website for anyone wishing to make themselves available. The closing date is 24th February, selection date 3rd March.

Regards, Lionel Tibble (Chairman of GC Selection Committee)

Report of January Council Meeting

by Dr Ian Vincent [^]
27th January (CA Official News)

Nearly two dozen members of the CA's Council met at Hurlingham on Saturday, 26^th January, chaired by John Bowcott, who is a member of the club which is celebrating its 150^th anniversary this year. The two major items on the agenda were the accounts and associated budget decisions, and governance, which has featured prominently at most Council and Management Committee meetings over the last two years.

There was good news on the governance issue, in that a clear decision was reached by Council ... something that has so far eluded the rather larger assembly which meets on the north bank of the Thames! Changes to reduce the size of Council and to focus its role on policy, delegating its implementation to an Executive Board, had been agreed in principle last October. This meeting agreed the recommendations of a working group set up to flesh out the detail of how those could be achieved.

However, the final decision rests with the membership in a "peoples vote", as the Council can only be reformed by amending the constitution, which requires a general meeting. To avoid a further year's delay, a Special General Meeting will be held at Hurlingham on Saturday 30^th March and will require a quorum of 25 attendees. However, electronic or postal voting will be available beforehand and therefore all individual members of the CA, including the new Standard ones, will be able to vote on the proposed changes. Please support your Council's attempt to improve its effectiveness: the changes will only be adopted if at least 60% of those voting do so in favour of them.

Peter Death reported on the financial outcome for 2018, which was less good, with a deficit of £50K. The bulk of this had been expected: the cost of employing the National Development Officer, which is being met by a transfer from the Development Fund, and expenditure associated with the membership changes. Other negative factors were a decline in shop sales, losses on CA tournaments and increased staffing costs; on the plus side, levies from club tournaments had increased. Although not income to the CA, some £44K of tournament entry fees were received through the online tournament entry system on behalf of clubs. This is a valuable service to both players and clubs, but is not without cost, due to the card payment fees incurred.

An even larger deficit is budgeted for 2019, which led to greater than usual scrutiny of some of the items. A major one is the cost of posting paper copies of the Croquet Gazette to the new Standard members. It had originally been decided to do so just for their first year of membership, but it was now agreed to extend this for the remainder of 2019. A significant reduction in production and distribution costs has already been achieved, but we will investigate other ways to further reduce the burden, including the possibility of raising advertising revenue in the light of the increased circulation.

Dave Gunn was thanked for his work as National Development Officer, but as it was clear that we couldn't afford to make this a permanent post, the discussion was about ensuring the continuation of the projects he initiated.

The final motion was one proposed by the Chairman, about the need for increased transparency and communication, to which Tim King replied with a suggestion that committees should be more active in publishing information about their activities on the website.

WCF Under 21 World GC Championship selections

by Lionel Tibble [^]
27th January (International)

The CA GC selectors are please to announce that the following have been awarded places to represent England in the above Championship.

A ranking place has been awarded to Euan Burridge.

Membership places have been awarded to James Galpin, Albie Willet and Eden Rogers.

Many Congratulations

Regards

Lionel Tibble

Chairman CA Selection Committee

WCF Simon Carter GC World Championship 2019 selections

by Lionel Tibble [^]
27th January (International)

The CA GC selectors are pleased to announce that the following players have been selected to represent England in the above World Championship 2019. Ranking places were awarded to Robert Fulford, John-Paul Moberly, Stephen Mulliner, Rachel Gee, Jonathan Powe, Richard Bilton, Harry Dodge and Tobi Savage.

Membership places were awarded to Lionel Tibble, Dr Harry Fisher, Dr Tim King, Mark Daley, Nick Archer, Guy Scurfield, Nick Cheyne and Peter Dowd

In addition, a wild card place has been awarded to Euan Burridge.

Many Congratulations

Regards

Lionel Tibble

Chairman CA selectors

AC Inter-County Championship draw for 2019 is now available

by Chris Williams at Sussex County and Compton [^]
26th January (AC - Championships)

The AC Inter County Championship draw for 2019 is now available

croquet.org.uk/?p=tournament/caEvents/InterCounties/association

2019 Spanish GC test match team selection

by Lionel Tibble [^]
21st January (GC)

The Openshaw Shield GC selectors are pleased to announce the 6 man squad who will represent England in the forthcoming and inaugural test match against Spain to be held in Seville between the 15th and 17th March 2019.

Congratulations to the following:

• J P Moberly (Captain)
• Stephen Mulliner
• Tobi Savage
• Jonathan Powe
• Richard Bilton
• Dr Harry Fisher

In future years, the test match venue will alternate between Spain and England.

Regards

Lionel Tibble

The 2019 IPDG GC development squad intake announced

by Lionel Tibble [^]
18th January (GC)

The CA GC selectors are pleased to announce that the following players have been offered and have accepted a place to take part in the IPDG GC development squad programme. Congratulations to Euan Burridge, James Galpin, Dr Raouf Allim, Lorna Dewar, Chris Heath and Noel Gill.

Regards, Lionel Tibble, Chairman of GC Selection Committee.

Welcome New Members

by Alison Jones [^]
23rd February 2018 (CA Official News)

The Croquet Association extends a special welcome to our new Standard Members.

The welcome page tells you about logging into the members' area.