From the President

Dear All,

It is great to have the summer season players on the lawns again. We still seem to have room for all comers even on Saturday mornings. It is appreciated if you can arrive 10 minutes before the start at 9.30 am or 10 minutes before the next game starts at 10.10am.

The newest members are learning the game quickly and are fitting into normal play.

Interclub games are in full swing. I do encourage you to think about joining a team in October next year. It is interesting experiencing other clubs and different lawns: you learn a lot, and the competition only lasts six weeks.

The committee didn’t meet in October as the members have their special areas running well. We are aiming to have less meetings. Ironically, this change is occurring just when the club house heating and lighting has been upgraded!

We still need to be vigilant about Covid. Numbers of people being infected in the country are rising. Hand washing and sanitising are a basic defence. Brian has made the French doors easier to open to help with ventilation when there is a crowd at morning tea. Stay home if you don’t feel well.

Mary Egley is pleased with the number of corporate bookings. Please volunteer to host at least one or two of these events.

Remember to diary the Christmas lunch on 17 December.
 

Kind regards

Mary Stevens

From the Club Captain 

Hosting of the  MacRobertson Squad

As most of you know we hosted the New Zealand MacRobertson squad for their practice weekend on  8-9 October. Below is an extract from an email from Team Captain Greg Bryant.

“The team members were very appreciative of the preparations that ensured excellent playing conditions over the weekend. Many thanks to the WCC and the Kelburn team that oversaw these preparations. We all agreed that the lawns were ideal for our preparations. These preparation events are critical to our successes in Australia next month and we are extremely grateful for your support."

Interclub

Our seven interclub teams (four GC and three AC) are playing at Kelburn and other clubs around the district.  

Handicaps

It appears that there is some lack of clarity about the purpose of the handicap system.  A handicap is not ‘a badge of honour’. Croquet NZ describes the purposes of handicaps as:

“The self-evident one is to provide more opportunity for players to compete successfully against stronger players in special handicap competitions. The second purpose is to enable players to be placed in divisions or grades where they may compete against players of similar abilities."

Independently of the handicap system we could develop a goal-setting system so players can measure their progress.

Club competitions

The GC ladder is underway, and the AC (non-AHS) ladder continues. The draw for the Don Reyland GC handicap singles will be put up this week. It has been suggested that there should be a junior GC ladder. If there is interest we can certainly organise one.

WCA tournament  

Please note that on Thursday/Friday 17 - 18 November we will host the GC handicap singles. The lawns will be unavailable for club play. There will be a flyer on the noticeboard shortly with details of how to enter.

Resigned

We are sorry to advise resignations of Nancy Harp and Alison Fleming, both of whom have long been members and have done much to help the club in many ways.

Jane Norman
kmcc.club.captain@gmail.com

Follow our club on Facebook

If you are on Facebook, follow our club's Facebook page, @KelburnCroquet, as that will help us promote the club even more. 

We post news, events, and occasional quirky items on our Facebook page, which has reached nearly 750 people and has 37 followers so far, including other croquet clubs around the world.

People are starting to contact the club because they have found us on Facebook, so it is doing a great job of advertising for us - and could do better with your support. We are starting to receive corporate booking enquiries from people who found us on Facebook.

Helping others

We supported the Special Olympics NZ Schools Have a Go Day on Wednesday 28 September 2022, by helping Croquet New Zealand's Oliver Field on the day, at Te Rauparaha Arena in Porirua. John Corsham and Lesley helped out, along with two members of Plimmerton Club. Some 70 secondary school children from nine colleges around the wider Wellington region got to have a go at croquet, and they and their helpers thoroughly enjoyed themselves. Some of the kids were really good at shooting those hoops.

We also supported Mental Health Awareness week in late September and used Facebook to promote a Have a Go Day on 30 September. This attracted much favourable attention to the club. Jane Norman was in attendance on the day, but unfortunately it was weather for ducks and the sole attendee was indeed a mallard - which Jane photographed and we posted that on Facebook too.

Coming up

The Breast Cancer Foundation NZ's Pink Ribbon street appeal will be on Friday 28 and Saturday 29 October. The Foundation is looking for volunteer helpers as well as donations.

Movember is coming up. This may be one of the most entertaining way to help raise funds to help save more men's lives. Will we see any fresh moustaches breaking out at the club?

Our recent news

You can also read our latest news and our Facebook items on the News page of our website.

Beware of scams

There are a lot of very convincing-looking scams around lately. Have you seen the fake NZTA email yet? Or had one of those “you've got a delivery" text messages? Let alone a call from ‘Microsoft Help Desk' (as if Microsoft would really call you just because Word is driving you crazy). 

Don't click! Don't open any link. Delete, delete, delete.

Below is an image of a scam email pretending to be from NZTA, which has the address NZTA.govt.nz and not webinfo@sathubs.com, as seen in the From address in the image below.

Finally …