A Letter from the President Mary Egley

Good Morning Everyone,

It has been a couple of months since I wrote to you last, so with our AGM behind us and four new members on our Committee giving us a full number of 12 this year, I want to get this out to you as soon as I can.

Firstly, thank you for the good attendance we had at our AGM and apologies for Jim Brough and my lateness which was unavoidable due to us being at the WCA AGM earlier at 10.00am that morning out at Plimmerton.

Jim and I met at the club on Wednesday morning with the director from Mexted Lawn Contractors, who attend to all the sports fields in the Wellington area. Shane told us about the procedure for uplifting our lawns and sowing the new ones. The area will be completely closed to the public on all pathways as
from Monday 4 th August and our carpark will be used by their machinery and trucks needed for the removal of the existing lawns. We have also given them permission to use the club house for toilets and their tea/lunch break. Once the old lawns have been removed to a depth of 35mm, which will take 2-3
days and be done in two layers, they will then laser level it before adding sand and fresh soil to fill the area. As they are also surveyors we have asked them to survey the area for the correct corner placements on each lawn, and we are having lawns 1 & 2 moved further back toward the eastern boundary line to make more room for our smaller sixth lawn. By the end of the 3rd week (weather permitting) they should have the seed sown and that will be the end of all machinery and the car park will be empty again. It will take approximately two months (weather permitting!) for the lawns to be fresh new grass, so our time line of early November opening could be foreseeable providing the weather is kindly to everything. We shall all keep our fingers crossed. There will be a 12” border around the whole croquet lawns area.
 

Wednesday afternoon I chaired our first Committee meeting for this croquet year and a very positive vibe was present throughout with several matters being discussed, put into plan and unanimously given approval. The painting of the interior of the club house will take place in September. We had three quotes – two unfortunately were way above our budget, but the third at a reasonable figure we accepted and through our Treasurer, Cynthia, who will act as our liaison officer, will start in September. All the Honours Boards, the clock, photos and other things on the walls will be removed during this. They will be painting the main gathering area and ceiling as well as the fronts of the lockers, but not the kitchen and toilet area, these were done a few years ago by Caroline and Barry and do not need it. We also agreed we will ask our electrician to disconnect the heater during the painting of the ceiling and then when ready to be put back up we will have it at a lower level to hopefully warm the room more efficiently.
 

Our website will also be given an up to date face lift and Andrea, Marilyn and Ray will work together on this. I also intend to have the carpet professionally cleaned and the chairs will also be cleaned (by a group of ladies) and treated with “Scotch Guard” protection once again.
 

John Stevens has asked that the Archive files be sorted and stored in a new home, so this job will also be done during the time we are closed. So some of us will be busy with croquet affairs, but not playing! However, you will all have our Player’s Meeting to look forward to on Saturday 2 nd August, which is the
last Saturday before we close the lawns, but our Secretary, Murray, will be sending a notice out about this next week. Stay enjoying play while we can and hopefully the weather will give us the chance to get in as many games as we can. I shall keep you updated on progress of our lawns once the refurbishment
is under way.

Stay warm, stay well.
Mary,
President.
KMCC