Author: arthurlrowe

Will & Rachel Gee, David Bell and Arthur & Judith Rowe all took part in this tournament over the weekend 29/30th July at Nottingham. Arthur & Judith were last minute entries to make up an even number, and were ranked lowest of the 14 pairs in the event, so they were very pleased to win 3 out of their 7 block games on Saturday, but avoid getting into the main knockout. Meanwhile, Will (playing with Jack Good) and Rachel (playing with Ian Burridge) easily qualified for the main knockout, with Will & Jack running out winners late on Sunday evening after some long games (which they were not part of) slowed down progress.

Full results on croquetscores:

https://croquetscores.com/2023/gc/english-national-doubles-championship/championship

Ashby A played their first two matches on consecutive days on 15th and 16th June, in warm sunny weather at Moira. The first match against Ashby B was hard fought with the A team (Arthur Rowe, Mike O’Brian and Ray Mounfield) winning 7-5, with good wins for all the B players Andy Sherwood, Judith Rowe and Richard Sanville.

The following day Ashby A played Dunston A, and although the match ended up 9-3 to Ashby A (Arthur, Paul and Rupert), the Dunston team put in some strong performances towards the end of the day once they had got used to the lawns.

19 players gathered in unseasonably mild weather to contest the Dave Davis Cup on New Year’s Day. Arthur had arranged a format with 6 of the players paired up sharing 3 places, whilst 13 played in all 5 rounds. 11 point games with simultaneous starts in corners 4 & 2 and a 35 minute time limit made sure that we could complete 5 rounds in the day. Only 4 of the 20 games went to time. The 3 morning rounds produced strong performances from 3 teams, with Judith & Pete unbeaten in one block, whilst Jane & Andy and Heather & Eileen shared the honours in the other block with 2 wins and a draw.

There was a fairly long break for lunch, with plenty of soup, savouries and cake to share.

The top two teams in each block from the morning session then played the top two in the other block in the afternoon, whilst the bottom two teams in each block did likewise. The end result was very close, with Jane & Andy finishing 3rd with 3.5 wins, Judith & Pete 2nd with 4 wins, and Heather & Eileen running out the winners with 4.5 wins out of a maximum 5. Everyone won at least 1 game, and the wooden spoon was shared between two teams.

Many thanks to everyone who turned up when they said they would, and especially to the folks who turned up early to clear and set up the lawns. A few stalwarts were not able to be with us this year, including Martin who is isolating in Malta with Covid.

Final Results

	Wins	Net Hoops	Final Rank
Arthur Rowe & (Colin Carr, Jill Goodall)	3	0	4
Mike O’Brian & Jane Reynolds	1	-7	6
Rupert Knapton & (Derek Buxton, Helen Bensley)	1	-8	7
Judith Rowe & Pete Bensley	4	7	2
Paul Durkin & Sue Shepherd	1	-8	7
Jane Tewson & Andy Shipley	3.5	7	3
Heather Hardy & Eileen Buxton	4.5	10	1
Jenny Biggs & (Richard Sanville, Lesley Leitch)	2	-1	5

There will be no play allowed under current UK Government restrictions during the national lockdown which started today. We are following the CA guidance from 4th November.

Thanks to the volunteers who came along this morning, we now have lawn 1 and lawn 3. The booking system has been modified to suit. The default time on bookings has also been reduced from 3 hours to 2 hours in readiness for the winter season.
Mansfield sand have recommended we treat the lawns differently, lawn 3 to be dressed with sand only and the others with a low organic content 80/20 dressing.
Lawn 1 is perpendicular to previous; the start point, with arrow, is marked as are the penalty areas. Martin will mow this shorter in readiness for Sunday.

You may have noticed on the lawn booking site that Lawn 1 is shown as ‘Maintenance’ for the rest of the season. Martin tells me that it has been reseeded and that time is needed for the grass to germinate and grow.

In light of the change to government restrictions applicable from 1st June, the CA has issued new guidance on what is acceptable in terms of croquet:

https://www.croquet.org.uk/?p=press/news&NewsID=7010

In short, we can now have 4 players on a lawn, for either double banked singles games or for one doubles game of either AC or GC. The other conditions below remain in place. We do not have enough lawn capacity to allow open club sessions at present.

Please continue to use the Croquet Booking site described in the 13th May news item. You will now see two sessions available for each lawn, a primary lawn and a secondary lawn. Some tips on how to use this new flexibility:

1) If you want to play doubles then please book both the primary and secondary parts of the same lawn – eg as two singles pairs.

2) Do not try to double bank with a different format of game – the booking system will discourage or prevent you from doing so anyway.

3) Try to book contiguous time slots if they work for you – ie try not to leave short gaps between your booking and the adjacent one in time.

4) If you fancy a game but don’t have an opponent then book a lawn with your name with a note saying looking for opponent.

5) If you see a lawn booked for watering or maintenance, please don’t try to double bank a game on it.

6) Now the complex bit. Lawn 2 can be split in two ways. It is marked out as half lawns so as to allow AC coaching, practice for beginners and one-ball games. So Lawn 2 primary can be either the full lawn with primary balls or the half nearest the shelter. Lawn 2 secondary can be either the full lawn with secondary balls or the half furthest from the shelter. If you want to book lawn 2 primary as a half lawn please mark it for AC (green) and put a note on the booking that it is for a half lawn. Then someone booking lawn 2 secondary will know that they are getting a half lawn.

From Wednesday 13th May, the Government has written that people will be allowed to take unlimited exercise, and be able to play sports with members of their own households or one other person. Details on the gov.uk website linked here:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-outbreak-faqs-what-you-can-and-cant-do/coronavirus-outbreak-faqs-what-you-can-and-cant-do

 The CA advice allows only one singles game per lawn:

https://www.croquet.org.uk/?p=press/news&NewsID=6985

This is likely to put pressure on lawn space, and a lawn booking system will be needed given that there can only be a maximum of 6 players. So we now have an Ashby section on croquetbooking.com, and it is populated with all the adult playing members other than Distant ones, or ones with duplicate email addresses (eg Arthur is in the list but Judith is not). The site is here:

https://croquetbooking.com/book/index.php?site=11

You can use your username (first initial followed by surname – Arthur’s is arowe), or your email address. If you do not have access and need it, please contact Arthur. Please change your password. To do this, click on ‘Users’ when you will see your details. Click on your name and you will be presented with two boxes to change your password. Passwords must contain upper and lower case letters, numbers and special characters, as in the default sent by email.

You will be presented with a calendar and just need to click on your preferred start time. The default session length is 3 hours, but you can alter that in the pop-up box. You can choose AC or GC, or Maintenance.

You should generally book a session with an identified opponent. There will not be any club sessions as such. Please use the membership list circulated by email to contact potential opponents. If you wish to practice, please only book on the day, and post contact details with the booking so someone can challenge you to play if the lawns are full.

So following the updated advice from the CA, the following are what we should be doing:

1) Maximum lawn capacity will be 2 players per lawn (ie 1 singles game).

2) Members should bring their own chairs to the club.

3) Members should wear their own gloves to handle club equipment (and/or their feet in the case of balls).

4) The open shelter cannot be used by more than two people.

5) The adjacent closed shelter should not be occupied.

6) Given the limited usable shelter, fine weather or hardy players will be needed!

Enjoy your croquet!

Following the government’s announcement on Monday 23rd March, the club will remain closed until at least 14th April (3 weeks from 23rd March). If restrictions are eased either then or at a later time, some limited croquet may be possible, but we will need to control the number of members at the club at any one time. Details of how this will work will be posted if / when it looks like we will be able to open the club at all.

The Ashby Croquet Club committee met on Tuesday 17 March and discussed the current situation with Covid-19.

The committee noted the following:

• this is a fast-moving situation and all club members should look out for each other in this difficult time;
• Moira Miners’ Welfare Sports & Social Club will not be open for the foreseeable future but there is no plan to prevent access to the car park for bona fide key holders;
• the Marlborough Rovers and Moira Car Boot Sale will not be operating until further notice;
• the CA has formed a task force to monitor the situation and interpret Government advice in the context of croquet;
• the CA website includes up-to-date information on the output from the task force.

The committee agreed the following:

• the club courts remain closed for winter maintenance until 29 March at the earliest and club members will receive an e-mail message to confirm when the groundsman is happy for the courts to open;
• Ashby Croquet Club will run NO competitive croquet (including the Coors & Bass Shield), NO club croquet (including Sunday afternoon, Tuesday evening, Wednesday morning and Thursday evening), NO coaching (including taster sessions) and NO social gatherings until at least the end of May 2020;
• the club will remain accessible to all bona fide key holders but they should note that, at all times, its members should follow Government guidance on social distancing;
• the club Radar key will not be available and club members are not to use the disabled loo attached to the Sports & Social Club;
• members will be able to use the male and female loos for which the club holds keys;
• club members are not to bring members of the public to use any of the club facilities until further notice (in particular, the club’s Public Liability Insurance will potentially not be effective at this time);
• to attempt to provide hand sanitiser for use by members when they are at the club but members should bring their own supply of sanitiser and soap to be sure that these are available for personal use;
• the club will stop organising any form of communal catering for the foreseeable future (members are responsible for bringing any food or drink they wish to consume if they go to the club);
• to appoint Tim King, Arthur Rowe and Mick Haytack as a steering group to monitor the situation and to advise the rest of the committee and wider club membership if any change in approach is necessary.

Before the courts open for the start of the season, we will confirm how we are going to control numbers at the club so as to allow everyone to practice appropriate social distancing.

The committee is next due to meet on 5 May but will change this plan if circumstances so require.

In brighter news, the committee was extremely grateful for the hard work in the past two weeks put in by working parties and, in particular, by Julie Boulton’s husband, Rob, who made sterling efforts to trim the hedges for us.