CA Diplomas Awarded in 2021
Contents...
Andrew Wimshurst - Nailsea Croquet Club
Andrew joined the Club as a beginner in 2012. He made rapid progress and won the High Bisquers Competition that season. Andrew is a natural ball player so both his AC and GC games improved rapidly. He has captained both AC and GC teams.
As a club member Andrew has become indispensable. He has been on the rotas for mowing and hoop setting for many years. More recently, he has taken on the task of arranging the rotas for all the lawn work, liaising with the team members and the lawn manager. On occasions, he set all the hoops for a tournament single-handedly - a huge physical effort.
During the Lockdowns, Andrew quietly took it upon himself to do all the essential permitted work on the hedges and ground surrounding the lawns. Again, some of this was heavy physical work and was largely unheralded.
Andrew is a member of the Lawns Advisory Group for the club. This involves much thought and discussion on the best ways to improve the lawns, including a major levelling project. His opinion is always valued.
On the Committee side of the Club, Andrew served as Chairman for 4 years and is currently Membership Secretary. In addition to the admin, he welcomes newcomers and generally helps members to take an active part in the club. Andrew has great diplomacy skills, and he is called upon if ever there is a dispute.
Andrew has also given his time as a coach. He visited Clifton College every week for two years, coaching groups of pupils and was instrumental in the College becoming a CA club. In 2019 he coached a group of beginners at the Nailsea club.
Andrew is a great sportsman, a hard worker, an innovator, a team captain, a coach, and a popular club member.
Margaret Eccles - Bury Croquet Club
Margaret had served as our Club's Secretary for over three years and was due to retire from this post when the Covid pandemic struck. Since then, she has undertaken '101' additional jobs as well as agreeing to continue as Secretary.
Her dedication and enthusiasm have kept the Club alive and functioning to the highest possible standards during these difficult times.
She has worked tirelessly whilst trying to maintain contact with each one of our 70 members on a personal level and help them with their countless worries and needs.
Government and Bury Council's stringent conditions needed to be followed at all times so Margaret stepped up and became our keyworker and first responder in every sense of the words.
Anything and everything to do with the club was arranged through her.
Distance - Timings - Locations and Protection became major issues that required careful and thoughtful planning and she stepped up in each case to arrange things.
She took control of a new online booking system, which has proven invaluable in keeping members safe and players limited in number in accord with Government Regulations at both of our venues at Whitehead Park and Coronation Park.
Due to her love of croquet and her caring, welcoming nature, we all became reliant on her to set up the introduction of all newcomers to the Club, which has resulted in a much higher intake for this time of year.
Margaret loves playing both Association and Golf croquet and is Captain of one of our Teams in the Northwest League, where she is also well respected.
Roger Sutton - Sussex County Croquet Club
Roger Sutton has been a member of Sussex County Croquet Club since 2012 when he took up croquet. From the beginning he has been a very active member, contributing a great deal to the club. He joined the committee and became Vice-Chairman. He has been responsible for starting up our very popular one-day tournaments, acting as Tournament Manager. Not only that he has run internal club competitions for a number of years, been a club handicapper, encouraged new members to take part in competitions, run corporate events including doing the catering, and more recently he has given an immense amount of his time to developing our plans for a new clubhouse. A skilful player himself representing the club, he has a can-do attitude. He has had a very positive effect on the club and his influence has transformed the competition side within the club.
David Bell - Leicester Croquet Club
David Bell joined Leicester Croquet Club in 2010 and since that time has been very active in all areas of our club development. He has undertaken various administrative roles, acts as both Federation and Club Equipment Officer, servicing and making sure mallets, trollies and balls, etc. are all in perfect order. As well as this David helps to mark out the lawns, setting hoops at the start of and throughout the playing season. He currently holds the post of Vice-Chairman.
As part of our ongoing development, David actively promotes our club, organising Learn to Play courses for new members and "Taster" sessions for local groups and businesses. He also coaches GC for those players wishing to improve their game and technique. In promoting our wider profile, David has built and maintains our website. This has led to many contacts from potential members and is an invaluable source of information to existing club members.
As well as taking on these roles, David takes his croquet seriously and is a very good, competitive player having improved rapidly to a minus 2 handicap. He not only represents L.C.C. in our East Midlands Federation league but also plays in national and other league competitions.
David is the sort of enthusiastic and hardworking member every club aspires to have. Leicester Croquet Club is very fortunate and values his contributions to the running of our organisation.
Linda Gavigan - Sussex County Croquet Club
Linda Gavigan was Chairman of Chichester Croquet Club before she joined Sussex County Croquet Club in 2014. An enthusiastic member who throws herself into all sorts of challenges and plays a very active role within the club as a committee member. Her main focus has been providing high-quality catering at the club and with excellent organising skills and getting a team together she has run an efficient service. In 2019 the club hosted the GC World Championship and provided food for 80 players from around the world over a 10-day period which was a full-time job for her. In fact, that year there were 80 catering days, and it has been a vital part of the income of the club. Apart from catering, Linda has taken on marketing responsibility, initially joining the team at the CA and now for the Southeast Croquet Association.
She has ensured that the club is given publicity through articles in local magazines and newspapers, and we have seen an influx of new members this year. Linda always sees a job through, and she takes on a wide variety of tasks to ensure the smooth running of the club.
Peter Wallace - Tyneside Croquet Club
Peter Wallace joined Tyneside Croquet Club about 25 years ago when his enthusiasm, willingness to help and good humour made an immediate impression on members. He soon volunteered for lawn watering and line marking, became part of the team that laid out the lawns each season, was frequently to be found working on repairs to equipment, fixtures and fittings on lawns and in the clubhouse and became a much-valued member of the Committee. When extensive lawn repairs were recently commissioned (from a company Peter introduced), it was he who travelled 10 miles from home each day to give the contractors access and stayed to lock up.
Peter's chosen game was AC and off a handicap of 9, was a frequent and useful member of club teams, winning crucial games and, with skill and sympathy, advising less experienced members on technique and tactics. He was also ready (sometimes at short notice) to turn out when needed for club GC teams.
With Peter's encouragement, his friends and family members joined TCC: one of his grandchildren, Jacob Carr, subsequently played GC for England. Beyond the club, his development of croquet was equally effective. Having persuaded nearby South Tyneside Council to repair a former bowling green, he recruited and coached members, arranged matches and became secretary of what is now a successful club.
When his wife, Caroline, died in 2019, Peter founded in her memory a ladies' golf doubles competition at Tyneside and endowed it with two impressive winners' salvers. Although his health had begun to fail and with near-constant joint pain Peter, until recently, continued to help with lawn watering but this season has decided to all but hang up his mallet and, although insisting on paying a full member's fee, his very welcome visits to our lawns are infrequent.
Nick Evans - Northampton Croquet Club
Nick Evans is a long-standing member of Northampton Croquet Club.
Over the last thirty years, Nick has served on our management Committee in various roles including a long stint as secretary. He was also our Club chairman for several years. He has managed to contribute to our Club whilst continuing to run his thriving model shop business in Northampton. Perhaps because of his practical skills, Nick, as equipment manager, is the person who the Club has been able to turn to for all jobs that regularly need doing such as mallet repairs, bisque stick making, building notice boards, and repairing our storage sheds after break-ins. Now that Northampton is without a permanent home, he, and his wife Jane, packed up and itemised all the equipment for storage.
An accomplished Association Croquet player, who currently plays off a 1.5 handicap, Nick has for many years been the mainstay of Northampton's Association teams. In what may be described as the Club's heyday, he helped to win the Longman Cup, twice, and the Secretaries Shield in the mid-90s when Northampton regular finalists. His tactical play is renowned and, as a result, his is the name that features most on the Club's Handicap and Advanced trophies. He is also adept at doubles play, especially when coupled with his wife, witness their success at the Barwell Salvers in Cheltenham in 2017.
Nick has also given back to the Club through his organisational skills by regularly running various Club competitions, knock-out tournaments, and the ladder and with the unenviable job of running teams in the East Anglian league. We would like his long unstinting service to Northampton Croquet Club to be recognised.
Paul Rigge - Northwest Federation
Paul started his croquet some 24 years ago at Bury Croquet Club. In 2002 he was involved in setting up the facility at Heaton Park in Manchester and in 2010 was on the team that organised the MacRobertson Shield there, being instrumental in getting television coverage of the event. In fact, he has been a television and radio presence representing the Northwest Croquet Scene on several occasions. He is larger than life and has had a very positive effect on croquet in the Northwest in the last 10 years. In 2012 Paul became Secretary of the Federation and served a three-year term. Since 2016 he has been the Federation Coaching Officer. His coaching is second to none for beginners, improvers and at an advanced level. Together with another player, he ran the "Advanced Pods" at Bury. He is willing to travel anywhere to deliver his help and advice to the Federation members. In 2017 Paul also volunteered to Chair the Federation, a post he also still holds at present. In 2019 he visited Stoneyhurst College and helped establish a new croquet club at the school, which is now a member of the Federation. He has constructed and maintained the websites for both Bury and now Pendle. For many years he has been Team Coordinator for the Lancashire team at the Counties. He has recently become a very active member of Pendle Croquet Club and despite the Covid crisis has coordinated and run no fewer than six competitions in 2020. 10 more competitions are scheduled at Pendle this year - all motivated and coordinated by Paul. He is active on the Tournament scene representing the Northwest countrywide. He works hard for the sport both on and off the lawns.
Nick Harris - Norwich Croquet Club
Nick Harris joined the Norwich Croquet Club in 1983. He has spent the next 38 years rendering innumerable and invaluable services to the Club. As a teacher by profession and a "minus" player, he moved seamlessly into coaching following his qualification in 1988, inculcating all-comers in the basics and the more advanced skills of the sport. As a keen gardener, he moved equally seamlessly (by bicycle) to and from his allotment and the lawns. Not only has he acted as the permanent supervisor of the ground contractors but also as hoop-setter-in-chief, line painter, weed remover, fence mender and general factotum. He has served tirelessly on the committee of the Club ever since September 1983. He was Secretary from 1987 to 1991 and, again, from 1993 to 1997; Chairman from 2001 to 2005 and Treasurer from 2007 to 2011. He was appointed as the Club AC Handicapper in 1988 and qualified as a referee in 1989. He not only plays in the Club tournaments but also manages them; does much of the catering and has used his skills as an artist and craftsman to make several of the trophies. He designed, and recently redesigned, the Club website, which he continues to maintain. Without his prodigious work, the Club would have been quite unable to function. In his spare time, Nick has always carefully scrutinised the Laws of the sport and has sometimes succeeded in convincing those in power to make amendments, the necessity of which they had failed to notice. In 2020 he was finally persuaded actually to play Golf Croquet. He does so with considerable skill (off a handicap of 0) and now represents the Club in the EACF Leagues in both forms of the sport.
Rob Edlin-White - Nottingham Croquet Club
Rob Edlin-White has been a member of Nottingham Croquet Club for 27 years. He is a great communicator and many people around the croquet world will know him as an active member of the Nottingham List community. Maybe what is less well known is how much time and effort he puts into the club.
As well as several stints serving on the committee and doing his turn with tournament catering, Rob has been involved with beginner coaching for years and is always an enthusiastic mentor to new members. He is a keen backer of the club's drive to become more diverse, helping with the school's outreach programme and our new Hoops 4 Health programme. In the chaos of last year when innovative ways of introducing people to croquet had to be found, Rob came up with the idea of croquet experience weekends so that an intensive introduction over 2 days would get them playing over the remainder of the summer. These have been popular, not only because they suit people who cannot make a weekly commitment to a conventional course but also because Rob makes sure that everyone has a really good time and that they bond as a group.
Social media was recognised as an important communication tool several years ago and Rob has developed and maintained the club's Facebook page. He also spent hours and hours during lockdown giving the club website a complete overhaul, including adding lots of pictures, many of which he has taken himself.
Lockdown also brought the need for a lawn booking system and Rob has taken on the management of that, including explaining and encouraging new members to use it.
Rob is a 'doer', always willing to give his time for the benefit of the club, its members and the sport.
David Brydon - Nottingham Croquet Club
David Brydon joined Nottingham Croquet Club in 1993 and very quickly his legal expertise was being sought with the endless negotiations with the City Council regarding long-overdue rent reviews. He steered the process through for getting the club's first longer lease which opened the door for Sport England funding and the installation of an irrigation system. When the adjacent bowls club became redundant David was involved in what turned out to be 6 years of protracted negotiations to get a new lease covering the existing croquet facilities and the bowls club. That was finally signed in April 2020 and gave the club security of tenure for 35 years and a formula for automatic rent rises. Perhaps, after 28 years, his legal skills will no longer be required!
David is keen to get people involved in croquet and he delights in organising Open Days and seeing dozens of people enjoying themselves. He is an enthusiastic helper in our school's programme, and he has introduced many beginners to the game through taster sessions and formal courses. His catchphrases such as 'there are 3 things to remember - stalking, stalking and stalking' remain with players for many years. He has been the club's marketer for many years, designing, erecting, and distributing the colourful banners and flyers that accompany many of our activities. He was an important member of the team organising the Women's AC World Championship and the U21 GC World Championship at Nottingham in 2015 and 2019.
Every club needs members to form the backbone and David, as a trustee, coach, master of ceremonies, legal advisor and marketer, has long been such a person. We have never succeeded in getting him on the catering roster though!
Using this website
