From tomorrow, the Government’s further lockdown easing means we can relax SOME of the precautions we had previously put in place, in line with the latest CA guidance received.
It is important that we all continue to exercise caution, and to observe the remaining restrictions. Issue 11 of our precautions list is now being mailed out to members, and will be posted on the clubhouse door shortly. The main changes are as follows:
Up to 30 people are now allowed on our grounds at any time, though everyone must continue to book their attendance on our booking system for track and trace.
Court use is therefore effectively now unrestricted, with 2 doubles games again able to be double-banked on each court.
Up to 6 people may now enter the clubhouse, though face masks should be worn – especially whenever more than 1 person is in the building.
All croquet equipment (eg now including clips and bisques) may now be used, and can again be stored in the clubhouse’s cupboards.
Food and drink may now be consumed on club premises, but only when seated.
Members continue to be responsible for sanitising all equipment and surfaces touched, as well as for their own hygiene. Social distancing rules remain, and you should NOT come to the club if you’re exhibiting any potential Covid symptoms or are meant to be self-isolating.
Due to the snow fall earlier this morning, the Committee has decided to close the courts to protect the lawns. Even though the snow is melting fast, the ground is very soft and there is a likely risk that play would damage the courts.
Hopefully we’ll be OK to reopen them tomorrow but, with a deep frost forecast tonight, please check for further updates here before heading to the courts.
Additionally, whenever we re-open, please do not play any jump shots until advised it is safe to do so: there are already a number of gouge marks on the lawns from last week’s play, and we don’t want to damage the lawn further.
I’m delighted to confirm that our courts are now open again, with what are essentially the same Covid precautions we had last Autumn. However, there are three important changes in the very latest guidance received from the CA, which everyone should be aware of:
while we have opened the club to a max of 6 players per court, NO INTERACTION is allowed between players on different courts (particularly to note for club sessions: separate guidance applies to Tournaments, as will be set out by each Tournament Manager).
at this stage of lockdown easing, NO SPECTATORS are allowed on Club Premises.
players are advised to wear face coverings when indoors (i.e. if entering the Clubhouse or the WC).
The “Results” menu has been renamed to “Competitions” as it now allows you to sign up for a competition, see who is signed up, to record your individual results and to see the current status of a competition.
As events become ready they will be added to the menu. Currently you can sign up on line for the GC Championship Cup and the Icknield Cup. Just select the event and click on subscribe – and that’s it.
At the top of the “Competitions” page you will see a list of what you are currently signup for.
The AC and GC ladders are now both live. The GC one continues from last year and the AC one has been restarted.
If you have any problems with the system please email me individually at dr.s.m.fisher@gmail.com.
I’m pleased to announce that we now plan to reopen our courts from Monday 29th March. This is in line with Step 1b of the national lockdown-easing roadmap: should that date slip, then so will our re-opening.
The CA have confirmed that we may do so under the same social distancing and sanitising regimes we had in place last year. These are reflected inIssue 9 of our Covid regulations.
The Committee has also decided to extend participation to the maximum allowed under those regulations – namely 6 per court. This would allow (eg) double-banking of a singles and doubles game on one court, or a coaching session with up to 5 participants (+ coach). As before, all attendance must be pre-booked, to allow track & trace if needed.
While this allows up to 12 people (including spectators) on club premises at any time:
a) all attendees are subject to the “Rule of 6“, with no mingling allowed between groups;
b) everyone MUST take personal responsibility for keeping themselves and others safe, by observing the 2m Social Distancing guidance (which, in our context, translates to “IF I CAN HIT YOU WITH MY MALLET, YOU’RE STANDING TOO CLOSE”).
Committee members will monitor adherence to these rules, and take action if breaches are observed.
Dear Everyone With the courts closed, this has to be a time for planning ahead for when we are set free again. Maybe around Easter for competitive play? Your guesses will be as good as mine – I dare say even better. But with great optimism, we have now put together a complete programme for season 2021. We just need to check a few points, then hopefully we can give you the outline in the next Newsletter. As I reported last month, we’d like to kick off on Saturday 24th April with the Charity One-Ball in aid of the British Heart Foundation.
Our principal open tournaments are shown in the Croquet Association’s online Fixtures Calendar, and you can find them at the foot of our club details page which gives their short titles, dates, and key dates for entering (allocation dates and closing dates), though entries aren’t open yet. The tournaments flagged with a knife and fork are those where we offer simple lunches, and you’ll have seen June’s appeal yesterday for volunteers to join the catering team – please don’t be shy!
One last thing I want to report in this newsletter is the funeral of Jolyon Kay, the first cause and founder of this club, without whom it would never have come into being, two days ago [Note: 15th February] at St Michael’s in Blewbury, with the limited and distanced attendance demanded these days. Fellow club members and friends of Jolyon who able to be there were Deirdre and Malcom Cochrane and Avril Rangoni-Machiavelli, as well as myself, representing all of the club.
Finally, I want to include the obituary of Jolyon that Minty Clinch has written, which should appear in the next Croquet Gazette after I’ve added one more item, which is that in 2003, the year our new courts were opened, he was awarded a CA Diploma for outstanding services to croquet. Minty was fortunate to have been able to interview Jolyon early last month while researching the history of this club for our web site.
Jolyon Kay, September 1930-January 2021
Croquet said goodbye to one of its most endearing globe trotters when Jolyon Kay died on 27th January, 2021. He is buried in the cemetery alongside Blewbury Croquet Club (BCC), his passion since he founded it in 1992. He was at school at Charterhouse, then graduated with honours in chemical engineering from St John’s College, Cambridge. Shirley, his wife of 64 years, was a modern languages student at the same time.
Jolyon spent a decade in the UK chemical engineering industry. In 1958, he started working at the Harwell Atomic Energy Research Establishment (Harwell Science and Innovation Campus from 2006), a job that introduced him to neighbouring Blewbury; the Kays bought Treble House, the first of five homes they owned in the village, and settled down to raise their four children. With his colleague, the late Mike Duck, he established the Harwell Croquet Club.
In the early 1960s, he joined the Foreign Office. His first assignment was at MECAS (Middle East Centre for Arab Studies) in Lebanon where he learned Arabic and studied regional affairs. One of his early postings in a 30-year ‘striped trouser’ career was Economic Counsellor in Saudi Arabia (1974-1977). He enjoyed the variety of his new life: a visit to the King one day, helping a British tourist with a lost passport the next, prepping a businessman for a big contract, telling him who and how much he’d need to bribe to win it. Wherever he went, the genial diplomat with the mallet established impromptu croquet courts: colleagues and locals loved the games he devised in Jeddah, Casablanca and Dubai.
In England for summer breaks, he revisited Blewbury, competing in croquet tournaments until he became ‘one of the better players in the region’. Why not a club of his own? Once committed, Jolyon was not a man to be denied. From small beginnings in 1993, when he announced his project in the Blewbury Bulletin, to the grand opening of two expertly laid courts and a clubhouse on Tickers Folly Field on 31st May, 2003, he worked tirelessly to raise funds and sustain momentum. By using professionals to pitch to Sport England, BCC received £42,000 under the Capital Grant Scheme, the largest award to any croquet organisation in recognition of a start up’s value to the community. ‘Not bad for a Victorian pastime with a somewhat crusty image’, he mused.
With BCC up and running, Jolyon promoted the game on the Croquet Association (CA) Council from 2001-2006, serving as Chairman of the CA International Committee from 2003-2004. After time as Chairman of the Southern Croquet Federation (SCF), he became Coaching Officer and SCF Regional Representative on the CA Council, using his Grade 1 coaching qualification to run courses for club members and juniors.
Over the last 30 years, he spent much of his time in Anogyra near Limassol in Cyprus. Shirley was a Middle Eastern archaeologist and a prolific writer: the latest of 16 books, Olives and Lemons, analysed the changes in the village over those decades. In September, Jolyon enjoyed his 90th birthday celebrations with his wife and their granddaughter, Saffron, but returned to Blewbury after Shirley was buried under Cypriot skies two months later.
Perhaps remembering his production of T.S.Eliot’s Murder in the Cathedral for the Blewbury Players in St Michael’s Church, he rented the house across the road. On warmer December days, the nonagenarian sat outside at noon, mulled wine in hand, to catch up with old friends.
Now, in the words of his daughter, Gigi, ‘we are all pleased to think of him buried beside the Blewbury Croquet Club, smiling benignly whenever he sees the residents enjoying the club into which he put so much love and passion and energy’.
Dear Everyone New Year greetings to you all. Here’s to happier times on the courts once the pandemic subsides. As usual in January, we are addressing our Club summer programme. This year, we hope the season will be as near normal as possible. If not, we’ll make adjustments down the line.
For now, the courts are closed, but essential maintenance is proceeding, provided by Chris Bateman and our volunteer mowers. We are very grateful to you all. The courts will be their 6/7 winter size when we’re allowed to re-open them.
Lockdown is the perfect time to bone up on the Laws (AC) and Rules (GC). Players have the responsibility to take them on board before they compete. The 5th edition of the GC Rules has been around for a couple of years so I’m sure you’re all up to speed. No time for complacency though. The current AC Laws are 12 years old, and a re-written 7th edition has been proposed by the World Croquet Federation (WCF) after very lengthy consultation. The Croquet Association plans to adopt these from March 1st this year. There are no major changes, but the devil is in the details which must be assimilated .
As a referee I’d like to explain the changes to all our AC players before the season begins. A Zoom video session would be a good starting point. Or we could break it down into bite-sized chunks? Unfortunately we can’t gather in the pub to go through it but all suggestions will be gratefully considered. I look forward to hearing from as many of you as possible as soon as possible on this one.
And now for some good news. A warm welcome to the new members who have joined the club since the end of the 2020 season.
Sally Batty – already a croquet member at Phyllis Court;
Penny Brassell – a central figure in Blewbury Badminton Club;
Josh Angers, Max Crome, Cosmo Denny – all Junior members, from Bradfield College;
Bo Liddiard – a relative newcomer to croquet.
It’s great to have you on board: some of us have met some of you, though not as many as we’d like in the current crisis. We hope you enjoy your croquet at Blewbury and look forward to playing with you and getting to know you soon.
In sad contrast, I recently learned of the deaths of two people who had key roles in the early years. Shirley, wife of Jolyon Kay, the Club’s founder, died in Cyprus the the autumn of 2020. Mike Duck, Jolyon’s Harwell friend and loyal supporter, died in July. I have happy memories of needle matches with both of them, always so enjoyable especially when I didn’t lose. Jolyon has now rented St Michaels House opposite the church in Blewbury: I’m sure he would like to catch up with old friends as circumstances permit.
As we’re looking back, you can expect an imminent reboot of the Club History page on our web site. I think our 30th birthday must be approaching. Keep your eyes open.
Association of ideas: birthday: birthday suit: no, don’t get excited, but clothing. First, after a very long gap, we are re-sourcing croquet kit carrying our club name and logo. When I say ‘we’, it’s really Carol Jamieson who’s working on it. It would be so nice to see it worn again around the courts and in team matches. More news when it’s close to becoming available. And second, there are clothes that have been hanging in the clubhouse for months, even years. I will recycle them painlessly as soon as I get around to it. Owners of said clothes, you have been warned.
Still in the clubhouse, our store of coloured plastic ball-markers has been restored from the darkest recesses of the cupboard to its rightful storage jar. As everybody should know, metal coins can do disastrous damage to a £6000 tournament-grade lawn mower so it is absolutely forbidden and a heinous crime to use them as ball markers. You should carry plastic ones every time you play – and that’s now explicit in the new AC laws! – so take five from the jar and put your 50p for future replacements in the money-box on the counter next to the fridge. Thank you!
Now to our coaching programme for 2021. We’re planning short structured courses for small groups focusing on specific skill sets and regular sessions with club coaches offering informal instruction at regular times each week. It would be really helpful if you, dear reader, could get back to me with specific input: AC or GC? Particular topics? Preferred days, times? Group or individual? We will try to arrange it, but only if we know what you want….
To end on an optimistic note, the domestic club season often begins with our Blewbury heat of the national Charity One-Ball competition organised each year by former Blewbury member, Kevin Carter. This year’s charity is the British Heart Foundation. There will be a donation/entry fee for the local heat, the winner qualifying for the final at Surbiton (well worth playing there – most excellent lawns) on 9th May. We’ve pencilled in Saturday 24th April for our local heat, so get it into your diaries now! And it is important to know that these days the finalists are split about 50-50 between AC players and predominantly GC players – one-ball is for everyone.
When the season is under way, who would like to play in club matches? Excellent opportunities to visit other clubs, play on their lawns, use their facilities, and meet their croquet players. Teams have between 2 and 5 players, depending on the competition. We compete at GC and AC in handicap and level play matches. In AC, handicap includes short croquet on half-courts with just six hoops for each ball; level play is under advanced rules, giving compulsory lifts during (most) games. You don’t have to turn out every time, but we need a pool of available players so we don’t enter competitions, only to find we can’t raise a team. If you’re interested in GC matches, let David Vincent know; if in AC matches, let Joe King know. They will look for opportunities to give you one or more games in team matches during the season.
With all of Oxfordshire going into Tier 4, we are still allowed to keep our lawns open, but now they may only be used:
by members of a single household (or support bubble)
for solo practice
for singles games (or coaching sessions) between two individuals from separate households, exercising together while ensuring 2m social distancing.
Currently a booking is required for any use of the facilities. Available slots can be seen on the calendar . To make a booking you must log in first. Access to the courts is subject to government guidance – which is currently here.
Additionally, while we leave individuals to interpret this for themselves, we note that Tier 4 Guidance advises people only to travel a short distance from their home for exercise.
No more than 2 individuals are allowed on the same court at any time (unless part of the same household/bubble), so all club sessions have been cancelled pending further notice.
There are no longer any restrictions on when courts can be booked by individuals/couples/households, apart from the scheduled lawn maintenance windows. Please continue to book the courts before turning up ad-hoc (and to cancel any bookings you have, should they no longer be needed), not least to support “track and trace”.
All other sanitising / distancing measures continue as before.
The Committee are keen to continue to provide members with the opportunity to play croquet as much as allowed, particularly recognising the benefit to people living alone through this almost-lockdown. Please don’t abuse these restrictions, or the Committee will have no choice but to close the courts altogether.
