Archive 2016

I regret to inform you that this morning Sunday 4th December 2016 whilst an in-patient at ‘The Queen Elizabeth Hospital’ King’s Lynn and after a long illness bravely borne David Mattacks a long serving member and currently an Honorary Life member of the club sadly passed away. Our condolences go to Carole his partner of many years.

Due to his illness David had lately found it difficult to visit the club but, for those who knew him he will be sadly missed. David was a valuable Committee Member and served as Chairman for the years 2001 – 2002 and Vice Chairman for the period 2008 – 20011. He will always be remembered for his period as Chairman, when in conjunction with the late Sarah Hampson he diligently and efficiently oversaw the construction of the current Club House after the previous wooden building had been destroyed by arson. A debt the club will always owe him.

I will be in contact with you again as soon as I am made aware of the funeral arrangements.

Terrey Sparks
HCC Hon. Secretary
04/12/2016

The meeting was chaired by George Noble (President) and attended by 38 members.
1. Apologies were received from 20 members.
2. Minutes of the AGM of 31/10/2015 – agreed.
3. Minutes of the SGM of 02/03/2016 – agreed.
4. Officers Reports – received from Chairman and Secretary.
9. Employment of Cleaners – Committee authorised to investigate further and appoint cleaners on appropriate terms.
5. Statement of Accounts and Treasurer’s Report – agreed.
6. Rate of Subscriptions for 2017 – 15% increase agreed.
7. Election of Officers and Committee Members – agreed.
8. Appointment of Scrutineer – Alf Wells.
10. Any Other Business included:

Su Debenham wins the day.  Unfortunately due to the unavoidable non-appearance of two members the day started badly for the Manager Terrey Sparks who suddenly found himself with one block of 6 and two blocks of 5 contestants. However, after giving some thought he quickly resolved the position by cross blocking the two reduced blocks which enabled the normal format to continue with reduced games.
Each player played 5 handicapped games with the block winners proceeding into a semi-final play-off, with the best runner up of the blocks making up the number to 4. The winners of the blocks turned out to be Block ‘A’ Noel Gill, ‘B’ Sue Debenham and ‘C’ Pauline Donner. Determining the best runner up proved a bit of a problem due to so many being on equal wins. However, by looking at hoop difference and who beat whom the winner was declared to be Gwenda Mackenzie.
In the resulting Semi’s Su Debenham played an in form Pauline Donner but just managed to scrape home after an exciting 13th hoop finish. Whilst In form Noel Gill, played Gwenda Mackenzie and ran out the winner by 7 – 3.
The final match between Su and Noel turned out to be a gripping affair that kept the spectators on the edges of their seats. In a cat & mouse affair Su played a determined game to hold of Noel’s adventurist play to run out the overall winner by 7 – 5.
The trophy was presented to Su by Janet Kendal who thanked everyone present for such an enjoyable day.

Notice is hereby given that the 2016 Annual General Meeting is scheduled to be held on Saturday 29th October 2016 at the Club House commencing at 11am.
Proposals by Members consistent with the Club Constitution for consideration at the AGM should be delivered to the Secretary by the 17th September 2016.
T.D. Sparks    3rd September 2016    Club Secretary

There was a very severe storm on Saturday evening. We were in the eye of it for a while, so the rain held off and play could continue. Then it got very dark indeed, with torrential rain and hail. George Woolhouse took some photographs of the flooded lawns. Amazingly, the lawns drained very quickly and everything seemed to be back to normal Sunday morning.

Unfortunately one player in the B Block was unable to get to Hunstanton on the final day, leaving the managerial nightmare of an incomplete block. Tournament Regulations F2(e)(4) provides a procedure for dealing with this situation, but it is fiendishly complicated and not at all the sort of thing a manager wants to get mixed up with on the final afternoon with all the players waiting to get away. Luckily, Nick Harris had experience with this calculation and was able to tabulate all the results and award the match points accordingly to the procedure while the manager tried not to panic about everything else (thanks to Nick for sorting this one out). Following this algorithmic feat Hugh Carlisle turned out to be the block winner.
It was nice to see the low handicappers doing so well in the Egyptian and also to meet some new long bisquers (whose handicaps will probably get much lower before very long).   Martin Kolbuszewski
Results:
Block A:      1. Duncan Hector           2. David Tutt
Block B:      1. Hugh Carlisle             2. Too difficult to calculate (see above)
Block C:      1. Su Stenhouse           2. Peter Whiting
Block D:      1. Martin Kolbuszews    2. Sarah Barley
Eygyptian handicap:  1. Terrey Sparks      2. Kevin Carter

14 club members entered this year’s club doubles and were paired off by handicaps to play an all play all of 6 games. Despite a close challenge by Pat Baillie and Christine Thirtle-Watts winning 5 of their games they were unable to stop the pairing of Pauline Donner & Noel Gill having a successful day winning all the games to finish the overall winner.
1.  Pauline Donner/Noel Gill    6/6  2.  Pat Baillie/Christine Thirtle-Watts    5/6  3.  David Thirtle-Watts/Anne Gill    4/6  4.  Myfanwy Dunford/Su Debenham     3/6   5.  Roy Donner/Susan Boxell      2/6  6.  Terrey Sparks/Martin Rollings       1/6  7.  David Boxell/Moira Allen       0/7

I regret to inform you that Rita Miller a former member of the club for many years recently passed away in The Queen Elizabeth Hospital suffering a heart attack. Rita wife of Eric were both active members for many years and only left when Eric’s health started to deteriorate. Eric is currently in a Nursing Home in Swaffham.

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Pat Dawson last year’s winner, presented the salver to Janet.

This year’s competition was contested by ten entrants with handicaps ranging from 4-12. The players were split into two blocks of five who then proceeded to play all the players in the opposite block, thus giving a total of five games each.  On completion of the initial games only Janet Carpenter (HC 11) finished with 5 wins.  Semi-finals took place with Janet Carpenter beating Chris Ward and Pauline Donner beating David Boxell.  In the final Janet beat Pauline (HC 4) 7-4, which gave a total of 7 wins from 7 games and a handicap reduction for Janet to 9.

Twenty club members ranging from handicaps 2 to 14 who were paired up by topping and toeing entered this year’s Green Shutters Handicap Tournament. Split into two groups of five, each pair played their opposite number in 35 minute timed games by cross blocking.

After 5 games the winners of Block A were Pat Baillie (7) & Christine Thirtle-Watts (11) (Undefeated), who then played the block R/U Susan Boxell (11) & June Critcher (12) (4 Wins) which resulted in a win for Susan & June 5-4.
In Block B Chris Ward (6) & Noel Gill (12) ran out block winners with 4 wins. However, there was a tie for R/U between Pauline Donner (4) & Bob North (14) and Pat Dawson (7) & Moira Allen (12) both on 2 wins. Pauline and Bob having the better hoop difference played Chris & Noel in a block semi-final losing by 5-3.

The final between Chris/Noel and Susan/June proved to be a close affair which was won by Chris & Noel 4-3.

I regret to inform you that I  have this morning just been made aware by John Gosden a member of the Guildford Club that his mother Beryl Gosden an Honorary Life Member of the Hunstanton Croquet Club passed away on 2nd July last after a short illness.
Beryl was a long standing member of the club having joined when she and her late husband Ron also a member, moved to the area in 1980. For those of you who remember Beryl together with Ron, their mission was to take all newcomers to the game under their wing and guide them through the intricacies of the game. However, since Ron passed away in the early 1990’s she had not been seen much at the club. I understand in later years this was because her walking had deteriorated.
Her funeral will be this coming Thursday 21st July at The Mintlyn Crematorium, King’s Lynn  at 10.45am. I have not been notified whether or not there will be a reception afterwards but, no doubt if so, details will be notified at the service.  Terrey Sparks  Secretary Hunstanton Croquet Club

Twelve entrants took part in The Club’s Inaugural GC open for ‘The Hampson Memorial Salver’ which took place on Sunday 3rd July.
Split into two groups of 6 the top two players of each played in Semi-Finals comprised of John Noble v Simon Carter & David Widdison v Roger Goldring. Interestingly with both games finishing,  7-4. The final watched by an appreciative home crowd proved to be an interesting and taut affair with David building a commanding 4-1 lead. However, seeing the game starting to slip away John suddenly upped his game and ran home the winner 7-4.
Hopefully, in the future the club can build on its first year success and this event will attract more numbers in the future.

• 16 March 2016 – A Coffee Morning, details to follow
• 1 April 2016 – A request for Members to help with hoop setting
• 2-3 April 2016 – A request for Members to help with Clubhouse cleaning, etc in preparation for the new season.
• David Boxell, Acting Secretary 03/03/2016

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Members are notified that one of our members Douglas Browne sadly passed away on 29 January 2016.

Members are notified that one of our members Jim Welham sadly passed away in December 2015.