HWCC INNOVATES AGAIN!

The Club’s reputation for innovation is about to be boosted still further.   We have agreed to take a leading role in a trial of use of AI (‘Artificial Intelligence’) to help with the administration of croquet. 
The trial has been approved by the SCF (Southern Croquet Federation) and Croquet England (CqE).  It starts from today and will run until the end of September, after which the results and lessons learned will be reviewed.  A review panel will be drawn from our Club, SCF and CqE and their report will be submitted to CqE and SCF in time for the relevant committees to decide how to proceed.

Several AI ‘models’ were evaluated, including ChatGPT from OpenAI, Claude from Anthropic and Gemini from Google.  HWCC already uses Google for our G-Drive folders and files, and we therefore argued for Gemini to be the trial model.  This has been agreed.  Steve Morton our IT specialist will be helping users get their heads around how to use Gemini.

Recent articles in The Economist and The Guardian have emphasised the value of testing out AI by applying it to well-understood tasks.  For croquet, this obviously includes managing tournament entries, recording results, maintaining membership lists etc.  But HWCC is determined to go further.  

So, the Committee has decided to trial the following:

• Gemini will be allocated a ‘seat’ on the HWCC Committee, participating by recording and analysing the discussions.  An attendance record of 100% is expected. All decisions will continue to be made by humans, however, including the annual beer and biscuits budget .
• Gemini has been asked to calculate the shortest route that people can use when setting up courts, including hoops, peg, flags and hallway markers.  This route (the ‘Gem route’) will be adopted by all tournament managers, match captains etc.   It is expected that using the Gem route will save each person between 100 and 200 calories.
• The roles of Secretary, Membership Secretary, Webnews Manager and Committee Members without portfolio are to be suspended for the period of the trial.  The Committee will now comprise Chairman, Treasurer, IT specialist and Gemini. Replacement of the Treasurer and IT specialist roles by Gemini are a possibility if the next generation (Fin+) model is adopted.  

 
All questions arising should be addressed to https://gemini.google.com because the Webnews Manager is sulking.

Chris Webbley
Webnews Manager (suspended)