Some positive news to lighten this frustrating lockdown season.

The committee has been working with Ian Shore to work out arrangements whereby our club could obtain more income by offering coaching to players from other clubs, thereby generating some much-needed income towards our extra lawns (more on that in the next weeks).
 
From an idea three years ago, I am very pleased to announce that arrangements are now in place for the formation of an academy, the Central Croquet Academy (CCA). There just remains one small but significant hurdle before we can shout about it and that is a rubber-stamp from the CA -- this is in hand. The formal arrangements detail how it forms part of the HWCC and how net income will go to HWCC. The Academy will be managed by Ian, Cliff Jones and Ed Olhausen. 

​Ian will be issuing a list of courses for 2021 in the next few weeks and they will appear on the CA website. Only a couple of these courses will need both lawns, meaning that all the others will need only one lawn and none will use the clubhouse -- the adjacent Memorial Hall will be used instead. Also, most courses will take place before the end of April before the lawns become busy. This all means minimal impact of lawn availability to members, an important consideration.

There is a course for “High/No Handicaps” and another will be planned for “New/New-ish Members” along with re-introducing the 30-min coaching slot prior to Monday GC Roll-Ups (Covid willing!).
 
There are three other croquet academies in the UK: Southwick (near Brighton); Budleigh Salterton (near Exeter); and York. You can see why ‘Central’ forms part of the name for the Academy! It is interesting that the CCA will be the nearest Academy to no fewer than 70 clubs. 
 
Here’s to the financial success of the Central Croquet Academy!
 
Richard Peperell, Chairman
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