Croquet Vic plans ahead

At its meeting on 13 December 2021, Council approved a new Strategic Plan for the period 2022 to 2026. This is now updated with a reworded finance goal, approved by Council on 21 February 2022.

The vision underpinning the new plan is to

extend the public recognition, the development and the sustainability of croquet as a sport and a recreational activity for people of all ages and abilities.

The plan encompasses Croquet Victoria's current activities and new initiatives for the future. It is based on a set of strategic priorities and goals for Croquet Victoria over the next five years, relating to

capability and sport development
- support the growth of all forms of mallet sports
- grow croquet as a sport as well as a recreational activity
governance and management
- maintain commitment to good governance
- support and develop leadership and effective and inclusive governance
membership, recruitment and participation
- build membership and participation
- extend the demographics of participants in croquet
financial sustainability, funding and sponsorship
- use its financial resources wisely, diligently and sustainably in pursuit of its goals
- enable investment in the development of croquet at club and regional level
image
- continue to enhance the image and build the profile of croquet in Victoria
- croquet to be recognised as a sport by the wider community

For each of these strategic priority areas and goals, the plan sets out actions, responsibilities, and outcome measures.

Supporting documents to the plan include a five year strategic plan budget and a risk assessment.

The Council's Strategic Plan Implementation Sub-committee now takes responsibility for coordinating a rolling implementation plan.

The 2022 implementation plan, presented to Council in June, includes planned activities and target outcomes designed to progress towards the overall goals and outcomes set in the Strategic Plan. Council will review progress on the implementation plan at six monthly intervals and re-set the implementation plan early in each calendar year.

Croquet Victoria's current annual budget for 2022 to 2023 reflects commitment to the activities mapped out in the Strategic Plan.

Developing the new Strategic Plan

At the end of 2020, Croquet Victoria reached the end of its Strategic Plan for the period 2015 to 2020. Over this time we maintained a rolling implementation plan, including activities and target outcomes for each year of the plan (now updated for 2020).

A working group then took up work on our next Strategic Plan. This was to run from 2021 to 2025, but is now to start in 2022. This plan incorporates relevant action items from the Croquet Infrastructure Plan for the decade 2020 to 2030, which was endorsed by Council in April 2019 (see below). It embraces the full scope of Croquet Victoria activity, not just new initiatives as in past plans.

In view of the impact of the Corona pandemic, Council agreed at its August 2020 meeting to pause work on this plan and to tackle the issues involved in recovery from the pandemic: a plan for a Recovery Year. First proposals for the Recovery Year were presented to Council at its meeting in October 2020. The final version of the Recovery Year plan was endorsed by Council in February 2021 and was actioned during 2021. Outstanding activities will be folded into the 2022 Implementation Plan.

Council subsequently endorsed the following revised timeline for considering the development of the 2022-2026 Strategic Plan. Links are provided for documents which have been endorsed by Council.

vision and goals (December 2019) - updated in the light of feedback from clubs and regions
strategies to achieve the goals (February 2020)
outcome measures – how we will measure achievement of our goals (June 2021)
draft five year strategic plan budget, and risk assessment (August 2021)
interim report on outcomes of consultation re the plan for 2022 – 2026 (October 2021)
final approval of the plan as a whole (December 2021)

Following the August meeting of Council, a brief consultation version of the draft plan was circulated to clubs and regions, along with the full draft. The Working Group reviewed the comments received and updated the draft plan for submission to Council in December. Thanks to the regions, clubs, and individuals who commented. A compilation of the feedback is available from the Secretary, Croquet Victoria.

Constitution review working group

In line with the Strategic Plan commitment to periodic review of Croquet Victoria's governance arrangements, the Council decided in October 2021 to set up a working group to draft amendments to the current Croquet Victoria constitution, to move to a 9 member Board instead of the federal structure currently in place. Membership was determined by the Committee of Management at its November meeting - see list at www.croquetvic.asn.au/Sub-Committees.

The group presented its initial ideas to the February 2022 meeting of Council.

It is now developing a consultative document for regions and clubs.

Player Development project

The aim of this project is to provide croquet players with the confidence and skills to become more competitive at a higher level in their sport, by offering a series of intensive planned coaching workshops to an interested group. It is hoped that they will enter competition with the goal of improving and enjoying the game more as they progress.

Funding

The Player Development Project has been allocated government funding as a Together More Active Project. This funding will help Croquet Victoria pay the lead coaches an honorarium for their time, defray basic travel and accommodation costs, and contribute to meeting the travel costs of assistant coaches.

Each participant is being asked to make a one-off contribution of $20 at the beginning of a round of workshops, which will also help defray project costs including provision of a workbook to record their progress.

The workshop program

Ten rounds of workshops are envisaged. In Golf Croquet, there will be three rounds of workshops for novice competitors and three rounds of workshops for developing competitors; in Association Croquet there will be two rounds at each level.

Venues

Eleven clubs expressed interest in hosting workshops when information about the project was initially circulated in early 2020, and some other clubs have recently volunteered.

Other clubs are welcome to apply to host workshops. We will shortly be sending out an update to all clubs not on the list, inviting them to express an interest in hosting future rounds of workshops at either Novice or Developing levels. Depending on survey responses, numbers and funding available, they will be allocated a place on the calendar.

Coaches

Four lead coaches have been identified: John van der Touw and Maurice Cevaal-Hewitt, for Golf Croquet, and Stephen Forster and Kenn Boal, for Association Croquet. Using the Croquet Australia coaching manuals as a reference point, the coaches have been developing customised resources for the workshops.

First round of workshops

The first round of the planned two day Golf Croquet workshops are being held at Novice level in Boort (first workshop in November) and at Developing level in Bairnsdale (first workshop in January 2022). Both lead coaches for Golf Croquet are participating in these first workshops. The following two two-day workshops are likely to be held in March and May, giving time between workshops for the participants to work on their new skills and try them out in competition. It is expected that about 15 players will be included at each level in this round, with further places to be offered at other host clubs in future rounds.

For Association Croquet, the first round of workshops have been held at Charlton (Developing level - first workshop in November, second workshop, just completed, in February) and Elwood (Novice level - first workshop also in November). The remaining follow-up two-day workshops will be held in March and May. Kenn Boal is leading the Developing Competitor workshops at Charlton, and Stephen Forster and Kevin Beard are leading the Novice Competitor workshops at Elwood.

Joining the program

Players interested in participating in later rounds of the program are welcome to apply via an online survey.

We look forward to seeing the growth of competition with the enthusiasm of participants in each area that the coaches are able to reach during this project’s timeline, and beyond.

Contact

The project is being managed by Croquet Victoria's Together More Active Player Development Project working group, led by Tricia Devlin. She may be contacted via email at triciadev3@bigpond.com .

Croquet infrastructure plan 2020-2030

BACKGROUND

In late 2017 the Department of Sport and Recreation awarded Croquet Victoria a grant of $40,000 to fund the development of a ten year infrastructure plan for croquet across the area of Croquet Victoria, to run from 2020 to 2030.

Jayson Moran of Insight Leisure Planning was appointed as the consultant to undertake the project. A reference group for the project was also established, comprising two SRV representatives (Ben O’Brien and Kirsty Reidy), a local government officer (Mark Patterson, Manager of Sport and Active Living at Ballarat City Council), and the CEO of a statewide sporting association (Sam Watson, General Manager, Lacrosse Victoria).

For this project, information was collected about the facilities at every club in Croquet Victoria. In early 2018, LGAs, clubs and regions were surveyed. Later in the year a background information document and an initial Issues and Opportunities paper were sent to regions and clubs for comment. This feedback informed a set of draft documents, which were circulated for feedback in February / March 2019. Comments were received from 30 LGAs and a small number of individuals, clubs and regions. These were taken into account in the final documents.

CURRENT PROJECT STATUS

Three documents were approved by Council at their meeting on 15 April 2019.

Executive Summary and Action Plan.
Final Report, including a hierarchy framework for facilities at local, district, regional and state level
Background Research Report.

They provide a basis for a rolling action plan over the period 2020 to 2030. This is being incorporated into our forthcoming Strategic Plan.

Council agreed in April 2019 that it would be desirable to maintain an updated database of information on club membership and facilities along the lines of the information provided in the Background Research Report. This will support forward planning by clubs and Croquet Victoria.

To achieve this, clubs are being asked to update club infrastructure data in January each year, starting in 2020. A link to club data is available for each club via their Manage Your Club page. Data collection for 2020 and 2021 achieved 100% completion.

CROQUET FACILITY GUIDE

Croquet Victoria maintains a Croquet Facility Guide, for the information of Local Government Authorities and other groups interested in developing croquet facilities.

In 2019, a second edition was published incorporating the hierarchy framework recommended by the Infrastructure Planning Project.

A third edition was issued in February 2021, including new recommendations on lighting for croquet courts. This latest edition of the Croquet Facility Guide has been circulated electronically to Local Government Authorities and has been made available in hard copy to interested LGAs, clubs and regions.

Latest update: 6 July 2022/KP