Croquet Vic plans ahead

Croquet Victoria has just reached the end of its Strategic Plan for the period 2015 to 2020. We have also maintained a rolling implementation plan including activities and target outcomes for each year of the plan (now updated for 2020).

A working group has been developing our next Strategic Plan. This was to run from 2021 to 2025, but will now start in 2022. This plan will incorporate relevant action items from the Croquet Infrastructure Plan for the decade 2020 to 2030, which was endorsed by Council in April 2019 (see below).

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.

The revised timeline for Council to consider the development of the 2022-2026 Strategic Plan is as follows:

vision and goals (December 2019)
strategies to achieve the goals (February 2020)
alignment between the strategies and the budget (April 2021)
outcome measures – how will we measure achievement of our goals (June 2021)
initial implementation plan and milestones (August 2021)
the finalised plan for 2022 – 2026 (October 2021 – in time for it to inform 2021 budget planning).

In line with this timeline, Council considered a first draft of the Vision and Goals at its October 2019 meeting, endorsed it for distribution to clubs and regions for feedback, and approved an updated version at its December meeting - now attached to the minutes of that meeting.

The strategies to achieve the goals were endorsed at the Council meeting on 26 February 2020 - see the draft minutes for the paper which was discussed.

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 achieved 100% completion. Data collection for 2021 is now in progress.

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 will shortly be circulated to Local Government Authorities and made available to clubs and regions.