· Message from the President
· New Members' welcome
· CFA - NCC General Manager-   David's Corner.                     Bill Mead - The Lay of the lawns      

. Other news

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Message from your President.

Welcome to the USCA’s Croquet Week at the National Croquet Center! This week we welcome 130 players from more than a dozen clubs across the Country and the Caribbean. If you are in the tournament – play well and have fun!  If not, come and watch – and have fun!

The National Croquet Club has been fortunate to win the Lyon’s Trophy for the past two years, and will be playing for the coveted trophy for the best Club Team again this year.

The Club’s Annual Meeting was held Jan. 28^th. We now have a new Board and revamped club committees in place. Go to our website www.nationalcroquetclub.com   for full details. More classes are being added to meet the needs of our new members and the expanding membership. 

We are in the peak of the 2013 Florida croquet season, and our Club continues to grow, with over 150 new members added since August!

Among those new members are Stuart & Josie Jackson who were voted an honorary membership by the Board for their past service to the Center. Stuart acted as volunteer General Manager for over two years, and his wife Josie helped at the front desk and in other capacities. Stuart was especially successful in building our National Patron membership.

The success we are having comes with growing pains and increased court use. Double banking is the rule when our courts are full.

The Social Committee has great events on a regular basis. Information about this and other committees and Board actions are included in this Newsletter.

The new canopies are a welcome sight and another much appreciated improvement. They cost $11,000, and were a gift to the CFA of a few generous donors -- starting with a $2,000 challenge Grant from Bob Chilton. Ron Atkins, Stuart Baker, Jim & Sandra Feeney; Edith Friedheim, Michael Gibbons, and Charles Lazarus all stepped up to the plate and made it happen. Thanks & kudos!

New doors for the bar and lounge area are coming soon, thanks to a generous $7,000 pledge from Bob and Cathy Tankoos Barrett, who are donating the doors in honor of Cathy’s late husband, Joe Tankoos – one of the early promoters, supporters and stars of the sport.

Night-lighting for the courts is high on the “wish list”, and our options are being researched. Flowers and beautification from our Grounds and Garden Committee will continue to sprout up all around the Center as the CFA's budget allows.

A Club hi-lo doubles tournament will be held March 23-24, and we host the Florida Regional Six Wicket Championship April 11-14. Please consider playing in these exciting events. The active and sometimes crowded nature of March Croquet at the NCC will soon slow to a more relaxed atmosphere with easy court access.

The Summer Golf Croquet League is expected to start mid July.  In November we will host the USCA Regional Nine-Wicket Championships. The USCA National Nine-Wicket Championships will be here in December, right after the USCA Seniors and Masters Championships (6- Wicket American Rules). All of these are great fun and I hope you will take part in as many tournaments as you can. It really improves your game and your mind.

Enjoy the USCA Club Teams Week ---- Go National Croquet Club!!!

John Warlick

New Board 2013

Clint Fowlkes,Treas; Ruth Summers,  Jodie Rugart, David McCoy, Dale Locke, VP; Mary Shields, Sec; John Warlick, Pres

CFA - NCC General Manager

David's Corner

In view of the length of the Club Newsletter this month, I will send a separate GM Newsletter in the near future covering other operating and financial aspects of the Center, of interest to Club members.

Right now, however, I want to support Bill Mead’s comments and thanks for all of the volunteer efforts by the National Croquet Club members to beautify and support our operations. We especially appreciate and thank them for their financial support for special projects – the new canopies and the Dawson Ball Fund. Without such major support, we simply could not maintain our position as the largest and finest croquet facility in the world.

In that regard, we have numerous new initiatives to make this Center even more supportive of the sport. For the grounds, these include further lawn improvements, including the addition of courts; new lawn maintenance equipment; night lighting; numerous landscaping beautification projects; repaving and expanding the parking lot; etc. For the building, plans include painting; upgrading the ladies bathrooms; installing security cameras; new flat-screen HDTV’s for the lounge and the bar; new computers for the staff; etc.

All of these projects require financial support. We hope you will participate in our fundraising efforts to make this facility even more of a showplace visually, as well as the finest and most comfortable place in the world to play croquet. - David McCoy

It has been a busy, busy winter.  Sometimes too hot, sometimes too cold and sometimes just right.  The lawns have been playing fast with the cold weather turning the grass purple then brown.  

As it warms up we will be able to spruce up the grass to our usual great conditions.  Of note, we have added a brand spanking new Dixie Chopper (rotary mower for borders), a first for the club, and a new, lightly-used Triplex Toro greens mower!

Where would we be without our volunteers? You may have noticed all of the new corner flags. Please, make sure that you thank Carol Difazio. She bought the material and sewed them all -a huge undertaking - as well as repairing our club flag .  

The equipment shed is much improved after Judy Just and Sharada Alducin’s great clean-up and rearrangement of the place.

Adriana Wycoff has cheerfully maintained our wild flower planters and has also been nursing new plantings for the pond area.

Mary Shields and Sandra Feeney trimmed the white Landscape Begonias in the front of the building (a big job), and helped spruce up the entrance.

 David Spivey has been busy manufacturing his beautiful mallets, repaired the forever broken threshold at the entrance to the veranda, and fixed several of our club mallets.

Dale Locke has been busy getting dirty in the shed working on our small engines, changing oil, and consulting on a variety of issues.  

Please make a special effort to thank these and all of our tireless teaching volunteers in making the Center and the Club a better place for all of us. 

Special thanks to Derek Wassink for spearheading the effort to raise funds for the new Dawson balls that we are all enjoying, and to all of those who donated:  Michael Todorovich, Charles Lazarus, Conrad & Jodie Rugart, Stuart Baker, John & Anthea Blamire, Larry (Mac) McDermott, Peter Just, Nanci Hunt, Patrick Foy, Derek Wassink, Robert Van Tassell, and Dick Brackett. Please take care of these assets and put them back into their respective holders after every use. They can turn up in some interesting places and occupy an inordinate amount of time searching the grounds every day!

You may have noticed the large pile of debris that David and Carl  trimmed from our grounds.  We had three truck and trailer loads removed from the grounds.  They have done excellent work on this huge job of trimming, chain sawing and cutting (up to 26 feet) old palm fronds and tree limbs.  That is a lot of hard work.

Our courts have seen unprecedented usage this season with four major tournaments, six croquet schools and countless private events -- not to mention all of our new members.  

Special thanks to our tireless volunteers who teach our new members and the free public lessons, and give up their time to come out in all weather, rain or shine, light or dark to assist in the private croquet events.  If you haven't yet helped out on these events, please see Marie so we can contact you to help on these croquet events that help keep our doors open and your dues low. It's a lot of fun, and you meet some very interesting people.

Another shout out to John and Anthea Blamire for their work running the Ruth Brown, Don Whalen for keeping our  golf croquet Clarence Trophy going, and Mac McDermott and John Blamire for tirelessly conducting the Association Rules mini clinic, and Dick Scherf for teaching our new members how to play the American 6-wicket game.

If anyone can use it, we have an old, but repairable Skag (riding rotary) mower in need of a new engine.  See me to pick it up for a nominal fee (it needs more tender loving care than we can provide).  In that vein does anyone care to donate -- for a tax credit -- an old, but still useful, small pick-up or small van that we can add to our equipment list? We definitely need such a vehicle to pick up fuel, fertilizers (not in the same trip!) and various large items necessary to the running of the club. See Bill or David McCoy for our ever changing Wish List.