The Club is pleased to announce The Croquet England Diploma for 2024 has been awarded to 2 members, Andrew Jackson and Hilary Bird!
We congratulate both Andrew and Hilary on this achievement.
ANDREW JACKSON:
Andrew Jackson took up croquet at Guildford and Godalming in 2018. Since that time, he has exemplified the word ‘invaluable’. We really don’t know what we would do without him.
He is an enthusiastic GC player, competing typically in C-level tournaments with occasional forays towards B-level. He has represented the club on many occasions, particularly in the SECF/Croquet SE leagues. But his main, and huge, contribution has been off-court.
His jams and preserves have brought in funds for the club, and he is a frequent member of the tournament catering team. Seeing that we were relatively short of GC referees, Andrew qualified a couple of years ago and now regularly gives up weekend days to referee. That has helped managers of tournaments enormously. He is also very active in setting up lawns, erecting marquees and so forth when tournaments are run. Andrew is a keen and effective handyman. All clubs need one and Andrew has, over the years, played this role to perfection. If he becomes aware that a job needs doing, it’s as likely as not that he will have done it before anyone has asked him.
Over the past year or so the club has undertaken the major development of installing an irrigation system for all four lawns. It was a complicated project needing the coordination of club members, electricians, suppliers and contractors. That coordinating function was performed by Andrew, whose background is legal rather than construction – or engineering-related, and who had to operate outside his comfort zone. We take our hats off to him for what he achieved for the club.
We believe that all-round commitment of this nature is deserving of recognition, and we have no hesitation in proposing him for the award of a Croquet England Diploma.
HILARY BIRD:
Hilary Bird has been a member of Guildford and Godalming for some 10 years and a committee member for around 7 of them, serving as Secretary from 2017 to 2023. The club transformed from 4 lawns in a part of a field to 4 lawns in a separate, fenced-off, area with a simple clubhouse, opened in 2017. That made it possible to run more tournaments, mainly through the Croquet England Fixtures Calendar but also events hosted on behalf of Croquet England and the WCF.This transformation has, naturally, involved members in a huge amount of extra work and organisation, and Hilary has been at the centre of that. She took over responsibility for maintaining the clubhouse, together with organising and providing catering for tournaments and club matches.Hilary is active in GC, AC and short croquet, and is a keen promoter of SC as a stepping-stone from GC to AC. She manages GC teams in the jurisdiction of the SECF/Croquet SE and is the club’s representative on that body. Within the club, she was instrumental in the construction of a new website, took responsibility for liaison with our overarching organisation, serves as our safeguarding officer, and was responsible for the researching and procurement of club logo clothing.But it’s not just all those official things that Hilary is noted for – it’s all the unofficial tasks she volunteers for – hoop setting at 6 am, giving tournament competitors lifts to the station, helping to erect marquees, setting up lawns on tournament days, doing laundry for a visiting competitor (yes, really!) and so forth. There must, by now, be hundreds of people from outside the club who are aware of the huge contribution made by Hilary.
