Te Aroha Croquet Club

We're all set on the Te Aroha Domain for tomorrow's next Golf Croquet tournament in it's 11th year of our Winter Series of Tournaments! With visitors traveling from all over the central North Island it's always our mission to get it right
Lawns beautiful ☑️
Lines marked ☑️
Entrants notified ☑️
Volunteers ready☑️
Sponsor Allison Ward Harcourts Te Aroha ready with gifts ☑️
Weather ordered 🌤️☀️☑️

Spectators are most welcome all day from 9am to 3pm. Come and see for yourself what a great game this is. Plenty of seating available too.

A bit of excitement at our monthly club meeting today with Kath recognised for 10 years of service and membership. Congratulations Kath - and thanks for being such a fabulous member, player, mentor and friend. Your presence makes our club a very special place.

A huge thank you too to Alan who is stepping down from his President and Tournament Manager roles after 11 years of service. Alan has chalked up many notable achievements over his time in the chair, and the club is left in a strong position as the new leadership team takes over the reins.

Congratulations to the following, who are stepping up to fill the void:
- Russell - our new President
- Paul - our new Vice President
- Pauline - expanding her role to become Tournament Manager.

You can rely on the membership's encouragement and support as you settle into your new positions.

But don't panic - we're not losing Alan. He's still green keeper, referee and a top premier player - as evidenced by his power roquets which send his opponents' balls (and sometimes his own) over the boundary, across the adjacent lawn and through the flower garden!

A lot of socialising goes on over the course of croquet play, interrupted periodically by perfect positional shots, balls roqueted away or hoops won. Chatting gives way to “Great shot”, “Didn’t even touch the sides”, or in Kath’s case, “And the crowd roared!”.

But for a sustained chatting session, you can’t pass up a good lunch, particularly when it’s hosted by our friends and club sponsors Nuri and Dilek at Saz kebab te aroha. Not only do they provide wonderful Turkish fare, they figuratively skip across the Med to purvey delicious pizzas that would make a Neapolitan weep with envy.

And what a perfect opportunity to congratulate Helen on her 11 years of service to the club. An excellent player on the court and a tireless worker behind the scenes. Many thanks Helen!

We were devastated when back in May (see pics) vandals tore up our pristine croquet lawns. While they have since recovered thanks to expert attention from Alan our groundskeeper, we were anxious that they weren’t damaged again, and were delighted when we received word that the culprits had been apprehended.

Not only had they vandalised our lawns with their bikes, they had damaged other public property, disrupted local businesses, and travelled at speed on footpaths endangering pedestrians.

This week, after a number of incidents, our Te Aroha community acted. People picked up the phone and reported to the Police what they were seeing. The response from the Police was outstanding. Four patrol cars and eight officers attended, and the youths were quickly located and dealt with.

Thank you Te Aroha residents and the NZ Police for your vigilance and response.

Earlier in the week the Club was delighted to host the MPDC M365 project team for their project closure celebration. Team members, aware Project Manager Steve was a croquet enthusiast, wanted to get a taste of this game of skill and strategy for themselves.

After a pizza lunch in the clubrooms play got underway across three courts, with club members on hand for guidance. Two 30 minute games ensured everyone had a chance to play with and against most of their colleagues. The hoots of laughter echoing around the Domain and broad grins said it all.

The Kaimai Challenge brings together teams of six (two Premiers, two Intermediates and two Primaries) in a series of croquet tournaments over summer. Each tournament has a unique six-game format of singles and pairs, where the pairs are across different grades. This is hugely valuable for developing players picking up strategy and technique tips as they play with and against the Premiers.

With the competition complete it was time for a social game and prizegiving hosted by the Te Aroha Terminators at our beautiful Domain lawns at the foot of the mountain.

Check out the action in the video clip, and our winners in the photos.

Our thanks to Denise and her Triton Hearing team for sponsoring the tournament.

Winter Series Round 2 - the results!

The club recently welcomed 40 players from around the Waikato and Bay of Plenty back to our beautiful Domain lawns for Round 2 of our Winter Series.

Everyone was stunned by the ethereal quality of the light that bathed the dew-laden courts as play got underway. There's something very special about playing in a Winter Series under the mountain.

Check out the attached photos for a teaser - the full complement can be found in the Gallery on our website: https://www.sporty.co.nz/tearohacroquet/Gallery

Our special thanks to Four Square Te Aroha for sponsoring this tournament.

And congratulations to the winners! Can you repeat your efforts for Round 3 on Tue 30 June? Or will another team step up to the podium? Stay tuned...

Club members were busy over May knitting 128 peggy squares. Nice work, team!

So were they to keep our mallets warm and protected? Perhaps a scarf to keep out the chills of winter play?

Something much better – we were pleased to get behind Harcourt’s Allison Ward’s initiative to create peggy squares to keep premmie babies warm and comforted. The squares are sewn together to make colourful blankets and distributed to Neonatal Intensive Care Units.

We were delighted to hand over our peggy squares to Allison Ward Harcourts Te Aroha, and our thanks too to Aroha Quilts – our first port of call for needles and wool.