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The club started in August 2013 with a modest club house and a old lawn 42 yds by 42 yds.
After discussions with residents of Thurston, Dr Dave Crawford and Mr Mike Percival founded the club with support from the Trustees of New Green Centre and key residents in the village - namely Mr Paul Ruthven, Mr Roger Ling, Clnl. Roger Bowden and Mrs Shirley Bowden. The impetus came from Thurston residents wishing to form a croquet club to replace a defunct bowling club. An open day was organised and much further interest was shown. The club joined the East Anglian Croquet Federation, which kindly loaned equipment for the start-up period. Mike and Dave set about acquiring or borrowing the remaining items needed, including a lawn mower initially loaned by Mike.
Soon a steering committee formed and the first meeting of members and potential members, chaired by Dave, took place. Barrie James was elected as the new Chair, Roger Ling as Treasurer and Maxine Wilde as Secretary. Dave Crawford and Mike Percival were elected to the committee together with Elaine James and Paul Ruthven.
There was a lot of work to do. The lawn grass was in a very poor state and under continual attack by rooks and crows so that parts of the lawn were almost completely excavated in small craters. Then there was the question of showing members how to play croquet, and the etiquette of the game. Soon everybody started to pull together and the club, 39 members strong, began social play on 'half' lawns for the autumn of 2013.
Play continued throughout a mild winter and the club fielded groups to play (informal) friendlies at Sudbury CC, Ipswich CC and Bury CC. We hosted Bury CC in late winter. Ipswich CC were kind in loaning mallets to get us started, and also Colchester presented mallets on short term loan for midSuffolk. There were offers also from Sudbury CC. Two members (Mike and Paul Homer) represented the club at a doubles indoor croquet event and achieved a good second place against strong opposition.
In the early spring of 2014 the first full yearly calendar of events was organised and the club joined the Croquet Association. At the A.G.M. in April of 2014, members voted to raise the subscription to £50 annually so that the club could improve the lawns and purchase it's own equipment. New members came forward, and many of the founder members rejoined for 2014. Further playing days were designated; and on every Tuesday (except special occasions) the lawn layout reverts to a full lawn for GC and AC play. This is to give members opportunities to play on a full alwn and in a different game code.
The club came of age in July 2014 when two members becaome East Anglian champions in golf croquet. Barrie James won his first tournament and received the 2014 East Anglian Croquet Federation trophy as handicap champion. Dave Crawford, in a parallel tournament on the same day, won out to become the East Anglian Croquet Federation level-play champion for 2014.
In September 2014, one half of the lawn area was top dressed, levelled and reseeded. Thanks to all the volunteers. The other half was renovated where necessary. Thus we had a very flat playing surface leading into the 2015 season.
The summer season started in April. At first the lawns looked tired, but flat and very good to play on. Then after fertiliser was used they greened up and started to grow well. More equipment was acquired though grant aid to supplement the start-up equipment provided by the Croquet Association.
We abandoned the friendly matches with other clubs because members don't have much interest in competitive play, though a very strong requirement for social play. This is the way the club will mainly develop though the committee does also want to attract more of the competitive type of player. Two members who started in 2013 have quickly become very good players and now can, and do, compete at, and for, Ipswich CC having joined there as 'second club' in the winter. It also appears there isn't too much interest in the internal competitions so they were left to be run on an informal basis by the small number of players who expressed continued interest.