The Range-Maleny celebrates 30 years, welcomes visitors from Japan and Caloundra, and congratulates Sarah Widin and Donna Manning

Our year here in Maleny has been off to a great start. We have welcomed some new members who are making a great contribution to our club and will be broadening our scope of players to compete against on our regular play days. Our players have been busy preparing for and playing in various competitions and regional, state and national events. For such a small club, we are fortunate to have so many strongly improving and enthusiastic players. Our focus continues to be on Association Croquet, along with an increasing participation in Ricochet. Golf Croquet is offered to visitors to the club and local visiting groups are regularly availing themselves of this opportunity.

On January 26, we participated in Maleny's Australia Day event when many sporting and recreational clubs took part in a "Mobile Come and Try Day". The showgrounds, in which we are located, hosted the citizenship ceremony adjacent to our lawns and the Apex Club held a big barbeque breakfast nearby. We set up our lawns to demonstrate our great game, giving visitors to the showgrounds the chance to come in and "have a try". The photo shows Vince Carbery with a special visitor who came all the way from Japan to experience Australia Day with us!

We do love having visiting groups! On Friday 17th February and 17th March, we welcomed our regular visitors from Caloundra Gardens Over 50's Village, Mark Rd West, who come up monthly for a fun morning of Golf Croquet on half courts. This group enjoyed their morning tea break on what was a very hot morning on the 17th. Other recent visitors included members of the Down Under Caravan Club who came for an afternoon of Golf Croquet and refreshments, also on 17th March. Some of our club members enjoyed a delicious afternoon tea. Being located at the Maleny Showgrounds within view of the area allocated to camping, we often attract the attention of visitors from all around Australia who stop by to chat with us about the game we are playing. Hosting events such as these helps promote Croquet in the wider community and we find that our visitors enjoy the game and our hospitality.

As mentioned earlier, our players participate keenly in events in our region. Over the last month or two, members have played in the Joy Gardner 2nd division trophy in Toowoomba (with Ken Barker achieving runner-up), the Bribie Island Traditional Funerals Association Croquet Gala Event (won by Lynette Evans), the Mary Masters Association Croquet tournament at Bribie Island and the Bribie Island Gala Ricochet tournament (with Lynette again having a successful tournament coming in second).

Lynette Evans with her trophy after the Traditional Funerals event.

Teams have also participated in the Sunshine Coast Regional competitions in both AC and Ricochet. Donna Manning and Ken Barker played in the SCRCC AC Open Singles while Nick Cram competed in Div 2. A team of Dianne Horsman and Lynette Evans competed in Div 3 of the regional Ricochet competition, with Dianne coming in second.

We are also fielding teams in the Sunshine Coast Pennants competitions. Our Ricochet Pennants team of Dianne Horsman, Lynette Evans and Vince Carbery have been off to a great start, winning all three matches against Bribie Island in their first round. The Lochwood competition (AC Div 1 and 2) is about to commence with our team of Sarah Widin, Donna Manning, Ken Barker, Nick Cram, Vince Carbery and Bill Habner readying themselves for the competition. Our Bray team (AC Div 3 and 4) of Dianne Horsman and Lynette Evans are preparing for their competition which begins shortly. We wish them continuing success in their already successful year and congratulate them on their hard work which is resulting in great improvements in their games.

In other club news, we would like to acknowledge the achievements of Donna Manning who is a reserve player for the Queensland AC team. Donna recently captained a Queensland "B" team which was formed under the auspices of Croquet Queensland to play against the Queensland team preparing for upcoming competitions. This "B" team acquitted themselves very well by all accounts. Donna also travelled with the QLD team to the Eire Cup in Melbourne on March 15-19 as a reserve and played in two doubles matches and 6 singles matches, acquitting herself very well by winning three of her singles matches. A hearty congratulations to Donna from everyone in our club!

Donna Manning, reserve player for the Queensland AC team.

We would also like to extend our congratulations to Yuni Rowell from Coolangatta who is now the Australian Women's Champion.

In some other great news for our club, our President, Sarah Widin, has been elected Vice President of Croquet Queensland. We consider this a great honour for the club and well earned for Sarah as she has given many hours of her time to the administration of the sport at the Sunshine Coast and State level. Congratulations Sarah!

Sarah Widin, President of The Range-Maleny and newly elected Vice President of Croquet Queensland.

Lastly, but certainly not least, this year our club is celebrating our 30th anniversary on Sunday 30th July from 10am to 3pm at our lawns here at the Showgrounds, Maleny. We will be having morning and afternoon tea and a BBQ lunch alongside fun croquet games for all to enjoy. All are welcome, however we will need numbers so if you are planning to come and celebrate with us, please RSVP by Saturday 23rd July 2023 by emailing therange@croquetqld.org or by phoning President Sarah Widin 0417640704. We would love to have you along.

From our club to yours, happy croqueting!

By Helen Uhlmann, The Range-Maleny. From the Croquet Newsletter, March/April 2023, pages 32-35.