You can be lucky!

On the 3rd Sunday in September, we had our usual morning Gateball session planned. To date, we had been lucky with the weather, since the club reopened in Mid-May. However, this last session was quite confusing. Normally we tell people, don’t worry about the weather, it always goes around the lawn, and we only have showers anyway in Strathfield! Not so this particular morning! The clouds opened, and the lawns were drenched, and there were rain clouds as far as the eye could see.

Some players coming from afar naturally pulled out, but five of us arrived dressed for all weathers. As it turned out, we needed all the different gear (heavy rain gear to gradual strip down). Torrential rain was replaced eventually by sunshine, and even the sunnies came out! We managed to have 3-4 games. It turned out to be perfect…hence the smiles in our socially distanced picture.

Our Club has been closed as the lawns undergo their annual maintenance work, so there will be no Sunday Gateball  on the 4th October at SCC,  as the grass needs to recover from its maintenance process.

As most of you know, we have Gateball at our club on the 1st and 3rd Sunday mornings normally. When we reopen, we also play several times during the week. Check out our website (Playing Session Timetable) for updated details. https://www.strathfieldcroquet.com  If coming, do contact me first.

Sunday Gateball players Elizabeth Dolphin, Petula Shun, Greg Deakin and Julia Rizzo (a new SCC Gateballer)

Oh, another little snippet…I have been asked to present a talk on Zoom on the 14th October at 6pm. The session is titled ‘Coach the Coach’ and information about it is now on the CNSW Website, News page.

Kate McLoughlin (CNSW Board Member) is organising it, and Pam Gentle (NSW Coaching Director) will also partake. I am one of the presenters, and whilst I will talk about club coach development at our club, I will focus my talk on a case study – the School Croquet program I designed and manage. Gateball was included in the school  program in 2018. Golf Croquet remains the focus. However, you may be interested to know that in 2019, I included ‘An Introduction to Gateball segment’ in the latter part of the program. Golf Croquet remains the main focus. A QandA Session follows my talk.

We do hope that Gateball coaches will register for the Workshop.

Ruth Bridger – Strathfield Croquet Club Gateball Organiser and Coach