Priority 01
Communication
CAQ needs a working channel to all 1,500 of its members. We're committed to building one. Without it, every other piece of work runs on rumour.
What CAQ will deliver this term, what else we face, and how the work runs.
Croquet in Queensland is at risk. Most clubs are held together by members in their eighties, with no generational changeover behind them. If one closure becomes acceptable, two-thirds could follow. About 500 people a year would join if the path to a session were obvious. It isn't.
As President for the term to October, I've decided what CAQ will focus on. We don't have many resources, so we'll do a few things well rather than many badly.
The cooperation framework
A volunteer organisation with many problems and few people can only function one way: everyone pulling in roughly the same direction. The four ideals define that direction. They're chosen because they hold a mixed group of volunteers together while the work happens.
If something is unpleasant to use, deal with, or be part of, it's broken.
The simplest solution that works. We don't have the staff or budget for anything else.
If a project doesn't advance an aim, we don't do it. Each should hit as many as it can.
Respect people, address the issue. Forgive honest failures. Work toward shared goals. When something heats up, "let's cooperate for croquet" is the reset line. It sounds simple. Use it anyway.
Businesses measure by profit. CAQ doesn't have one. So we measure against six aims; every project advances at least one.
Governance, finance, policy, productive relations with Croquet Australia and other state associations, streamlined volunteer admin.
Advertising, media, sponsorship, government relations, community awareness.
Come and Try, volunteer recruitment and support, member-to-member culture across codes, internal communications.
Club viability, help for clubs in difficulty, reducing volunteer burden, forums for cross-club problem solving.
Players, coaches, referees, state teams, competitions, pathways across all codes, etiquette.
Support ideas that advance the ideals, even outside current programmes. Invest in facilities and long-term sustainability.
Every CAQ decision answers four questions:
A no on any of them and we don't do it. If you're challenging a CAQ decision, use this structure.
The priorities, with reasons
Three priorities, chosen because every other useful thing depends on them. New members depend on a working pipeline. The pipeline depends on reaching members. Every volunteer task shifted onto a system is one less person to find. That's the order.
Priority 01
CAQ needs a working channel to all 1,500 of its members. We're committed to building one. Without it, every other piece of work runs on rumour.
Priority 02
Volunteers should be doing croquet, not paperwork. Every operational task we can shift onto a system is one less person to find.
Priority 03
Membership is what everything else depends on. About 500 people a year would join croquet in Queensland if the path were obvious. We're putting everything into making it obvious.
Two further pieces sit outside: establishing the baseline (this document does part of that job) and governance reform, a two-year conversation we start now and finish later.
The list, and how to help
CAQ has more issues than resources to solve from the centre. The list below is what we know about, outside the three priorities. Naming them publicly stops them pretending to be solved. Some will move because a volunteer wants to lead the work. Some will sit until someone does. Either is honest.
Most clubs are held together by members in their eighties, with no replacement cohort behind them. Club longevity work needs hands.
Decisions land on members as completed actions, and the feedback loop on what they raise doesn't close.
CAQ has read as more in control than its labour supports. Becoming plain-spoken about that is a writing and comms job as much as an operations one.
Active coaches and referees hold credentials that have expired or were never renewed. Renewal letters trigger pushback rather than uptake.
The code has an audience that hasn't found the pathway in. Players who'd gravitate to AC drift elsewhere or play it informally.
Conversations at clubs, with politicians, at competitions, in passing. Most never reach a written record. Good ideas die at "I'll write it up later".
The pipeline before the gate
CAQ exists to make clubs stronger. The work upstream of the club gate is ours: new members, advertising, sponsorship, the shared systems, the channels that reach all 1,500 members, the external voice with government and media. What happens after the gate belongs to the club.
Every club is different. McIlwraith is different to Eildon. Eildon is different to Wynnum. We want that. What we standardise is the pipeline before the gate.
Operating posture
One door for contact. Almost all member contact goes to the secretary, who routes the routine and passes up what needs the President's call. CAQ does the routing, not the member.
Discussion before decisions. Things that affect members get talked about before they happen, not announced after. By the time a decision lands, the conversation has been running for weeks.
Bad news from the committee, good news from the President. Policy changes, fee increases and process retirements come from the management committee. Membership growth, system launches and member achievements come from the President in their own name. The split protects the President's credibility.
Multiplier thinking. A decision affecting 500 people weighs 500 times more than one affecting a single member. The President's time goes to calls that move the dial: club visits, decisions that unblock systems, conversations with sponsors and politicians. One-person requests get handled in writing.
Put it in writing. Pavement complaints don't produce anything. The line is: "Don't tell me here. Send me an email." Written, it's actionable. Spoken, it evaporates.