My name is Colin Hemming and I am the manager of the Selectors' Weekend this year. I have played in the event several times, and had the privilege of managing it when it was held at my home club of Colchester two years ago.

For those of you who are not familiar with this competition, it is often thought of as a "Nearly-an-Eight". It is held at the same time as the real Eights (President's Cup, Chairman's Salver, Spencer Ell & Treasurer's Tankard) and often populated with players who had hoped to get into an eight, as well as old diehards like myself who realise they've probably reached their limit. As its name suggests, the entrants are selected by the same committee that selects all the eights, and numbers are usually restricted to 16, but may be more if sufficient lawns are available. This year the event is held at Sidmouth CC, which has 4 lawns, so we have 16 players.

Traditionally, the event has been held as a flexible Swiss event, with the top 4 players qualifying for a knockout, but, and here is the rub, people who achieve "the same number of wins as the fourth-ranked player" also qualified. This could present the manager with a difficult problem to fit everything in on the final day.

This year, the format is that the players are split into two American (all-play-all) blocks with the winner and runner up in each block qualifying for a 4-player knockout. All-play-all means seven games each, of course. Three games are to be played on each of the first two days, plus one game on the morning of the third day. This leaves the rest of the final day for the semi-finals and final.

I'm sure you can see there are potential issues with this format as well, but I don't want to pre-judge anything, but just to get on with the job. This is the first time I have used Croquet Scores, but have managed to create the blocks reasonably easily, and don't anticipate trouble entering the results. I don't anticipate having a lot of time to type commentary, but may be able to do an end-of-day summary. I'm hoping to persuade a few players with smart phones to do a bit of typing in between games . . .