Welcome to October! Although the clocks have gone back and the days are getting shorter there is plenty to look forward to in the tennis world.

We are opening Club News with a brief intro from Jill.

It was lovely to see many of you at the recent AGM, my thanks to the Football Club for hosting us so well. Following the Committee elections, I thought it might be helpful to share some of my initial thoughts about the focus for the coming year.

As Dermot (our outgoing Treasurer) described, the Club will firstly be mindful of the economic environment which we are all facing. Kevin (our new Treasurer) and the rest of the Committee will do our level best to hold our subscription rates to this year’s figure. This will be a difficult balancing act given the investment that is needed in the club, particularly courts 4 and 5. Martin Allen (our nearly new Head of Facilities) will keep members updated on plans around the courts.

In terms of other areas of focus, we are keen to continue to improve the offering we have for Junior members. We would very much like to be able to offer mid-week junior play plus potentially some activity during the easter and summer holidays. Saturday morning Junior coaching is going well, so far Committee members have been trying to get along regularly to support it through producing bacon sandwiches and hot drinks. It would be lovely to have a wider group of members who would be able to support this. Please email me if you can help.

Finally, we would very much like to be able to increase our focus on Community activities. We value being a village club and we would like to continue to be seen as an active part of the village. We are very happy to support local events where we can with publicity and volunteers (if members are happy to get involved). Please do get in touch with your ideas about how we can grow this area of the Club.

I still believe in BFTC continuing to be a club that offers a full range of Social, Semi Competitive and Competitive tennis to all our members and new prospective members where all members welcome any player to our club and make them feel part of our Family

Jill

AGM Presentations

We were pleased to present four awards at the recent AGM.

Dot Burgin Trophy

Teams competed in The Dot Burgin Tournament for the first-time this year. The tournament was created in memory of Dot, one of the Club’s founders and a remarkable lady.

We were delighted to be able to welcome Julie and Maria, Dot’s daughters, to the AGM to present the trophy to Team Flaunden (Geoff Allen, Ian Guest, Ali Lyons, Michael Ferguson, Helen Campbell, Kay Gobby, Jane Collis and Leah Jordan) The presentation was also watched by Olivia (Julie’s daughter and Dot’s granddaughter). It was very special to have two generations of Dot’s family present. Here's Steve with Julie, Maria and winning captain Ali Lyons.

Roy Smith Cup

Every year this Cup is awarded to the Most Improved Player at the Club. This year it was awarded to Lincoln Webb. Lincoln was unable to be at the AGM so Jill caught up with him shortly after at the Club

Contribution to the Club Award

This is a new award which the Committee wanted to make to acknowledge members who regularly are the first to volunteer to help. This year the Committee chose two members: Rebecca Rose and Helen Campbell. Both Helen and Rebecca have helped throughout the year in numerous ways. They have worked behind the scenes to organise tournaments, have coordinated groups of players, cleaned gutters, turned out to play in matches at short notice and cooked bacon sandwiches for the Juniors and helped with the BBQ and Club Champs. We could not have managed the year without them and they both deserved every petal of the bouquets they received! Helen came forward to accept her bouquet. Rebecca was unable to attend the AGM so was presented with her bouquet earlier in the day. Here's Helen with her bouquet

Junior Coaching

The first block of Saturday morning Junior Coaching has recently finished. The links for the next block are now available  on the website

It will be a 5-week block starting on 5th November and finishing on 3rd December. This will allow 10th and 17th December to be reserve dates in case of bad weather during the planned block.

It would be great to continue to provide bacon / egg rolls and hot drinks for Juniors and freezing parents.

To do this we need some extra volunteers. If you would be prepared to do this for one Saturday (or more) please let us know and we pull together a rota. Email Jill by clicking HERE

Winter Lighting

With the clocks going back and the gradual reduction in daylight hours many of us will have to start using floodlights again. For those new to the club, and members (like me) who regularly forget stuff, can I remind people that courts must be used in the order 5->1 when floodlights are required. This means bearing this in mind when booking courts but being flexible to adjust play when you arrive. This is a requirement from the council.

Floodlights are not allowed to be used at any point on a Sunday. Courts will therefore be closed from sunset.

Wear Red Day Friday 21st October

Many of you may have noticed the ‘wear red day’ banner at the bottom of our front page recently. Wear Red Day (Friday 21st October) was a national initiative across all sports to ‘show racism the red card’. BFTC was happy to publicise this and we were delighted that members attending Friday Social took this to heart by attending suitably dressed. Great effort Jasmine, Joan, Halina, Danny and Philippa (and Dave behind the camera!)

Club Social

With clocks changing and thoughts of the approaching cold dark nights of winter a happy group of BFTC members banished gloomy thoughts (and all hopes of summer bikini / mankini bodies) with a trip to The Bell followed by a delicious curry at Zeera. I can’t comment on the pub element as I didn’t make it but I’m happy to report that no one was banned and the group who made it to Zeera’s from there were impressively upright and in good form.

The meal at Zeera’s was chosen with much head scratching from an extensive list and then Dave kept us entertained demonstrating how to make a turkey from a napkin (yes really) so we all know what our Christmas Table decorations will be. There was a really good mix of people and conversation carried on pretty much at full tilt (and volume) until the food arrived. I think we probably sorted out most of the current issues of the world if only I could remember the solutions. With commendable focus and determination, we cleared all the plates and then thanked our lucky stars that we had Kev our new treasurer present to sort the bill (I mean work out the numbers rather than empty the budget).

Many thanks to the social team (particularly Kevin Wilks) for organizing this event.

If you haven’t tried one of our socials before, please do come along to one. The regular reprobates are a very friendly bunch and you will certainly feel welcome.

New Members and returning members

Welcome to all our new members who joined the club in the last month. Welcome back to everyone who has renewed membership. We look forward to seeing you on court and at social events!