On 18th October we had a really well attended AGM followed by a wonderful celebration of 2025. 

Dena Nelson Smith, our Committee Chair and Inspirational Head Coach presented this year's winners with Cups, Medals and Awards.  

Ellie Jenkins needs a special mention for winning the Blackburn Trophy for The Most Improved Player of 2025, very well done Ellie! 

Surprises and thanks were given to the heroic volunteers of the year. 

With permission from Bev, Angelique and Charlie, I thought it would be lovely for anyone who stumbles across this page and is thinking of joining Crablands, to read their feedback and why we love this club. 

What a great evening at the awards tonight! 🎾👏 Huge congrats to all the well-deserved winners — and above all it’s just amazing how much goes on behind the scenes to keep the club running! From coaching and matches to maintenance, fundraising and everything in between — such incredible effort. You guys do this every day.

Big thanks to everyone who gives their time and energy to make Crablands what it is. I’ve seen such a massive improvement over the three years I’ve been a member, and I just love this club — and everyone I’ve played with or just chatted to in the bar! 🍷 You make it such a special place. 💚 Thank you 🙏🏼

I couldn’t agree more with @⁨Beverley Bramwell⁩ !

Ann and I had a fab time last night and for me personally I’ve been with Crablands for a year now (Elms closed this time last year 😵‍💫) and you’ve all been so welcoming, friendly and completely accepting (I know I can be a teensy bit loud and quirky 🤪🤣) so thank you

And special thanks to @⁨Dena Nelson-Smith⁩ who got me back into both playing and coaching tennis and I’m enjoying it more than ever 😇

What lovely wholesome messages to see first thing today. Every single member makes this community special in some way and everyone is so welcoming & friendly. But all the quiet, behind the scenes effort and drive from the committee and those who support them & volunteer their time makes it a great (& exciting) club to be part of. Thank you X

If you weren't able to attend here is the 2025 REPORT FROM THE CHAIR:

Thank you all for coming this afternoon. Lovely to see so many of you here.

This is an opportunity for me (on your behalf) to thank all the volunteers who work tirelessly to keep the Tennis Section thriving.

Many thanks to all of the committee who have successfully steered us through another exciting year. A special thanks to Chris Marsh who is stepping down as Secretary after many years in this voluntary role.

I would like to officially welcome Ali to the committee, who is already raising the standards, as she has performed wonders by constructing a new website for the Tennis section, if you haven’t already checked it out yet please ask one of us to send you a link or explain how to find it.

I would also like to thank Mark who is our fantastic groundsman. He has co-ordinated working parties to keep the grounds in order, they have done a brilliant job and it has been nice to see so many members stepping up to join the teams when we asked for help.

Mark is due to update the token meters for the Tennis court lights, so people can insert pound coins instead of having to purchase tokens. 

Well done and thank you both for helping us join the 21st Century.

After years of researching, debating and persuasion, Crablands now has WIFI and a smart television, which means we can watch live sports in our clubhouse. Thank you Bev for donating her television.

Team training has continued throughout the year on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday evenings.

We have three teams playing in both the Summer and Winter Sussex Leagues.

In the winter the men’s 1st team finished 2nd in their league with Michael finishing at the top and Andy Jenkins second out of 80 players. The men’s 2nd team finished in 2nd place with Eddie making his debut, he was undefeated and came 5th out of 77 players.

The ladies team came 4th, with Captain Jess finishing in 4th place out of 79 players.

In the summer our men’s teams both finished mid table and our ladies team came third. Ellie making her debut and she finished 4th out of 62 ladies.

Well done to all the players and thanks to the captains Michael, Nigel and Jess for organising all of the training and the matches. This is a very onerous task and the team teams would not exist without you.

The Club Championships were well supported again this year. The weather was kind to us and Finals day was a triumph, there were some very exciting matches for all of the supporters to watch. Thank you to everyone who donated delicious cakes and snacks to keep us fuelled. The results and presentation will follow this.

We also played three fun round robin tournaments, a mixed, ladies and men’s doubles. A huge thank you to Viv for running all of our one day events so seamlessly and also for being there every Saturday morning, keeping the registers and running such a tight ship.

The junior section is continuing to grow and the Saturday coaching sessions are very well attended. It has ‘warmed my cockles’ to see Eddie, Ellie and Olly progress from Saturday coaching into the adult teams, playing in the Sussex League AND WINNING matches in their first season.

We ran two Junior/Senior Competitions with some younger juniors playing in their first ever tournament, both Eddie and Olly playing as a senior in the competition for the first time. There were some really good matches and it is great to see how well our juniors are progressing. Results will follow this.

A HUGE thank you to Jess for running the Promoted Junior / Senior afternoon on Sundays. She has encouraged the juniors each week, they have all improved so much - it has really shown in their play. Toby’s standard has improved so much that we would like to invite him to train with the Seals, our Men’s 2nd Team. Well done Toby.

We are really lucky to have found such an engaged and enthusiastic coach, Angelique, to join our coaching team. Angelique is running a Ladies and a Men’s Cardio Tennis session on Saturday and Sunday mornings, and has just started a Rusty Racquets Doubles Training course on Sunday mornings and an early morning Cardio session on Wednesday mornings.

Thank you to Carol and Tony who have been our bar team team leaders this year, supported by Ali, Mark, Marie, Neil, Lorraine, Patsy and Nigel.

Another unsung hero that I would like to thank is Patsy ‘our silent superstar’, who works tirelessly behind the scenes. Patsy has conquered Clubspark, enabling us to book courts online. We will also be able to renew our membership online next year thanks to Patsy, Ilzay and Mitzy. Patsy dealt with all the finances for our large event and too much else to mention, thank you Patsy.

I would like to introduce Carol Gilmour who is our Welfare Officer and Safeguarding Lead 

I would like to finish by giving another HUGE thank you to Bev, who worked a miracle and overcame many barriers to run the BRILLIANT BALL in June. Everyone had an awesome evening of food, drink, dancing and laughter. THANK YOU BEV for raising enough money to enable match funding from Sport England, which made it possible to renovate court 3. And thank you to each and every one of you that bought a ticket (whether you attended or not) to make this very special and unique event happen.

We are a great community and come together well, we have shown this in all of our fundraising efforts so far.

We have achieved more in the last few years that anyone could have dreamed of. When I returned here three years ago to coach at the club, I was told (YET AGAIN) “we will never get lights”, “you are DREAMING if you think we can raise over 30 thousand pounds for a new court”, “no way can you ask members for donations, they will never do it”. Pickleball in Selsey - Wow!

We dreamed it and WE DID IT?

What will we dream of next?