Report from the Chair for the AGM – 17th March 2026

As we enter the 42nd year of Leigh Tennis Club I am increasingly conscious of the need to recruit fresh faces to join our teams, support our coaching programmes and take over some of the responsibilities of running the Club.

For a small village we are very fortunate that we have excellent facilities and our membership numbers have held steady. If the Club is to continue to thrive, however, then the younger generation will need to take up their racquets and volunteer for a few administrative duties.       

Over the last 12 months we have managed to field a Ladies and a Mixed team in the Weald Leagues. Unfortunately, we have had to withdraw the Mixed team from this season’s Summer League because of a lack of players. If you would like to play in matches and have not yet come forward please do get in touch. We can enter again in the Winter League and it would be good to keep this going if we can.

In terms of coaching, Adam continues to provide Ladies coaching on a Monday morning, Leigh Primary School coaching on Tuesdays and junior coaching on Wednesday afternoons and evenings.   

The cost of coaching Leigh Primary students is met in part by the Club and in part by donations from the Parish Council and the Morley Trust. Our facilities are also made available to Leigh Primary School for netball practices and matches.

To supplement Adam’s coaching we have arranged some group adult coaching on Thursday evenings through the Hollybush Tennis Academy and Saturday morning coaching for juniors. The Saturday coaching has proved very popular and we are hoping to repeat this in the summer term. 

The weather over the last few months has not been great, but as the days get longer, and with any luck drier, I am sure our numbers for Tuesday night club nights will pick up.   

Our financial reserves (approximately £40,000) are healthy but would not be sufficient to meet the estimated cost of resurfacing (£50,000) and upgrading our floodlights to LED (£16,000). In due course we are likely to need to apply for grants and other sources of income to meet this shortfall. With this in mind, we have written to KCC to secure an extension of our current lease.

We have managed to reduce our operating deficit to £180, a very significant improvement on last year’s deficit of £4,630.  

Our subscription rates remain very competitive when compared to other clubs in our area but, to maintain our reserves, and keep pace with the steep rise in utility costs, the Committee have decided to recommend the following increase in subscriptions for 2026/2027.  

Subs for 2026/2027

Senior                          £95      to        £100

Family                         £205    to         £215

Junior 12 to 25            £40      to         £40*

Junior 11 and under     N/A                  £20

Social                           £17      to          £18

Membership

Chris Scott has kindly agreed to continue with his role as membership secretary for another year. We are very grateful to him for the work he does dealing with the annual renewals and helping new members to join as and when they apply during the year.

Family membership remains open to adults and their “children” under the age of 26.

Any regular playing members, over the age of 25, are expected to pay full adult subs, unless they are students, or are in receipt of income support.

*To encourage new Junior members to join the club the annual subscription will remain at £40.

Our Club rules allow paid up members to play with visitors up to 3 times a year. If visitors are likely to want to use the courts more often than this then we would expect them to join the Club as members.       

We currently have 175 members in total (+6). 97 adult members (-9), 57 junior members (+14), 19 social members (+1) and 2 associate members (0).

Courts and grounds

Our lease with KCC is up for renewal in 2030 and we have opened discussions with KCC about the lease renewal and are awaiting their response. Many thanks to Nick Hales for his help with this and for his help during site meetings with the school and KCC during the erection of the new school fence.   

The court surfaces are holding up well and we think that if we maintain our practice of having them professionally cleaned each November then this should be sufficient for the next few years. When we do eventually re surface the courts we will replace the court netting at the same time and replace the floodlight bulbs with LED bulbs.

Thanks once again to Judi Bishop who does a great job keeping the Clubhouse clean and tidy and to Laurence for attending to day to day maintenance issues.

Teams

Our match secretary, Ali Shamash, has worked tirelessly arranging our fixtures in the Weald League and organising our Ladies and Mixed teams.

A summary of our results is set out below:- 

Summer 2025

Ladies Doubles

Finished second to bottom in Division 1 so will be in Division 2 for the 2026 Summer season.

Mixed Doubles

Finished 4 out of 6 in Division 3 so would have been playing in the same Division this Summer. Due to lack of interest from the male players, however, we have had to pull out of future mixed doubles matches.

Winter 2025 to 2026

Ladies Doubles

We have performed well in Division 3 and should be moving to Division 2 Winter 2026.

Mixed Doubles

We still have 2 matches to play due to bad weather.  We are currently fourth (out of 6) in Division 3.

Social

We had good numbers at our traditional Christmas Drinks party and summer barbeque.

A great deal of work goes on behind the scenes preparing and then running these events and we owe a particular debt of gratitude to Janet Oppen, Tigger Neeves, Laurence Coleman and Chris Scott.

A huge thanks to all the Committee for all they do to help run Leigh Tennis Club and to organise the various activities we host each year. Kendra Felisky does a brilliant job as our Treasurer and Iza, as our Secretary, produces minutes of our meetings with exemplary efficiency.   

If any of our newer members would like to join the Committee, please don’t be shy. Duties are not onerous and we would love to have your input on how we can promote and develop the Club.   

Helen Scott (aka Hobhouse)                                                                           March 2026