One of the objectives as part of our MTC 2019-20 plan was to integrate the floodlights with the online booking platform and Smartgate (the technology which controls the PIN code access for court bookings). The Board of Trustees is pleased to announce to members that we have committed the required investment of funds to achieve this and the work required to deliver this functionality has just been completed & the system is now working successfully (there were a few teething problems which needed testing & ironed out!).
As a member, you no longer require floodlight tokens, nor access to the floodlight box on court (in fact this box has now been locked). In accordance with dusk timing, floodlights will be required for a booking beyond dusk time. Our booking system is now set up to collect £2 per half hour from you when you book a court for on or after dusk time. Court bookings themselves are still free of charge to members obviously. For example, as a member, if you now book a court for or beyond 4pm for an hour, you will be charged £4 for floodlight usage. This charge will be deducted from your credit card in the same way as it is for coaching classes, etc. Floodlights will come on before your booking time (currently 15 mins, though there is a fault which the booking system suppliers are looking at as we want to change this to 5 mins) and go off 5 mins after your booking time (assuming there is not a sequential booking for that court).
For non-members, the court fee is still £5 per half hour (except on a Friday 12:30-16:00 where we operate a concessionary rate of £1 per half hour) & if a court is booked on or beyond dusk, there will be an additional charge of £2.50 per half hour for floodlight usage.
Floodlighting required for social evenings, coaching & league matches remains free of charge.
As always & more so now, it is important that members manage their own bookings & if a booking needs to be cancelled for whatever reason, it is important that you do so. A booking beyond dusk which is not cancelled (within the allowable cancellation timeframe) but is not used will still incur the floodlight fees & the floodlights will still come on.
Finally, if any members have purchased floodlight tokens & have any unused ones, if you return those before 31st January 2020, we will refund the token value (£5). Please pass any unused tokens to Stella or Rosemary.