I'm a bit late this month. Sorry about that. On holiday, sick and busy. Three excuses.

I'm fine now. Thank you for asking.

So - the season has ended but our club teams' success goes on with a strong start made in the Autumn leagues (hangovers after a recent Thursday night notwithstanding).

Chris Marsh and his volunteer team have repaired and resown our rather ragged grass courts and we will reap the benefits next Spring. The grass is already regrowing and the damaged areas receding.

The volunteer team have done a great job but... our search for an SLTC professional groundsman... goes on.

BTW if you arrive to find the hard courts need urgent leaf clearance, please grab the handheld leaf blower from the club house. It's lightweight and easy to use. More importantly it's better for the courts than brush sweeping which breaks up the leaves which then clog up the drainage holes.

Not many people know that. But now we do.

Sadly, the company recycling our used tennis balls, Dyuce, has gone bust. We are looking at alternatives and will keep you posted.

As well as a groundsman, and a company to help with recycling, we are also looking for a new member to join us on the SLTC committee where we have a number of options in terms of work that needs to be done. If you would like to help sustain SLTC as the best club in Shropshire (by miles) please drop me a line or give me a call.

Otherwise, I'm going to pick someone out of a hat full of members names at the coming AGM.

Seriously, after two resignations, we are one short of the requirement in our constitution for 9 committee members. We are planning less meetings next year and are re-organising so that roles and responsibilities are clearer, less time consuming and dare I say it, less onerous.

Could this be YOU?

More on this and other club matters at the coming AGM on Saturday 22nd November.

No, you are not away, and you are coming to support your club. Remember? It's already in your diary. 5PM, after the social.

I just read an interesting article with the first sentence being 'the only sport with love in it has been on a tear since Covid'. The gist of the article is that, despite some pressure from Padel and Pickleball, there has been substantial growth around the world in numbers playing and wanting to play tennis, echoing what has happened at our club.

A few key facts were included taken from a worldwide survey just completed by the International Tennis Federation:

• Just under 106 million people play tennis at some level across 199 countries, up from 84.4 million recorded in 2019
• The country with the highest number of tennis players is the USA (23.8m), but in terms of percentage of the population, Great Britain is top with 13.4% and Canada second with 12.8%
• Asia is the biggest continent in the world for absolute numbers of players, with 35.3 million, representing 33.4% of the world's tennis-playing population
• There are 698,034 tennis courts in the world, 91.2% outdoors; 55.3% are hard courts (topped with acrylic paint) and 25.7% clay

Our six beautiful grass courts at Shrewsbury Lawn didn't get a mention for some reason.

And so, on to Ghana. Yes, all a bit random this month I know.

Our friends at Town Walls have been asked by a keen but impoverished start up tennis club in Ghana if they can help by providing any second-hand equipment, particularly racquets. If you have any unused but playable racquets knocking about and don't mind donating them to a good cause, please let me know. Alternatively, please contact the Chair at Town Walls - Jane Gibson. Her email is:  janeonthemove@hotmail.com

That's it for this month. In the highly unlikely event that you are feeling shortchanged, checkout our News section online.

Enjoy your tennis and get that AGM date into your diaries,

Jeremy