On Monday 4 December Gloucestershire Lawn Tennis Association (GLTA) held their AGM at Oxstalls.

The agenda includes the county ‘British Tennis Awards for 2017’.

Elspeth Harding was awarded with "Volunteer of the year 2017" for all her hard work. 

Elspeth has acted as club secretary for our growing club over the past year, supporting the new Chairman and a much smaller and largely new management committee.

She has taken on responsibility for re-writing the club's constitution and member's terms & conditions, establishing a clear policy section on the club's website, arranging and documenting all committee meetings and generally ensured that the club continued to run and meet its legal obligations in the absence of other volunteers. 

Attended meetings with the club's landowners and other local interested parties, representing the club, and has always volunteered for tennis club fundraising efforts for other local charities.  She also attended the Transforming British Tennis Roadshow and is enthusiatically supporting the club's involvement in the LTA's plans for developing tennis in Gloucestershire.  Elspeth has given considerable time to ensuring that our small local club continues to run and builds positive relationships with the local community.

Elspeth is a regular attendee at our Tuesday morning Ladies Tennis Session which is aimed at new and intermediate ladies players, and has strongly encouraged other ladies to come and play at the club, as well as playing for our ladies teams and encouraging other inexperienced ladies to compete. She regularly finds volunteers to help around the club from this group of ladies and is a superb friendly "all access"ambassador for the sport.

Elspeth has managed and written most of the club's communication with its members this year via clubspark, seeking volunteers to maintain the clubhouse and informing members of social events and club competitions.  Elspeth co-ordinated our club finals day, organising volunteers for food, tickets, stalls etc, and ran the BBQ on the day with her husband.  Without Elspeth's involvement it would have been very difficult to run the successful finals day programme we ran.

Elspeth also organised and chaired our annual AGM, co-ordinating the presentations and organising refreshments, she runs the club's committee meetings very effectively and is always fully inclusive, encouraging our younger committee members to speak.

Elspeth embodies the spirit of British volunteering.  She will always step up and take on responsibility without seeking any recognition for her efforts.  As a club we are incredibly grateful for her efforts.