Clay court resurfacing
Thank you to those of you who gave us your feedback (54 of you at last count!) and also those who made the effort to come along to our members meeting last week. We had some excellent discussion of all aspects of our proposal and close scrutiny of our costing, maintenance and financing assumptions.
The overwhelming view from members is supportive of the committees' recommendation to resurface our existing courts with Artificial Clay (the sand used is a UK produced baked sand which also should help to secure future supplies and pricing irrespective of exchange rate movements).
We have therefore taken steps to book in the resurfacing. This is scheduled for August so that the courts are laid and bedded in before winter and to minimise disruption to members and coaching programme, as this is when (based on previous years) the courts have relatively low usage.
The courts will be out of action for 2 weeks from Monday 19 August.
After this there will inevitably be some settling in period and sand top ups, but courts should be fully playable during this time.
Club tournament
The deadline for entries has now passed and Alison and Pat will be carrying out the draw early next week. We have decided to keep the finals day unchanged at 15 Sept, although we appreciate that this will mean the tournament will be carried out over 2 surfaces. We would ask that matches are all played as early as possible as we will probably have to enforce the "not played by the deadline, players scratched rule" this year just so that all matches can be completed in time.
Please keep an eye on the club notice board and emails to find out who you are playing and the deadline.
Clubhouse
As you will have seen part of our future plans, once the courts have been resurfaced are a short-medium (3-5yr) need to replace our clubhouse. Clearly the better we can take care of it, the longer this time period will stretch and the maximum sinking fund build up.
So a plea for a few things:
1. We all know (or maybe not quite appreciate fully) what an amazing job Di does in looking after the state of the clubhouse, voluntarily cleaning it, including emptying rubbish and recycling (which as there are no rubbish facilities at the sports field she ends up taking home with her to add to her household rubbish), mouldy food and milk in the fridge, cleaning the toilet which is far too often left in an unacceptable state, changing towels, cleaning kitchen, sorting lost property, hoovering, kitchen cleaning and often re-doing the washing up where people have not used hot water (please boil a kettle!) or dried and put things away.
2. We will shortly be issuing some guidance to members and team captains, but are considering removing rubbish and recycling bins from the clubhouse and expecting all members and teams to take all rubbish/left over food etc with them when leaving the club (and maybe providing some small rubbish bags for you to use for this purpose). Please let me know what you think??
3. Please can all members (and parents pass on info to juniors too please) be very mindful that the clubhouse should always be left in a state in which you would like to find it.
4. Is there anyone out there who would be willing (in exchange for a discount on your subscription) to take on the maintenance role for the clubhouse as this is crucial for us to prolong the usage of our clubhouse as long as possible. The role would involve keeping an eye on the fabric of the building and liaising with builders etc to arrange for things to be fixed when required. Whilst some DIY skills are handy when light bulbs need changing, or toilet bolts need to be tightened or replaced it is not necessarily a pre-requisite. If you think you could possibly help us out could you speak to me or Pat - we would be most grateful :)
50th club anniversary
Plans are well underway to make this a great celebration of 50 years at Minch tennis club. We are digging through the archives with the assistance of Anna MacBean who has kept scrapbooks over this time, and with a combination of tennis for all, some exhibition tennis and social occasion over BBQ it should prove to be a fantastic event.
Please make sure the afternoon of Sunday 7 July is in your diaries, and more details will be sent round nearer the time.
Summer league
The club teams (adult and juniors) are in full flow with plenty of successes going on. For those of you who would like to keep track of our progress this link will take you to the Glos website where all latest scores and tables are posted.
Adult-
https://lta.tournamentsoftware.com/sport/tournament.aspx?id=A8317EA9-880D-4BF7-9DCB-E5A6681D3A7E
Junior-
https://lta.tournamentsoftware.com/sport/tournament.aspx?id=296E463C-5B4E-4529-98A8-86EC6A55EB63
Many thanks to all of our members and our hard working committee for your support, as always please let us know your feedback or any suggestions for how we can run the club in the best way to maximise the enjoyment and participation for all :)
Hope to see you all on court soon - Best wishes
Becky Putnam
