I never thought I would say this but I’m not sure I can face even looking at another pizza!

Beer of course is a different story.

We did a roaring trade in pizzas over the County Championships from our pop-up café bar, The Lawn. I think we averaged 25 a day. Our new pizza oven – thank you Craig - throws off a lot of heat but works brilliantly turning out perfect pizza on a crispy base.

Pizzas were only part of the story at the end of August. There was also some pretty good tennis to watch across all age categories with spectacular wins for a number of our players including Toby Holcroft and Lynda Richards.

If you missed the County Championships this year as a player or spectator, don’t worry because this prestigious event will be coming back in August 2026 and I think we can make it even better next time.

Financially, it was a very successful week all round with over £4k raised for SLTC and Town Walls from ticket and bar sales.

What have we got to look forward to now? Our very own Club Championships of course! It’s finals weekend on 20th and 21st September, just over a week away. The singles finals are on Saturday afternoon and the doubles finals are planned for Sunday PM. If you haven’t already registered for some fun tennis on Sunday morning, followed by a jolly lunch/drink with food provided by a professional caterer, and the finals in the afternoon, what are you waiting for? Yes, the bar will be open.

Places are limited and the sign up has already begun so please get your skates or your tennis shoes on!

You can read all about it and register/pay £10 here. Please come and play a little tennis, support your club and cheer on the finalists.

Another date for your diary is Saturday 22nd November when we will hold our Annual General Meeting at 4pm after the Saturday social. This is a ‘must attend’ meeting – you may recall that last year’s event had its interesting moments. We will briefly the review the year 2025 and then present the committee’s proposals for 2026. These include plans to more than double the annual membership fee so that we can reduce the number of members. Simple supply and demand dictates what we need to do.

Just checking you are still awake. That’s not actually the plan. Sorry if you are choking on your tea. Come to the AGM, we will present the real numbers, and you can share your view.

Which we will ignore if we don’t like it.

Only joking. What’s wrong with you today?

Let’s calm down, pause for a moment and let me say a big thank you to those members who regularly turn out to help the club.

I’m talking about everyone on the rotas for the socials and the Saturday tea – particularly stalwarts such as Andrew Armstrong who has done so much to support the success of men’s tennis this year and the evergreen, ever tireless Gary Fulcher. Good to see some younger members on this list too – Imogen Clowes, Craig Latimir, and Lisa Hallam to name check a few.

I’m talking to all the new members who have regularly put their hands up – Sue Murphy and Steve Haimes amongst many others.

I’m talking about the 12 members who tirelessly worked for hours at the Lawn café bar and who manned the car park at the recent County Championships. Thank you – especially those of you who did multiple shifts – Mary Latto, Sharon Parish, John Lay and the indefatigable (even with fractured wrist) Sue Kelly.

I’m talking about my great colleagues on the committee who do so much behind the scenes to keep the club going month in, month out. Thank you one and all.

I could also be talking about YOU because we always need more helpers! If you are enjoying the club, please think about what you might be able to do either in a small way for the odd couple of hours here and there or in a larger way on the committee. Edie is resigning her role as Membership Secretary, Craig Holmes has also left, and we have a couple of new roles emerging in an attempt to split the workload and make being part of the committee much easier.

Please get in touch with me if you have a little spare time and want to give something back. It’s not onerous and is good fun (most of the time). We particularly need more ladies on the committee…

If you are the outdoors type (which basically means all of us who play tennis at the lawn) then Chris Marsh needs some help after we close the grass courts. He needs a couple of people, please, to help with scarifying planned for Sept 23rd and 24th. And a couple again for more work on the grass planned for Sunday 28th September.

This work is critical as we still don’t have a replacement for Keith and the grass courts need TLC especially at the end of this month.

Please get in touch with Chris on 07974 785 752.

Ok that’s it from me this month.

See you weekend of 20th and 21st if not before. Don’t forget to register and pay for the tournament and the lunch+drink on Sunday. Spaces are limited.

Enjoy your tennis,

Jeremy