Many thanks to Pat Pearson for organising another great Christmas party on December 14th and congratulations to the Ladies 1st Team which won our Team Of The Year award. Congrats also to Penny Arneja and Matt Chambers who won the Team Players of the year and to Julia Finlay and Dan Morentin, winners of our Most Improved Player awards. On behalf of the Committee and the Coaching team, wishing you all a lovely Christmas and best wishes for 2025.
DATES FOR YOUR DIARY – JANUARY 2024
JANUARY 1st – NEW YEAR’S DAY DOUBLES TOURNAMENT (1PM)
JANUARY 5th – First SUNDAY SOCIAL of 2024 (2PM)
JANUARY 6th – OFF-PEAK SOCIAL (1.30PM)
JANUARY 6th – JUNIOR AFTER-SCHOOL SQUADS START
JANUARY 6th – LADIES TEAM TENNIS (7.30PM)
JANUARY 8th – First WEDNESDAY SOCIAL of 2024
JANUARY 13th – MEN’S TEAM TENNIS (7.30PM)
CLUBHOUSE ACCESS
THE CLUBHOUSE WILL BE OPEN FROM 10AM TO 5PM ON DECEMBER 19TH, 21ST TO 23RD
CLUBHOUSE CLOSED 24TH TO 26TH
CLUBHOUSE OPEN FROM 10AM TO 5PM 27TH TO 31ST
JANUARY 1ST – CLUBHOUSE AND BAR OPEN 10AM TO 6PM FOR THE NYD TOURNAMENT
BOX LEAGUES
Invite will go out for a new round of Singles Box Leagues via the MatchSpace App and a general email on December 28th. They will run from Jan 1st to February 14th
SPRING TOURNAMENTS
Invite will go out for Men’s and Ladies Singles open tournaments as well as the Over 45’s Men’s and Ladies Singles competitions on January 28th. These will run from February 15th to the Finals Day on April 19th
CHARITY QUIZ NIGHT
Our annual quiz night in aid of the Wandsworth Food Bank will take place on Thursday February 13th. Tickets are £15 per person and you get a top curry courtesy of the magnificent Noreen. Keep an eye out for the invite on Jan 15th.
As always, Dave will be able to assist with any queries and you can contact him on headcoach@spencertennis.com
HALF TERM HOLIDAY CAMPS
We will be running a half-term holiday camp on the week of February 17th for one week only. As usual there will be 3 age groups: 5-7 yrs(Red Ball), 8-11 yrs (Orange Ball) and 11-17 years (Green/Yellow Ball). We have to limit numbers to 12 per group as we only have 6 courts available to us. The courses will be up on the website on Wednesday 25th September.
JUNIOR SQUADS and SOCIALS
The after-school squads for the Spring 2025 term (starting on Jan 6th) are on this website and are available to book now. A full listing can be found in the COACHING/JuniorSquads section. There are still places available for most of the squads but if you're unsure of which squad might be suitable don't hesitate to contact Dave (Head Coach) who will be able to advise you. You can contact Dave at headcoach@spencertennis.com
The Friday after-school kids socials will begin again on Friday 10th January. The sessions are 4.30-6pm for Orange Ball 6-10 years and the social for the older children begins at 6pm and finishes at 7.30pm. As before, no booking is required and you pay £10 cash (non members) or £5 (members) on arrival for this popular, fun session.
ADULT SOCIALS
Our Wednesday evening socials willstart up again on Wednesday 8th January. We are going to stick with the "turn up and play" system so you no longer need to book for this.
That’s it for now. As always, please get in touch with Dave at headcoach@spencertennis.com with suggestions, ideas, comments on anything that you would like to see at Spencer.
SUMMER TERM AFTER-SCHOOL SQUADS
We are happy to announce that the summer term after-school squads are up on the website and available to book. We hope to welcome everyone back and thank those who attended our programmes in the cold and wet autumn/winter months. Here’s hoping for a drier few months! Our after school squads are open to members and non-members.
Due to the early Easter this year the summer term is a rather long 14 weeks with a break on the week of May 27th for half term. You are signing up for 13 sessions.
START DATE: Monday 15th April
LAST SQUAD: Thursday 18th July
Timings: We have kept to the timetable that we had for the Spring camps with only one exception. The Thursday Orange Ball session has been moved from 4.30pm and will now start at 4.45pm instead.
Pricing: We have left the pricing for most squads as they were but there have been increases of £1 per session for some squads where we have added another coach and for others where the small squad size meant that the session was not financially viable. We hope this is acceptable to you.
You can find the full list of our summer term squads in the COACHING section of our website under Junior Squads or you can use this link: Spencer Lawn Tennis Club / Junior Squads (lta.org.uk)
JUNIOR TENNIS
We have entered some junior teams for the Surrey Leagues this year and our coaches will be talking to kids and parents over the coming weeks to see if we can get some keen boys and girls to represent Spencer against other clubs. Feel free to contact any of the coaches if you're interested in your child taking part.
We are also hoping to organise some internal tournaments for juniors with a finals day taking place in May before the half term. Again, get in touch if you want your child to take part but it's likely that our squad coaches will be getting kids involved over the next week or so.
IN OTHER NEWS........
Huge congratulations to our club captain Viv Ngan who is now a Surrey Champion! Viv won a tough final of the Women's Over 35 Singles last weekend. These titles are very, very difficult to win so well done Viv on such a great achievement.
MEMBERSHIP ANNOUNCEMENT
The club is at full capacity and is no longer able to accomodate any new, off-peak or junior members. We are also closing our membership waiting list until a full review of the list has taken place.
Balls and Strings
Tennis balls are now available for sale behind the bar and cost £6 per tin. For those of you who don't know, Seb (coach) is our resident racquet stringer and provides an excellent service using top quality strings. If he's not around you can leave your racquet with any of the coaches who will make sure he gets it. If you need an overgrip or a replacement grip just ask Dave who can do it on the spot for you if he's not on court.
Also worth mentioning that we do have quite a few 2nd hand adult racquets, some new childrens shoes and some new junior racquets for sale. Proceeds from these will be sent to the Wandsworth Food Bank.