Walton Tennis Club

Reopening our Courts - An important update regarding the Coronavirus

Posted 12th May 2020.

Dear members,

We are pleased to announce that following the recently updated Coronavirus guidance from the government and the LTA, we will be reopening our tennis courts to members from Wednesday 13th May. Whilst this is great news, it does not mean we are back to ‘business as usual’, and we are implementing several measures to minimise the risk to members and ensure compliance with the new guidelines.

1. A maximum of 2 players are allowed per court (unless all players are from the same household, in which case 4 are allowed).
2. Any coaching sessions booked with Chris should be on a one to one basis.
3. Maintain social distancing with all players outside your own household. Keep a minimum distance of 2 metres apart. Avoid changing ends or do so at opposite ends of the net.
4. Please enter the courts via the usual front gate and exit from the rear gate if other players are waiting to enter.
5. Do not play at all if you or any of your household are showing symptoms of the virus.
6. As we expect a lot of pent up demand, and as advised by the LTA, we are introducing a court booking system to ensure you can turn up and play without waiting. Bookings will only be accepted from club members, and any non-member bookings will be cancelled. The booking system will enforce rules to prevent unfair ‘block booking’ of courts. For full details of the rules and to book a court, click on the ‘Court Booking’ tab. PLEASE DO NOT TURN UP WITHOUT BOOKING.
7. The clubhouse will remain closed and out of bounds to members. This also means that floodlights are unavailable, so please consider daylight hours when making your booking.
8. Club balls will not be available, so you should provide your own. Ideally, they should be marked with your initials to avoid mixing them with other players. Only pick up your own set of balls and return any others using your feet or racquet. If you are having difficulty sourcing balls, please contact Chris Proud, Rob Challinor or Carol Stanley who can provide balls from the club stock at preferential rates to members.
9. Club socials (mix-ins) will remain suspended for the time being.
10. With the clubhouse closed, waste collection services at the club have been suspended to save costs, so please take any waste home with you.
11. We recommend you bring your own hand sanitiser to use during and after play.
12. Finally, we’d remind you that along with the easing of lockdown measures, the government have increased fines for those not obeying, so please adhere to all the current guidance.

Obviously, each member will have their own attitude to risk, and those in a ‘vulnerable’ group are still advised by the government to remain at home. You can read the full guidance for sports venues such as ours on the government Coronavirus website at the link below.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-outbreak-faqs-what-you-can-and-cant-do/coronavirus-outbreak-faqs-what-you-can-and-cant-do

You can also see the latest LTA advice for players here.

https://www.lta.org.uk/globalassets/news/2020/lta-guidance-for-tennis-players---covid-19.pdf

As always, we will continue to monitor the latest advice, act accordingly and keep you updated via email and our website. In the meantime, we hope you enjoy some tennis after this enforced absence and stay safe.

Best regards,
Your committee.

You can download a full copy of this announcement on our downloads page.

The Walton Tennis Club Pass It On, 'Lock-Down' Challenge Complete!

Posted 13th April 2020.

Thanks to everyone who contributed to the pass it on challenge video whilst at home on lockdown. It's fair to say there were some 'unique' entries! So without further ado, take a look at the results of your efforts on our twitter page here.

14th April - Due to an over zealous spam filter, a few entries were missed from the original video. These have now been added. Sorry!

Baseline

Posted 11th March 2020, updated 2nd April 2020.

Winter Baseline sessions are now finished due to the Corona virus lockdown measures. However, should the situation improve, we will continue to have a court on a Friday from 5.30 to 10.00 throughout the summer. If anyone wishes to play on any Friday will they please let David Harding know.

About Us

Walton Tennis Club is situated in a rural location on the outskirts of Stafford. We take pride in being a friendly club which welcomes new or experienced players of all abilities, offering opportunities for social tennis, league tennis and family play. We have four recently repainted hard courts, and play all the year round, until 10 pm under floodlights. We have around 140 senior playing members and run social mix-ins several weekday evenings, and on Sunday morning (see our court timetable for details). These mix-ins are a chance for members to meet other players and guarantee newcomers a game. For more competitive players, we run several teams in the local Staffordshire tennis league with FREE weekly team coaching sessions in the winter. Our club championship competition runs each summer and an open veterans competition runs in the winter.

Our thriving junior section of over 60 members has a supervised mix-in on a Friday evening and priority access at other set times. Competent junior members can be ‘promoted’ to allow them to play in senior mix-ins.

Our club coach, Chris Proud, runs coaching programmes for juniors and adults and is available for private individual or group sessions and is there to meet new members at the Thursday night mix-in. The licensed bar is open on mix-in nights and we also hold social events in the clubhouse.

We have a patio and social area, with outdoor table tennis table, picnic tables and benches and this adds an extra dimension to the atmosphere at the club.

Finally, whether you are a member or not, you can support our club by using EasyFundRaising when you do your online shopping. Visit https://www.easyfundraising.org.uk/causes/waltontennisclub/ for more details.