January
notes
Welcome to our first newsletter of 2009. I was away for most of December, so little has issued since November. But things have been going on – as you will see if you read on…
First
of all, tennis is still
going on – however cold it may have been recently, our Club sessions on
Tuesday
and Friday evenings and on Sunday mornings have been well attended.
Don’t
forget, whilst the evening Club sessions are restricted to Full Time
members,
Sunday mornings are open to all. Now if someone can devise a tennis
ball which
bounces normally at minus 7 Celsius, please ask them to contact me.
Fees
for next
year
First the bad news! We’ve had a
very close
look at our finances, as we always do at the start of a new year. Our
conclusion is that if we are to maintain the Tennis Club as one of the
best
equipped and maintained around we shall have to make a marginal
increase in
fees for 2009/10. The Committee has agreed a revised scale of fees
which come
to no more than a 5% increase for any category of membership. Full fees
for
next year will be £157 (up £7 on this year); part-time membership will
be £78
(£75 this year) and junior membership £36 (up £1). These figures
include members’
LTA affiliation fees. The full scale of fees is shown on the revised
application/renewal
form which I’ll send out with this newsletter. Don’t forget that there
is a £10
discount on full time membership (£5 for part-timers) for those whose
payments
are received before 31 March 2009. As last year, anyone who wishes to
pay in two
instalments may do so by sending us two equal cheques, one being post
dated.
For those who choose to pay in this way, the early payment discount
sadly does
not apply.
New
Floodlights
So what are we going to spend
our cash on? One
of our key aims over the next twelve months is the progressive
improvements in
our court floodlights. We have taken advice from the LTA lighting
consultants
and propose to install the latest version of Philips sports lighting
equipment.
The aim will be to improve and even out the illumination on each court
and to
reduce glare whilst ensuring that there is no more light spill over our
neighbours’ property. At present we envisage installing new lights on
courts 1
and 2 in the fairly near future. Subject to our assessing their
performance, we
shall extend the project to the remaining courts as early thereafter as
we can.
In the meantime, you are welcome
to continue
to play on courts during the evening using the pay-as-you-go lights on
courts 5
and 6.
Social
Events
We have a number of social
events in the
pipeline – first is our general knowledge quiz.
Rachael will be
organising this. It will be held on Saturday, 31 January in the Sports
Club. The aim
is to have teams of up to 6 – we can pair people up on the night if
necessary. There
will be an entrance fee of £3 per head - any profits once we have
bought the
prizes will go towards improvements to our Club room. We’ll be putting
up a
notice in the Club room shortly, so keep an eye out for that. It will
be open
to all, including your friends and neighbours. Any queries – give
Rachael a
call on 0786 7966 281.
Then we are planning to hold an
evening indoor
mixed
doubles tournament at the Delta Tennis Centre in Swindon.
We’re
aiming at Saturday
14 March – kick off at about 5.45pm. The maximum number we
can
accommodate is around 12 pairs – 24 individuals. Mike Powell is in
charge and
he’ll be putting up a notice inviting participants once he has
confirmed the
date.
Box
Leagues
The box leagues are now well
established and
going well. New lists for the mid-January session are now up in the
Club room.
If you are down to play, please see that you get all your games in
within the
time frame allocated.
Air
Hall
As you may be aware, the
Chippenham Sports Club
– of which the Tennis Club is a self-sufficient part – is to construct
an air
hall on land beyond the lawn bowls pavilion and adjacent to the hockey
pitch.
The air hall will be available for multi-sports events – including
tennis
(there will be room for two indoor courts), five-a-side soccer and
netball. As
a result, the surface will be multi-marked and the various sports will
have to
take place at different times. Rules, fees (the venue will be expected
to cover
its operating and replacement costs) and management have yet to be
worked out,
but the new facility will certainly be a great benefit to our tennis
programme.
At present we are looking forward to the hall becoming available
perhaps in the
early summer. We’ll keep you informed.
Tony
Clark,
20 January 2009