Newsletter - Test for Nigel

Dear [[firstname]],

I am writing this just after a very successful fundraising tournament, in support of Breast Cancer N ow, which Club member Jill Thompson chairs. This event was very well attended, good fun and extremely well catered, with wonderful cakes (all donated by members) and Paolo Roseghini on the barbecue. The tournament raised over £1000. It was great to see our Club having a good time and doing something really worthwhile. Well done to all who made this happen, and especially to Jill whose idea it was. Thank you.

New Court
We were delighted to open the new court (well, courts 3 and 4) on Finals Day on 10 September. It was a nice ceremony with our Honorary President Charles Biscoe cutting the tape and declaring the courts open. As I said on the day, we had considered postponing the whole event because of the Queen’s death. But I think it was right to go ahead and to celebrate our Club, our tennis and our community with a very special day’s play, much of it on the new clay surface of court 3. But I was also glad that we were able to mark the Queen’s passing with a moment of silence during the
opening ceremony. We were very fortunate with our contractor, ETC, who proved excellent to work with, responsive to our concerns and very efficient. They delivered this big project only a few days late and
more or less on budget. And I must thank Alyson Fox, who got the project off the ground and to Planning Consent, and especially Bernard Stilwell, who designed the court and then project managed it to completion. A brilliant and very demanding piece of work.

Courts 3 and 4 are proving very popular. We do need to be aware of how near they are to our neighbours in College Gardens and we have had to ask members not to play on court 4 before 8am. And please do keep noise to acceptable levels. Thank you. Another request is the importance of brushing the courts after use – this applies to all the clay surfaces, and it is not so that you can see ball marks more clearly but so that the clay is properly distributed. This is important for court maintenance. I am conscious that we have not yet been able to deliver all the new brushes for the new
courts. These have been on order for some time and will eventually appear.

Lastly, we hope to complete the landscaping of the fan area by the hedge and the boundary with Lovers’ Walk, by planting 11 trees in the next few months. These will significantly improve the look of those areas, and enable us to tackle the securing of the Lover’s Walk boundary.

Finals Day
Finals Day was marked by some splendid tennis at all levels – juniors, the Open Competition, and the Veterans’ Competition. Huge thanks to Mark Alderson and Hamid Irshad who organised respectively the Open (Mark) and the juniors and Vets (Hamid). That is a lot of work. And our congratulations to all competitors, both winners and runners-up. The day was special too because it was very social, with a big effort from Anna Leslie and her team, producing drinks and splendid food behind the bar, and Ivan
Savage and his helpers who delivered an excellent barbecue. Many thanks to all involved, a magnificent effort.

Director Clubhouse and Grounds
This important post on the Club Committee has been vacant for some time. I am very pleased that John Barton has now filled it. He is an electrical engineer by profession and very practical, and has already got down to business. Thank you, John, we look forward to working with you.

Coaching team
Our coaching team has also been strengthened by James Gibbons, who joined in September. James is a level 3 coach and a formidable player as well. I know he is enjoying being part of the Club and that he will bring a lot to it.

Next Steps
The Club Committee met at the end of September to consider where we go, now that the big project of the court is complete. We plan slowly to tackle all the little things that need doing to keep the Club in good order and looking its best, as our financial position will permit. There is also routine court maintenance to be done, and then there is the unexpected - the bar shutter broke and had to be eplaced. Also vandals broke a panel of the fence on Lovers’ Walk near the Coaches Shed and that has to be replaced. Please bear with us as we get all these things done. At least the floodlight system is now working properly, thanks to hard work by Ivan Savage and Mike Samra.

In the longer run we are considering work on the Clubhouse, especially the bathrooms, as the next big project. But this will require money and we will need to accumulate funds over a period of at least three years before we can tackle this. We are also looking at the structure of our membership packages and hope to have some proposals to put forward by the time of the next AGM in 2023. Getting the subs package and structure right is the basis for a healthy and sound Club, so it is worth working on. And lastly, we are looking at a new Club logo, with a small working party thinking of a new or modified design.

Social life
Let me conclude by noting the healthy state of the Club’s social life, this is thriving, driven by Anna Leslie and her team, especially Manjit Roseghini who is behind the Women’s Social Evenings. I was delighted a few days ago to attend a talk by Neil Croally on Classical Athenian Democracy. This was fascinating and I know there is wine tasting and much more in the offing. Well done, Anna and your helpers.

There has been so much going on recently that I thought it might be helpful to draw breath and recall that all this hard work and activity takes place in the context of the Club’s values. These were defined in 2013, after a lot of hard thought and consultation, and I think they still hold good. It is worth recalling them:

OCLTC is a club that provides high quality tennis services and facilities so that members can enjoy and improve their game, whatever their playing standard, in a friendly, supportive and sociable atmosphere. We are committed to upholding the values of fairness, transparency and inclusiveness in all the activities that we engage in.

Enjoy your tennis and all the Club has to offer!

Nigel Thorpe
Chair, Old College Lawn Tennis Club Committee.

13/10/2022