The Committee are continuing to work out how best to enable the ‘club’ sessions to be restarted given ongoing concerns around the spread of coronavirus.

When we do so, we need to have a number of different methods in place which we will have to ask all members to take full account of, should they wish to play in these sessions. We envisage that there will be no option but to book in advance.

So prior to restarting we need to identify the following:

• a way of recording who attends each session (to take into account track and trace)
• a way of using the Clubspark system so that members book each session (previously you could just turn up)
• a way of including members who cannot access Clubspark
• a way of ensuring that not too many members turn up to play to avoid queueing before and after a game
• a way of organising the play for each session as we won’t be able to use the current board system
• a volunteer to oversee the whole new system
• a volunteer to ensure that each separate session runs effectively

We are hoping that you will consider the above and get in touch to offer your comments and help.

Thank you for your support.

Southbourne Tennis Club

1.Covid 19 arrangements

Toilets and kitchen
In line with the guidance that we issued recently please will you ensure that if you use the toilet you wipe down all surfaces you have touched with anti bac, sadly we don’t think this is always being done. Please also note that the kitchen remains closed so you should not be using it at all yet – not even to get water. Thank you for your co-operation.

Club Sessions
We are aware that recent guidance from the LTA indicates that club sessions are able to restart . The Committee are planning to get these running again in September. We understand that this means there will be no club sessions during August but at present several members are playing fixed fours, arranging tennis practices for themselves and participating in box league matches. Consequently the court usage has been fairly high so it was felt that it was best to enable these events to continue over the summer period. This also gives us time to establish a method of registering people for club sessions so that we can keep track of the attendees and also aim to prevent too many members attending or waiting to play for long periods.

Clubhouse Door locking
All members have been given the key codes for the front door and how to relock it at the end of the day. Please will you ensure that you check the door is relocked when you leave.Full details of this are displayed on the right hand side of the door on the wall. We really do need your help.

2.Congratulations

Dorset Ladies Doubles League
We are delighted to announce that The Ladies 1st Team of Southbourne Tennis Club, captained by Cleo Skilton won the Dorset Ladies Doubles Winter (2019-2020) league.Well done to all concerned. Even though we are a relatively small club we continue to produce some excellent players.

LTA National Tennis Awards
We are delighted to inform you that, not only did we get recognition at County Level(as above) but Dave Sanger, our Head Coach was a finalist for the National Disability Award, having won the Regional Award for his outstanding work and contribution to opening up tennis opportunities to everyone who would like to take part. He not only provides individual and group coaching sessions for learning disability, wheelchair users,visually impaired and hearing disabled but also trains coaches to deliver these specific sessions as well as raising the funds to do so.

3.The future

a. Chairperson
Having completed almost four years in this role I am not standing for re election at the AGM. At the time of writing my successor remains unidentified in spite of my many, and ongoing ,attempts to encourage one of you to take over the reins. As you will realise the club cannot operate without a chairperson and unless the role is filled the Committee will not be able to continue to work effectively. I am very happy to offer my support to the new person and will ensure that I conduct a full handover and briefing as part of ending the role. Yes, it is challenging and at times somewhat difficult but I can assure you that there is a very hard working Committee to support you as well as keeping you on your toes and you will certainly never be bored!

Please give it your serious consideration and get in touch with me if you’d like to know more. Thank you.

b.Grounds and Clubhouse Maintainence Co-ordinator
This is another crucial role and has been unfilled for over a year. It does not require attendance nor offer membership of the Committee but without someone to oversee all our facilties we cannot be certain that we are operating within all the guidelines. Again despite frequent requests for volunteers we have yet to receive any offers of help. Should this continue to be the case we may have no option but to consider making it a paid role and then decide how we can raise the money to do so. This is probably going to have to be by raising membership fees or asking members for ongoing donations.

If you are able to help move this forward in any way please let us know as soon as possible.

c. Social Secretary
Sadly after the success of the Christmas party last year, Andrew King felt unable to continue in this role. It also remains unfilled. You know what to do if you are interested in getting involved.We look forward to hearing from you.

Major developments for 2020-2021
The priority for next years’ improvements is the replacement of the current floodlights for LEDs and the resources to enable this to happen. Although we had begun to explore this in some detail before the pandemic, our resultant loss of income will make identifying the necessary funds a significant challenge,one which I am certain the new Chairperson will relish!This means that the developments proposed about an additional court and/ or a Padel court are likely to be shelved for the time being.

4.Thankyou
To all members for your ongoing confidence in Southbourne Tennis Club, demonstrated in your positive response when this years’ membership fees became due. We have attracted 14 new members in spite of the current restrictions and the relevant income stream is looking healthier.

To all those of you who felt able to donate to club funds the amount that we offered to reduce your fees to take account of Covid 19. You donated £1000 which we were fortunate to double due to a very generous match funding arrangement with a local charity. We are very grateful to all concerned.

For your patience and understanding during the coronavirus pandemic and your support of the restrictions that this caused. Also when this was exacerbated when Clubspark went down or was being updated. We often receive very late notice when this is being done but aim to do our best to keep you informed as soon as we are able to.

For reading and hopefully responding to this update.Your Committee, the coaching team and several members have worked very hard during the last six months to continue to ensure that you were able to hit a few balls from time to time . We look forward with confidence in the ongoing success of SouthbourneTennis Club.

I hope you are enjoying the use of the courts.

If you use Amazon, this email is very relevant for you.

We have signed ourselves up as members of the Amazon Smile program. This basically allows the club to receive donations from Amazon, when people spend money with them.

To be included in this you need to use Amazon Smile rather than normal Amazon when making a purchase.

To go to Amazon Smile you can either search for it on Google, or if you are using an app, or arrive at the Amazon website another way, just type “Smile” in the Amazon search bar and it will give you the option to use Amazon Smile. Once using it, search for Southbourne Tennis Club as your preferred Charity, and select us (this will be remembered for future). Most of the shopping you then do with Amazon Smile will result in a small donation to the club. You can buy anything on Amazon Smile that you can on the usual Amazon site or App.

Thanks for reading this far, and good luck with Amazon Smile.

Any questions, please send them directly to me on email Daniel@Danight.co.uk

Dan Light