Our opening hours for the holiday season have been issued.  The squash and racketball annual club tournament is ready to go.  And the Waitrose car park is gridlocked at most times of the day. Time for a brief reflection on the past 12 months for the club, and a sneak peak into 2024.

Looking back on 2023

There were no major financial investments for our club in 2023 but it has nonetheless been a year of continuous improvement with the addition/implementation of the following things:

1. installation of a tennis hitting wall;
2. reconfiguration of the car park;
3. maintenance to the roof and drainage to the ITC and the clubhouse to prevent water ingress in times of torrential rain;
4. refurb of the women’s showers;
5. new air con unit for the men’s changing rooms;
6. installation of a second set of bifold doors in the lounge;
7. addition of cavity wall insulation to the North and East facing walls in the clubhouse;
8. new mobile bar for peak Summer days;
9. upgraded till system for the bar; and
10. commissioning of the CCTV for squash court 1 with a link to the lounge TV, and the scoring monitor for squash court 2 integrated with Android and Apple mobile phones.

That’s a decent list!  We’ll keep nudging things forward on all fronts - your responses to our 2023 members’ opinion survey have provided many ideas for further enhancements.

Looking forwards to 2024

For tennis, uppermost in our minds for 2024 is to successfully deliver the transformational programme of refurb and upgrade to courts 10, 11 and 12:  playing surface, lighting system, and perimeter boundary.  We’ll provide an update on the programme at the 2024 AGM on Monday 5th February - a date for your calendar!

For squash and racketball, we’ll be kicking off 2024 with bang.  On Friday 12th January we have our first graded squash evening of the year - always a popular event.  Open to all standards.  And we’ll be launching the first rounds of the 2024 club tournaments.

On the social front, on Friday 2nd February we are proud to bring you the one and only Elvis!  Okay, it’s a tribute act and there are lorryloads of impersonators for this guy, but this is the best.  Make sure you’ve got your tickets for a night of fun!

Season’s greetings

Wishing you all a very happy Christmas and best wishes for the New Year to all our members and everyone connected to the club.

I’d just like to take this opportunity to thank you all for your support of our club in 2023.  With special thanks to:  my fellow Council and Committee members for their enormous voluntary work on all our behalf in the past 12 months; the fantastic volunteers who run the box leagues, club nights, and organised sessions; our excellent office managers and groundsman; our brilliant coaching team; and our fabulous bar and catering team.  Without you, we would not be the club we are!

Until next month and next year, that’s all for now!

 John Shaw

Chair, BLT&SRC