Welcome to our February Newsletter!

125 years

Did you know that it is our 125th anniversary this year?  Our club was founded in 1897 as Berkhamsted Lawn Tennis & Croquet Club.  We have prepared a timeline of the club’s history which we’ll publish on our website.  

It calls for a major celebration, once we have all courts back in action and our showcourts 7, 8 and 9, in particular, looking superb after the refurb programme.  We have pencilled in Saturday 11th June for a full day and evening of events.  Save the date - put it in your diary now!  We’ll tell you more as we firm-up the date and our party planning.

AGM

On Monday we held the AGM in the clubhouse.  Thank you to all who came.  We’re pleased to say that all proposals were agreed.

This triggers the renewal of subscriptions for the year from 1st April (with prompt payment discount if paid by 1st March), and invoices will soon start to be issued.

Michael Beavis was appointed as Chair of Tennis, taking over from Matt Markwort.

A huge thank-you to Matt for his huge contribution to the tennis section over the past 12 months, and to Club Council for a number of years.  For all his hard work going above and beyond the normal call of duty to help the club, we were pleased to announce Matt as the winner of our Member Of The Year award for 2022.

A warm welcome in his new role to Michael who, along with his wife Debs, has been an active tennis member with us for over 20 years.

Tennis

While we’re talking about dates for your diary, this year Tennis Finals Day will be Saturday 25th June. Always a highlight of the year.  June’s going to be a busy month at the club!

The programme of work for courts 6a, 7, 8 and 9 began on Monday and already things are looking very different, as the courts are gradually being turned into a building site, with clearance of the site well almost complete.

For those of you who were at the SGM in November, or read the minutes afterwards, you may remember that, if we can make the budget stretch to it, we’d love to replace the current metal fence along the patio wall with a glass and steel balustrade, as this would be a lovely finishing touch to the new courts. We’re currently looking at design options and costings.

The contractors will be doing their best to allow access for members to at least part of our car park in the evenings and at weekends.

With court availability restricted during the programme, it’s important that the floodlights on the other courts don’t let us down over the next few weeks.  The lights on courts 1-3 were installed in 2017.  They have a lifespan of 4-5 years, and I lamp has already failed.  Replacement lamps have been been installed today.

Thank you to everyone who took part in the survey on court booking.  The flash result is that there is a huge majority in favour of continuing with the court booking system; the Tennis Committee are reviewing all responses and they will communicate more on this soon. 

Squash and Racketball

More dates to announce!

The club champs got underway this week and the Squash & Racketball Finals Day will be Saturday 30th April.

The 2020 tournament had to be abandoned at around the QF stage in most events, and we were unable to hold the club champs in 2021.  So it’s great to have it back!

The annual court maintenance is taking place next Thursday and Friday.  Walls and floors of court 2, plus a light sanding of floors on courts 4 and 6.  And out-of-court marking tape on court 6 that stays in place!

We’ll have 6 first rate courts.  Let’s all be massively diligent about no black soled shoes and no old fraying grips, to prevent any reoccurrence of the damage that has occurred on a number of occasions in the past 6 months - fraying grips were the cause; black flecks fall off and then get smudged into the floor.  If you dig out an old racket that you haven’t used in some while, then please change the grip.  All new squash and racketball members are now given a free grip and Adam’s done a mass re-grip exercise on the rackets in his coaching cupboard.  New grips are available to buy from behind the bar.

Many of you will have received an email from England Squash asking you to complete a survey about ES membership.  Please do take the time to respond to them if you’ve had this email.  ES membership is hugely important to the national governing body, as it plays a part in their funding allocation from Sport England.  They need to hear your feedback, so they can act on it and make the system better/easier/clearer by close Monday 14th February.

Social

Another couple of dates!

To mark St Patrick’s Day the following day, the next Quiz Night (the Irish Edition) is on Wednesday 16th March.

Email Bobby at social@bltsrc.co.uk with your 6-person team - or Bobby can slot you into a team - and enjoy.  Let the jokes commence about an Irish Quiz Night!

And, before we get to St Patrick’s Day, who fancies a Curry Night?!  On Friday 4th March we’ve organised a trip to the Spice6 Restaurant in Willesden Green, owned by 1 of our members - with transport arrangements sorted.  A coach will leave the club at 6pm, returning at 12pm.  £50 all in (excluding alcohol - soft drinks included).  Email Bobby at social@bltsrc.co.uk if you’re interested.

And some more maintenance news.  Who knew club maintenance was so newsworthy!  We’ve started to look into upgrading the TVs and sound system in the lounge.  The TVs are now 10 years old and, by today’s standards, the one in the lounge is no longer the big screen that it seemed back then.  And the speakers in the ceiling haven’t worked for a long time.  With a busy Summer of sport and clubhouse events ahead of us, it’s time we got around to this.

That’s all for now.  Put the dates in your diary and sign up for Quiz Night!

Club Council

(John Shaw, Phil Trimmer, Michael Beavis, Tracey Mackey, Mark Shattock, Bobby Mercandino)