Welcome to our first newsletter of 2025! The newsletter took a break in January in the run-up to the club’s AGM last week.

Thank-you to those who attended the AGM. Adam Suggett was elected Chair of Tennis, succeeding Michael Beavis. Pete Walker was elected Chair of Squash, succeeding John Shaw. John continues to be Club Chair, with Phil Trimmer as Treasurer and Matt Markwort as Social Chair.

Thank-you to Michael and John for their great work, and welcome to Adam and Pete who will lead our two playing section Committees and join the Club Council overseeing all aspects of the club.

Congratulations to Tracey Mackey and Richard Carr who were joint winners of the Member Of The Year award! Tracey and Richard have been amazing volunteers for the club for many years and have played key roles in establishing the club on the trajectory to where it is now.

All motions on the agenda were agreed and, accordingly, Susannah and Vicky in the Club Office will soon be getting our membership renewals underway.

As this is edition 1 for 2025, let’s see if we can help you with your new year resolutions (if you can still remember those):

• do some exercise in the open air - you can do that on our tennis courts;
• do some higher intensity exercise - you can do that on our squash courts; and
• do some resistance training and range of movement training - you can do that in our fitness suite.

Why not buy a block of tennis coaching/squash coaching/PT sessions for you or your other half (for your Valentine!) - you can do that with Tyrell/Adam/Dan.

You know where you need to spend even more of your time in 2025!

Tennis

We welcome Adam as the new Tennis Chair, and he’s already been busy meeting with lots of members and staff and a handover from Michael, and he will be sending out a separate email to tennis members shortly.

In the meantime, just a request from us to you on one matter. Please close the ITC doors when you have finished playing. Leaving them open is a security risk for the club. This particularly applies to those playing in the evening in the ITC. For obvious reasons, if you have the last ITC booking of the day, it is essential that you firmly close the doors when leaving.

Squash and Racketball

Similarly, just a couple of brief things to say on the squash front, other than welcoming Pete as the new SandR Chair.

The club tournaments are GO! Draws are published and now on show in the squash corridor. Finals Day is Saturday 26th April. Please put it in your calendar. Even if you don’t make it through to one of the finals, it will be a great afternoon at the club for all the family.

Last weekend some of our members were competing in national events at polar opposites of the age spectrum. Congratulations to Christian Law who won the England U9s, Yara Lo who was 5th in the England girls U11s, George Ogden who was 10th in the England U13s (and he’s 11), Ali Coker a semi-finalist in the British O45s, and Darren Withey a semi-finalist in the O60s (both Ali and Darren narrowly losing their SFs in the 5th game). Perfect examples that squash can be a sport for life.

Social and Clubhouse News

Apologies for the short recent disruption to the lounge area. We gave it a much-needed lick of paint. The ceiling in particular was in a poor state in some areas.

We have some nice new noticeboards in the entrance foyer where we will post essential ’need to know’ information for you.

You may already have noticed the poster for Kevin Mack Sings on Saturday 5th April. That’s got to be a date for your diary! Join our very own Kevin McDermott for an evening of classics from the likes of Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Tony Bennett. Tickets are available from the bar or from Graham graham@isalie.co.uk

At your convenience. Possible this is ’TMI’, but we now have mains water pressure to the women’s toilets, greatly reducing the interval time between flushes. Which will be a big help when we have busy events and parties. A full refurb of the ladies’ toilets is in our investment plan for 2025.

It’s a holed up. A couple of things to note that have happened this week outside the clubhouse. The potholes in the Broadwater access road that reappear every winter have been filled by the council. And we’ve planted some new conifers to fill the gap in the hedge at the back of court 10/11.

Just one more thing / the Columbo section

A couple of things actually.

First, to draw your attention to our safeguarding policies. Sarah Markwort is our excellent Welfare Officer and, with Sarah’s help, we have a full suite of safeguarding policies published on our website at the following link https://www.bltsrc.co.uk/page/about/safeguarding+%40+bltsrc

If you ever have any safeguarding concerns, do not hesitate to contact Sarah welfareofficer@bltsrc.co.uk

Second, a reminder that now is the time to nominate people for the local Sporting Excellence Awards, which include generous financial prizes so they are well worth winning!

Rumour has it that members of the football club and the cricket club have been busy with their nominations - surely we’re not going to let footballers and cricketers have a clean sweep of the cash prizes!

Our club is a founding member of the Berkhamsted Sports Grounds Charitable Association (BSGCA), together with Berkhamsted Football Club and Berkhamsted Cricket Club. Over time, membership has expanded to include Raiders, the Hockey Club, Rugby Club and the Golf Club.

The BSGCA was founded in 1924 to purchase the land in Broadwater original used by BCC, BFC, and what was the Hard Courts Tennis Club - now the strip of land with our ITC, car park and courts 6a/b. To celebrate its centenary, the BSGCA launched the Sporting Excellence Awards, supported by a number of local businesses. The awards are open to all sports and active leisure clubs in the Berkhamsted area, to be presented in June 2025.

Now is a good time to think of those in our club who have made an impact, as the closing date for nominations is 2nd April 2025.

Nomination forms can be found on the BSGCA website at the following link https://www.bsgca.org/awards/awards-nomination-form/

There are six award categories and all winners will receive trophies plus the following excellent prizes:

1. Club of the Year - £1000
2. Rising Star of the Year - £1000 towards coaching and training costs to attain even higher levels
3. Under 18 Sports Person of the Year - £250 voucher from Berkhamsted Sports
4. Adult Sports Person of the Year - £250 voucher
5. Volunteer Coach of the Year - £250 voucher
6. Volunteer of the Year - £250 voucher

The individual sporting awards will be judged by excellence in their contribution to the success of their team/club plus commitment to sporting values; the volunteer award will be focused on contributions ‘above and beyond’ expectations; and the club award on outstanding contributions to the local community.

If there’s someone you think is deserving of this recognition, why not get nominating!

Until next month, that’s all for now!

Club Council

(John Shaw, Phil Trimmer, Adam Suggett, Pete Walker, Matt Markwort, Tracey Mackey, Mark Shattock)