Happy New Year everyone! Here’s our first monthly Newsletter for 2021.

AGM

You will know by now that the club AGM is on Monday 8th Feb at 7:30pm via a Zoom call.

Please have a look through the briefing papers that were in the club email on Friday and which can also be found here in the members’ area of the club website.  This year, there is also a video message from Mike, our Club Chairman. Click here to view the video.

We hope you’ll be able to join us on the call - register for the meeting by clicking the link in the email. Susannah and Vicky in the club office will see this and you’ll then get sent a follow-up message which will have a link for you to click on the day and take you straight into the Zoom call. It’s best we do it this way so we have a ‘roll call’ of the attendees and can manage the voting and discussion during the meeting.

Have a beer or a glass of wine to hand and we can all pretend that we’re sitting in the club lounge having our usual February AGM! Unfortunately, there is nothing usual about the current times.

What next?

Well it’s too soon to tell. Although that doesn’t stop everyone speculating, some of it optimistic, some of it pessimistic, with the most likely path probably somewhere between the two.

Clearly, better times are tantalisingly close and, when restrictions start to be eased, we all want a rapid progression to enable the clubhouse and the courts to be re-opened.

As we mention in the Squash and Squash57 report for the AGM, we will ensure that you can all feel confident to return to the club at the earliest opportunity, with your safety at the front of our minds. When we were able to play in 2020, members could do so in an environment in which they felt secure, with everyone respecting the hygiene precautions and playing protocols to which we were all tied. We will maintain those high standards.

January ought to be a time for setting out plans for the year ahead. We outline some of these in the AGM report. Right now though the outlook is short term: re-open at the first opportunity and get everyone playing again.

Working with you, when the moment comes we will bounce back quickly and strongly, for both Squash and Squash57, for each of you at whatever level you play, and whatever your expectations of our club.

In last month’s Newsletter, we said that our resolution for 2021 is to come back better. And we intend to do that on all fronts: social games, club boxes, team matches, coaching.

With a bit of a tailwind, we very much hope that in next month’s Newsletter we are able to talk more positively about more concrete news.

In the meantime, we look forward to seeing many of you (on screen) at the AGM.

Squash & Squash57 Committee

(John Shaw, Mark Shattock, Adam Fuller, Gill Trimmer, Rob Harbron)