Welcome to our March Newsletter

125 years birthday celebration

Last week you will have seen the announcement of our 125th Anniversary Gala Dinner on Saturday 11th June.

There will be a large marquee wrapping around the terrace, for pre-dinner drinks and canapés, tables of 10 for a sumptuous 3-course meal, followed by live music and dancing in the clubhouse from Milo Max, a top-class private function band.

We will also be joined by the President of the LTA and the President of the Herts LTA.

It promises to be an amazing evening to mark such a special occasion. Tickets are on sale now from Bobby’s Social Committee team social@bltsrc.co.uk

Club archives

We have a treasure trove of fascinating club records gathering dust in our store cupboard. It would be nice to put some of it on show in the clubhouse in a temporary heritage display leading up to the Gala Dinner.

If anyone has any experience in marketing/promotional/archivist displays - or simply some creative skills and energy to volunteer! - we would love to hear from you. Contact John Shaw chair@bltsrc.co.uk

Tennis

As you will have seen (and you can hardly miss court 6a!) the main phase of the court upgrade programme is complete and the courts are back in use, and already widely used by many of you to tremendous feedback.

A few snagging jobs remain and, of course, the replacement floodlights need to be installed once planning permission is received (all the enabling work has been done, in readiness).

For those of you who were at the SGM in November that agreed the programme of work, you will recall that it was our aspiration to replace the current rusty green metal fence along the patio wall with a glass balustrade, subject to it being within cost tolerance of the programme budget and evidence from the initial re-opening of the courts that any concerns about the height of the ‘backwall’ can be dispelled.  We are comfortable on both counts, and we anticipate installing a new balustrade in early May.

Thank you for your forbearance while we have been undertaking these works (and we will need to continue to do on occasion until fully complete).

The 2022 Club Finals should be a fantastic spectacle on the new courts. Entry to the club champs will be launching soon - watch out for the press release to all tennis members!

With the start of British Summer Time announcing the beginning of the main tennis season, team matches will soon be getting underway.  On the 24th April, there will be some fabulous tennis to watch at the club, when our 1st team play Connaught in the opening National League fixture.  Weather permitting, there will be a BBQ on the go - a menu and team announcement will be available closer to the date.

Squash and Racketball

The various S&R club championship events have all pretty much progressed to either the R16 or the QF stage and we’re heading towards a great Finals Day on Saturday 30th April.

It will be our first S&R Finals Day for 3 years, so please put it in your diary and let’s make it a packed event, whether you’re playing on the day or just viewing and supporting the finalists.

The inter-club league season has drawn to a close, with the exception of our Vintage team (fashionably off the pace as usual). Congratulations are especially due to our 2nd team, who were narrowly pipped to the post in Herts Div 1 by Tring and who finished above our 1st team; and also to our Women’s team, who kept improving during the season and were finally able to claim their maiden victory - a tremendous achievement for a team of players largely new to competitive matches. We are proud to field a Women’s team once more, after a 10 year gap - a huge well done to Lily Main, one of our top juniors, for volunteering to captain the team and organising everything so well!

Club event calendar

The Social Committee organised an excellent Quiz Night earlier this month and we now have a very busy calendar of events coming up over the next few months:

Saturday 30th April                                          Squash & Racketball Finals Day

Sunday 15th May                                             Club Open Day (and the LTA’s 2022 Great British Tennis Weekend)

Saturday 11th June                                         125th Anniversary Gala Dinner

Saturday 25th June                                         Tennis Finals Day

Tue 7th - Sun 11th July                   Men’s & Women’s Pro Squash (the 2022 Berkhamsted Linksap Open)

Put them in your calendar - why not go for the full sweep!

Just for the avoidance of any doubt, unless we state otherwise none of our events are designed to be fund-raising - any ticket/entry pricing is in place merely to recoup the staging costs.

Sundry other news

The minutes of last month’s AGM are now available on the club website.

Membership subscription renewal season is drawing to a close. If it’s something that you’ve been meaning to do but haven’t got around to just yet, why not do it now!

We continue to undertake small continuous improvement jobs around the club and grounds. A few painting and decorating jobs have been done recently; a new gate mechanism has been installed at the Canal Fields entrance (with some finishing touches still to be applied); and our squash show court seating area is being re-carpeted. We are now on the case to improve the sound and vision systems, and the broadband speed, in the clubhouse.

Our car park barrier is out of use far too frequently, but we’re hoping that a solution is imminent.  And, with the main phase of the tennis project now completed, that should ease some of the parking pressure.  Please be considerate to others when parking - there have been a few instances recently where large cars have been parked across 2 spaces.

Signing off for March, we’ll be back with another report next month. In the meantime, we’re always happy to hear from you and respond to any questions or suggestions - contact any of us directly or via Susannah and Vicky in the club office.

Club Council

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