Welcome to our April Newsletter. 125yr celebration, Squash Finals Day, Open Day and more!

125 years birthday celebration

Plans are now well advanced for our 125th Anniversary Gala Dinner on Saturday 11th June.

We are in the closing stages of ticket sales before we finalise the hiring of tables and chairs.

It will be a brilliant evening, with a marquee on the terrace, excellent food, and live music. If you haven’t yet booked your tickets, contact Bobby now at social@bltsrc.co.uk. And, if you have booked, we’re starting to collect payments to ensure everyone is committed and we keep the books balanced as we start to incur costs for the event.

Club archives

We have a treasure trove of fascinating material going back through our history, which not only tells the evolution of our club but also traces the story of the development of Berkhamsted over the last century.

We mentioned in last month’s Newsletter that we want to put some of this on show in the clubhouse as we lead up to the Gala Dinner.

In response to that, John Lee linked us up with Dacorum Heritage Trust who will be lending us some display cabinets at the end of next month. DHT have also invited us to show some of our archives in their promotional space at Berkhamsted library. More news on this soon. Thank you John!

If any of you have any photos and press cuttings that might be of interest in the club display (e.g. team photos or match reports, from the days when every team had an official photo of the squad for the year, and match results were frequently published in the Gazette), that would be brilliant - do please contact John at chair@bltsrc.co.uk.

Squash and Racketball

On Saturday afternoon starting at 2pm we have Club Finals Day, back after a 2 year gap due due the dreaded thingamajig.

We kick off with the racketball open final and conclude around 5.30pm with the squash open final, with a non-stop sequence of finals in between.

It will be a brilliant afternoon - a celebration of being once again able to have our sport and our club bouncing! So, whether you’re a squash player or a tennis player, do pop in and take a look. Everyone is welcome! Graham will have the bar open and Claire’s Pizza Kitchen will be serving from 5.30pm.

Keep your eyes peeled for the new world squash rankings published on the 1st of every month. One of our coaching team, Grace Gear, is getting very close to breaking into the world top 50 after some brilliant results in recent weeks. Most of the top ‘grand slam’ worldwide squash tournaments have 32 draws and Grace is getting ever closer to qualifying.

Tennis

The new season is gathering pace all the time.

Social sessions are thriving, Friday junior nights are storming along once again, the draws for the Club Champs have been published, team matches are underway, and the National League match we were treated to last weekend was as good as any tennis you’ll see outside of actually going to an ATP tour event - and it’s live at our club!

The next home dates for National League matches are Sunday 15th May vs David Lloyd Norwich and Sunday 22nd May vs Gidea Park, Romford, both starting at midday.

You will obviously have noticed that the rusty green metal fence along the patio has been removed.

The brickwork is being repaired this weekend and a glass balustrade is being installed w/c 9th May. No courts are being taken out of action - almost all of the work can be done from the terrace. Please bear with us, however, if someone does need to briefly go courtside. They will try not to disturb you.

Club Open Day

In 2 week’s time on Sunday 15th May from 11am through to 3pm we have our next Open Day.

These are always great fun, particularly if we are lucky with the weather, and a great help to us in attracting some new members.

We will have lots of activities going on, the squash courts and the tennis courts will be freely available, the National League match vs Norwich will be showcasing some brilliant tennis, the bar will be open, and food will be available! We will also have a new glass balustrade well underway to completion.

Do come along and join in, and see if your friends want to pay a visit and have a look around our lovely club!

Club event calendar

Here’s a summary of upcoming events:

Sat 30th April        Squash & R’ball Finals Day

Sat 15th May          Club Open Day

Sat 11th June         125th Anniversary Dinner

Sat 25th June        Tennis Finals Day

Thu 7th/11th July   Pro Squash Tournament

A fun-packed couple of month’s ahead!

Other bits and bobs

Please don’t park in the yellow hashed area at the driveway entrance. It creates havoc and is the access for emergency vehicles. There’s been a few instances lately where cars have been left there and the owners are nowhere to be seen.

The Kiosk machine in the clubhouse is awaiting a software update to get it working as it should do. Hopefully happening any day; it’s had an ‘out-of-action’ sign for too long. 

But, unfortunately, we will have to put a blanking plate over the coin slot. With hard cash going increasingly out of fashion, the machine supplier is no longer supporting coin mechanisms.

That’s it for this month!

Club Council

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