Dear members - welcome to our December newsletter!

Price rises

Starting on a decidedly non-festive note, let’s get the bad news out of the way first.

From 1st January we will be increasing our playing fee and clubhouse booking prices.

We’ve held them flat for at least 4 or 5 years in most cases (10 years for guest fees and 20 years for the joining fee), but they are now overdue for a price recalibration, with most of our own overheads under inflationary pressures.

The new prices will be as follows:

Tennis

On Saturday afternoon 17th December, there is a Christmas Team Challenge for our juniors of all ages and abilities, with some fun tennis games alongside the challenge cup, with prize presentations afterwards and the bar open for the duration. It should be a great afternoon. You can book at https://app.universaltennis.com/events/134052

Looking forwards, our thoughts are turning to making plans for the club’s first ever appearance in Division 1 of the National League next season.

This will see the highest standard of tennis ever played at our club, and we want to encourage as many of you as possible to come down and lend your support.

We are investigating options for seating galleries. If anyone has any contacts in the exhibition or event business, please let Tyrell know (info@berkhamstedtennisfit.com).

Some of you may have noticed that the roof of the ITC seems to have become Berkhamsted’s leading attraction for seagulls. Who then go on bombing raids over the club car park. We used to have a reasonably effective deterrent in the form of fake owls. But over the years they fell from their elevated position and have now disappeared altogether. We will soon be installing some new ones. Hopefully, Berkhamsted-On-Sea’s seagull population will move on.

A word on our tennis membership. Numbers are at an all-time record for the club at 534 adults and 330 juniors. This time 3 years ago, those numbers were 414 and 227. We keep a keen eye on membership levels and court utilisation, and the time may come in the near future when we have to place a cap on numbers, with a waiting list to join.

Squash and racketball

Squash and racketball numbers, on the other hand, shrank by about 20% during the pandemic, most of which was from our revenue-generating adult membership. However, we have put a lot of time and effort into growing back to where we were, and we’re pleased to say that our adult membership (257) is now within a single digit of where we were this time 3 years ago, and our junior membership (93) is higher than at any point since 2013.

However, we’re still down a bit on our box league numbers. Pre-covid we were up to 24 box leagues for squash and 12 for racketball. Currently, we’re at 21 and 8, respectively. It would be lovely to nudge this up a bit higher.

Adam is going to launch some junior squash box leagues, to help our young players gain match experience and to provide a stepping stone into the main box leagues.

Coming soon are our 2023 club championships. We plan to launch them later this month with a view to playing the first rounds in January.

And a date for your new 2023 diaries. Friday 6th January for the next round-robin graded evening, open to all standards. An email from the usual organisers, Richard and Gill, will be landing in your inbox any day. It’s always a great evening and an excellent way of starting off the new squash year and meeting others in our squash community.

Social

The club lounge is the place to be to watch the World Cup. In particular, England’s evening games have been excellent occasions. Great atmosphere and great food from the Isalie kitchen.

England’s quarter-final match is against France at 7pm on Saturday. If they win, the semi-final is on Wednesday 14th at 7pm, and the final on Sunday 18th at 3pm.

The next big social event for the club will be the annual dinner and disco. We normally hold it as a Christmas party in December but, with the World Cup gatecrashing diaries this year, we have shifted it to a New Year’s party to be held on Friday 27th January. Details were issued last week, contact social@bltsrc.co.uk to make your reservations or to get any further information.

All being well, the installation of the BT fibre optic lease line will be completed this side of Christmas, which will transform our broadband speed and capacity. No more dropped connections for contactless payments, and great connectivity for any parents working from the club while their children are playing. We will also have the box league monitor working again, with the touchscreen properly aligned.

Until next month and next year, that’s all for now! Season’s greetings and best wishes for the New Year to all our members and everyone connected with the club!

Club Council

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