Quiz Night – raised £1,100!

Thank you to everyone who came to our popular annual quiz night last night. We raised £1,100 from ticket sales, the bar and raffle - a fantastic result. And well done to the Nobby’s Nutters team for taking the first prize!

A huge thank you from Steve, Erika and Nicola to everyone behind the scenes who helped make this event such a success, especially our "Technical and Logistics Team" (Tracey Neal, Nick Smith, Josh McDowall, Steve Ryan) as well as all those who helped on the night. with the food, raffle and clearing up. 

 

Working Party

As the new season starts, we will be having our annual working party at the club on Sunday 30th April from 9am. We usually see the same faces at each working party and it would be much appreciated if some of our newer members could come along and give us a hand with the necessary maintenance of our clubhouse and grounds. The jobs that need doing are mainly painting and cleaning so not much heavy labour involved. Although this is called a "working party", quite alot of FUN is had at the same time. 

 

Coaching

From April both adult coaching sessions will run again. Intermediate/Advanced - Monday 8-9pm, Beginners/intermediate - Tuesday 7-8pm. Contact Jude for more details. 

 

Juniors

Junior coaching will revert back to the full time table after Easter. Red, Orange and Green/Yellow groups will run from 4-7pm on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Places are limited so please contact Jude if you'd like a space for your child. 

Junior Club night will start up again from Friday April 21st. Our junior captain Piers Douglas will be co-coordinating it, so please contact him on 07516 671305 if you'd like to be included on the Junior Club Night WhatsApp group. 

2 Easter camps will run on the 3rd and 10th of April. Please contact Jude to book a place. Summer camp dates will be set over the Easter holiday. 

 

New accessories at the club

We have two new accessories at the club– an ‘old balls box’ and a bike rack. Please use accordingly!

Thanks to Liz Davies for the donation of the old Dunmow Post Office bike rack (used for the postmen's bikes) and to Josh McDowall for his creative ball box.

 

Keen to play more tennis?

We are looking for a volunteer to coordinate more ladies social tennis sessions. Are you interested?

Are there any members keen on playing more mid week social tennis?

Would you be interested in participating in or organising a ladies or mens singles ladder competition?

If your answer to any of the above is YES, please email our club secretary, Sabina Bird.

 

Help & donations wanted

We would like to acquire a couple of new outdoor benches for the club. Before we buy new ones, does anyone have a garden bench they may be looking to get rid of in the near future?

We are looking for volunteers to help with upkeep of our facilities, most notably ad hoc cleaning of the clubhouse and mowing of the grass. Would you be able to help on a rota basis? 

If you can help with either of the above, please email our club secretary, Sabina Bird.

 

Survey Results                    

The results of the recent club survey were overwhelmingly positive. Thank you to everyone who took the time to fill it in. We will be using some of the positive comments on our website in the near future.

There were a number of suggestions and complaints which have all been discussed and considered by the committee:

• "More ladies & more mid week social tennis" – requests for interest and coordinators have been included in this newsletter.
• "More winter tennis" – we will wait to see whether there is interest in the ladies, mid week and ladder tennis before taking this any further.
• "Mud on court" – new mats have been purchased for members to wipe their feet on before they go on court. Costs are being sought for dressing the car park.
• "Seating for court 3" – Graham Sargood and Josh McDowall are looking into options for creating a seated area on the mound and addressing the mud and weeds that currently thrive in that area. A new bench will be provided at the other end of court 3 as a short term measure.
• "A bubble over one of the courts"  – this is not being considered due to a) the cost implication and b) it is highly doubtful we would ever get planning permission for this. 
• "Singles ladder" - requests for interest and coordinators have been included in this newsletter.
• "More “names from a hat” for tournaments" – this will be done for fun, social events at the club.
• "Social occasions quite expensive" – we consider our social events to be fairly priced and, until now, have never had any complaints about this.
• "Dirty nets on courts 1&2" – these will be cleaned at the next working party in April.
• "Quality of balls on club sessions" – the following procedures have been adopted to tackle complaints about the quality of balls:
  
  The committee member(s) who arrive(s) at the start of club sessions are responsible for ensuring good quality balls are available for play throughout the session. There is a regular stock of nearly new balls from league matches which will continue to be used for club sessions. The club will purchase a supply of new balls which will be kept in the container as reserves – these can be used when the stocks or quality of nearly new balls are deemed inadequate.
  
  If any member is unhappy with the quality of balls available during a club session, please speak to any member of the committee present and ask for better balls. All committee members have the authority to open new tins of balls and requests will not be refused. If no committee member is present and better balls are required, please take from the stocks under the sink and inform a committee member afterwards.
  
  Please could any dud balls be taken out of circulation and placed in the “old ball box” rather than be put back onto the table in the clubhouse. We will be recycling all old balls (and getting paid to do so) so please don’t throw them away.
  
  Please could any balls that are hit out of the courts be collected and not left to litter our hedges. We appreciate some balls land in the middle of prickly hedges and can be difficult to retrieve, especially in the dark. However, a new ball grabber is available in the clubhouse to help retrieve balls from awkward places.
  
  All committee members are very aware of the balls situation but have unanimously agreed that having brand new balls for club night and club morning every week is not financially viable nor is it necessary.We hope that with the above system in place, the complaints about the balls will cease. 

 

Team Managers' round-up of Essex Small Clubs League news 

The first two months of 2017 have been busy with matches in order to get them all played before the end of April 2017 deadline. 

The Mixed 1 team has had two very convincing wins this month, one of which was in challenging, windy conditions. We gained twenty three points in total and this has now put us in a very respectable position in the league table.
Position in the league: 3rd / 7

The Mixed 2 Team have fared better in the four matches played by winning three.  Not surprisingly the match scheduled to be played on the night of Hurricane Doris was cancelled! 
Position in the league: 6th / 7

The Mens 1 Team has won one match and halved the second. 
Position in the league: 5th / 6

The Mens 2 Team played three matches, winning one and losing the remaining two.
Position in the league 6th / 7

The Ladies 1 Team played four matches, winning one, narrowly losing a second  and losing the remaining two.  One of matches involved sweeping the frost of the courts!
Position in the league: 6th / 6

The Ladies 2 Team - report to follow but these ladies are clearly doing well to be in 2nd position in their league!  
Position in the league: 2nd / 6

Green Ball Team - our Green Ball team put up an almighty battle against top of the league Haverhill. We were narrowly beaten by the much more experienced team; not a bad result considering 3 out of 4 players had never played a proper match before. 

 

Summary of dates for your diary:

Sunday 30th April – Working Party from 9am at the club
Thursday 11th May – Start of Summer Pimms Night at the club from 6pm
Sunday 7th May – Start of Summer Bacon Butties at the club from 10.30am
 

All diary dates can be found on our online Court Diary. 

 

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