We are waiting to hear from the LTA following the announcement this week about the general July 4th lock down restriction changes. Until then the current instructions still apply:
- no mix in's across 4's
- keep 2m apart at all times unless with members of your household or bubble
- use the hand sanitiser when you have dragged the clay court sand swept the lines
- coaching ok in groups of 6 or less, including the coach

One change is that the LTA have deemed that using one set of tennis balls for singles or doubles is ok. Of course, if you wish to, do continue to use your own balls when serving.

We hope that with the July 4th changes we may be able to resume club adult and junior nights with mix ins and daytime organised tennis. We also plan to reopen the bar from July 4th. We need to work out how to do that in our context (e.g. table service, name register for contact tracing etc) and re-stock.

Watch this space for updates!

Tor Stockdale has a supply of Frank Lyman reusable fabric masks that were made during lock down. The Recommended Retail Price is £12 but Tor is offering them to members at the cost he paid, £5 per mask. This will help use up his stock of 150+! He has a range of colours available and a children's size. The club will be buying a supply for our bar staff and coffee / cake servers.

Kate is doing coffee and cake from 10.15am tomorrow and will be wearing one. She will have some with her if you want to have a look and buy tomorrow. Kate will put the payment through our card payment system and the club will pass the money onto Tor. No cash please!

If you are not at the club tomorrow morning and would like a mask, contact Tor at torstokkies@aol.com.

In light of the further easing of restrictions on the 4th July, Huw will be re-opening the TopSpin Tennis Pro Shop from Monday 6th July.

There will be Covid measures in place and details of the initial opening hours will be sent out via newsletter before that date.

If you need anything between now and then though, by all means get in touch with Huw on huw@morganphillips.co.uk or 07870 654204 and he'll be able to help.

Thanks to everyone who has joined us on court since the restrictions were lifted. It's been fantastic to see so many of you out there hitting balls.

Our impromptu 5-week courses have proven very popular and the team thanks everyone for their support. It's been brilliant having the children (and adults!) back honing their skills.

Depending on forthcoming LTA announcements, we're also hoping to run Summer Camps. Watch this space for more details.

As you know, Head Coach Chris has been shielding since lockdown lifted due to his personal family circumstances. We're pleased to report though that he will be back in full swing at the club from the 1st August.

We are edging out of lock down and I hope we can soon re-start the club social nights for adults and juniors. That will help us include and integrate the 61 new members who have joined since our mid-May reopening and those who have renewed and are looking for a game. If you see some members you don't recognise please say hello and suggest meeting up for a game or including them in your groups if you are of similar standards.

On the subject of numbers, Mary Bartlett has completed the membership renewal process and we now stand at 516 members. That includes our 61 new friends. We had 125 members who did not renew by the 13th of June. Given the situation we have been in with lock down, deferred membership and restrictions on play and coaching that is a much leaver rate than I had anticipated. Result! Many thanks to Mary for once again running a smooth renewal process over the last few months and dealing with the myriad of questions, changes, system updating and payment reconciliation she has to do. We will now press on with recruiting new members and see if we can get to the 2015 - 2020 Business Plan target of 600 by June next year!

The initial remedial works on Court 17 and 18 have been completed. We are now waiting for the acrylic sub-contractor to come back and re-do the cracking, puddling and ground down areas. The work should be done in the next few weeks. Now that the membership renewal period is over Martin Quigley, our Treasurer, is doing the sums to forecast income and expenditure to next June. That analysis will help the Committee decide if we can proceed with the approved re-surfacing work for Courts 11, 12 and 13 this summer / early autumn in time for this winter, or if we need to wait until next year.

Pete Lowe is on the case with Affinity Water about the leak that is coming from our manhole cover just inside our grounds. Hopefully it will be fixed by the time you read this!

As highlighted above, we are anticipating re-opening the bar from July 4th per Boris' guidance regarding pubs, bars, hotels etc. A number of you have asked when the bar will re-open for outside service in the current lovely weather. We need to manage the risk of larger gatherings and social distancing and assess how we can comply with the July 4th "conditions" once we hear from the LTA on this matter. Hold fire, we will re-open when safe!

I had a good chat with Andrew Smith today, my predecessor as Chairman. He is back in the area for a while and has been playing with Romily who has just rejoined us. He was complimentary about the club and I expressed our thanks to him for the "new" clubhouse, courts and the good financial position that he created during his tenure which has allowed us to invest significant sums in facilities over the last 5 years. You are always welcome back Andrew!

You may spot some rather pro looking players whacking the ball around on the acrylics and think "wow, they're pretty good". We have signed up as members Alexis Canter and Toby Martin recently who compete on the national and international circuit and are practising with us while they get ready for tournaments to start. Good luck chaps!

I hope you enjoy the weather, courts and club over the next few weeks. We will communicate updates on bar opening and social tennis nights / day time groups as soon as we can.
Happy hitting

Neil
neil1miller@aol.com, 07771 660343