A belated Happy New Year to all at GMLTC and welcome to the January Newsletter - Roger's Rag replacing Neil's Note.

On behalf of us all I would like to thank Neil and other committee members who are standing down for their amazing work over the past few years, leaving the club in very healthy position.

Next a Covid update, which is somewhat ironic as Plan B restrictions are about to be lifted. We have been contacted by the government giving us a 'venue alert'. This suggests a number of people who checked into the club using the QR code have tested positive for Covid. It appears this happened on Saturday when inevitably we had quite of lot of social tennis going on plus a match or two. If you were at the club on Saturday and in particular if you were in the clubhouse before or after playing, you might want to take a test to reassure yourselves and those around you.

On the same subject, Lara from the coaching team tested positive this morning. Her Wednesday morning groups were cancelled and the rest of her sessions will be rescheduled or covered by another member of the team. We wish her a speedy return.

Now onto plumbing! We had an issue over last weekend impacting both clubhouse and leaving them without water for 24 hours. Many thanks to Pete Lowe for both investigating and fixing the problem that impacts the main clubhouse. The upper clubhouse is still without water and further investigations are scheduled for Thursday morning (tomorrow as I write).

We will keep you posted on progress on both of the above items.

As you know we use the LTA's Clubspark system for floodlight court booking. We have been advised that there are changes being made by the LTA in the system to a 'single sign in' mode going forward. You should have an email in your inbox on this change if you are registered with Clubspark. The change at GMLTC will be made on 25th January. Log in as normal after that date with your Clubspark details and you will be asked to complete a short process to create or merge with your LTA account. After that anytime you visit Clubspark or any LTA system you will use your 'new' LTA account. There is a support video available via the Read More link below.

If you are not set up on Clubspark to book floodlit courts send Alison an email at membership@gmltc.com and she will arrange it with you.

Regards, Roger

Junior News

Generation Tournament
There will be a fun adult and junior doubles tournament on Saturday 5th February starting at 1.30pm at the club. You don't need a partner to enter and you will be changing partners each round so everyone has a chance to win! Playing parents who want to join in will be given priority of entry We should be finished by about 3.30pm and there will be refreshments available.

Please contact me as below if you would like to play or have any questions

Teen tennis has started again after the Christmas break on Fridays from 5-7pm with Phil Howes providing coaching input for the second hour. 12 players turned up last Friday despite the cold weather but more are always welcome. It's a good way to let off steam at the end of the week, especially if you've been wearing a mask all day!

There will be another friendly junior match on Sunday 27th February so if anybody would like to play in it please let me know.

Happy Tennising!
Kim

kimdsmith9@gmail.com
07563011003

Simon Gresswell's New Year Tournament
Not to be defeated by the good old British Christmas weather on 27th Dec, the brave Christmas Fun Tournament entrants gathered on 3rd January for a swiftly re-arranged New Year American Doubles bash.

Numbers were nearly as good as the postponed version the week before and so pitching up just before 11am on a Monday, I was looking forward to putting my high tech draw format (piece of squared paper) into action. After all we only needed 7 courts...and we have many! However, 8 courts were already being used by club members, intent, like us, on having a New Year hit and making the most of that rarest of things, a weather window! I had not anticipated the need for spatial juggling and problem-solving was not high on my list for the first Bank Holiday of 2022!

Thanks to some expert court-hawking/scouting/puddle-clearing by among others Doc Pete, Dave Wingfield and Paul Freeman, we slowly managed to filter 4s onto courts and get most people up and running soon. An American Doubles tourney consists of rotation of pairs and ideally, is played on adjacent courts. As we were occupying all 5 levels of the club the second and third round pairings and 4s, needed to be concocted on the spot. Many thanks to everyone for getting on with it and and had a good time, as always!

Many brought cakes, biccies, nibbles and tipples and all were taken happily on the terrace, in the build up to an epic prize-giving, which saw 13 prizes awarded….some of which were even for tennis. For the record Doc Pete Lowe and Ann Sharman ran out individual winners.

Thanks to all who accepted the invite to play and turn up and ensure that many others had a bit of a fun.
We’ll look to do similar, simple, fun and fayre on future bank holidays….and thanks to her Maj, there’s an extra one of those this year.

Simon Gresswell

A quick update - discussions both internally and externally have continued over the past month or so resulting in our options becoming clearer. We hope to hear from the LTA on funding in the next few days which will allow us to further refine the potential proposition and decide what to put to members for a vote at the AGM.

When we have clarity on what the padel resolution for voting is we will schedule the AGM - most likely late February / March.