Elliswick LTC Newsletter – January 2021

Dear Members,

Welcome to our January Newsletter. We hope that you and your family are all well and that you managed to keep yourselves fit and healthy during the current lockdown.  Let’s hope that we will be allowed to play tennis again very soon. During the lockdown, the Committee have been busy with organising the club’s businesses. We are pleased to inform you the following:

The Committee has appointed a Contracts Sub-Committee to review and approve the Club’s contracts with third parties subject to confirmation of more significant contracts by the full Committee. Eric Rovick, Jaap Hesselink and David Kendall are to sit on the Contracts Sub-Committee with Jim McGown as a substitute in cases of conflict of interest.

At the last committee meeting on 18 January 2021, the Committee re-elected Jim McGown as President for a further 12 months.

Covid-19 Updates

On the 27th January, The Prime Minister has announced the intention of the Government to set out during w/c 22nd February its plan for how the lockdown in England may be eased, indicating that this will involve a gradual and phased relaxing of restrictions. Ahead of this, the LTA will continue its discussions with the Government on the safe resumption of tennis activity as a naturally socially distant sport.  As previously, we will communicate what any plans for the easing of lockdown restrictions mean for tennis activity as soon as we are able to do so following Government and LTA announcements.

2021 Annual Club Tournament – October 2021

Due to the current lockdown, we are currently planning to delay our annual club tournament, with the final held in October 2021, date to be confirmed. We will provide more information once we have confirmation of when we will be allowed to play again.

Membership

Please note that if you have any queries about your membership, please email our Membership Secretary, Sally Radcliffe directly at [email protected] NOT [email protected].

If you have not yet paid your 2021 subscription, please make sure you do so by 28/02/2021. Unfortunately, you no longer qualify for the 5% prompt payment discount!

From 1st March, we will be offering any remaining places to some of the 315 people on our waiting list.

Please note, we will not be issuing shoe tags this year. If you are unsure if your payment went through, please check your bank statement.

Grounds & Clubhouse

We are hoping that the weather will soon permit work on the creasing on court 2 and the court rejuvenation on 4-7, the contractors have had to cancel twice. We certainly hope to get that work done before we re-open for play.

The broken step by the used ball bin at the front of the club has been repaired.

The floodlight sub-committee have reported their decision to the Committee members, and we are now beginning the planning work.

One of the floodlight masts has been fixed by Abacus as it had become stuck.

Team Tennis

Ladies tennis

When we are allowed to play again this summer, we will be entering 2 teams in the Herts league and 4 teams in Hot Rackets. If any ladies would like to play in any of the ladies teams, please do not hesitate to register your interest by contacting our Ladies Captain, Victoria Aitchison at [email protected]

Men’s Tennis

As per last summer, this year, we will be entering one team in the Men’s National League (Aegon), 5 teams in the Herts League and 2 teams in the Hot Rackets League. If anyone would like to play in any of the men’s teams, please do not hesitate to register your interest by contacting our Men’s Captain, Rupert Tillbrooke, at [email protected].

Mixed Team Tennis

The 2020 East Herts Winter Mixed season is on hold due to the current Covid-19 restriction.

We are now hoping that 2021 Summer Datchworth season will commence in April and await further updates. If anyone would like to play in one of the 3 mixed-teams please do not hesitate to register your interest by contacting Kate Curson at [email protected].

Coaching

We can imagine that everyone is missing tennis lots. Our coaches, Ben Wood and Rupert Tillbrooke, are running zoom lessons for adults. Feel free to drop in and join them, they are running on Wednesday evenings starting at 7.30pm on zoom https://us02web.zoom.us/j/5963311394. They both are running these for free but if you feel you get value from these or the videos, they welcome your contributions.

The recordings of these sessions are available on the club’s Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/elliswicktennis.  To support our club, please like our Facebook page.

Rackets

Our Head Coach, Ben Wood, has been speaking with a few retailers and found a great company that’s prices are very competitive and on top of that we have an extra 5% discount when we use the discount code. Link below, which is now on the club’s website. This should give members the best rackets and value for money when you need an upgrade. Discount code: elliswickltc5, https://allthingstennis.co.uk/discount/ELLISWICKLTC5

If you have any queries regarding any of the above, please do not hesitate to contact Ben Wood at [email protected].

Kind Regards

Elliswick LTC Committee

PS, Don’t forget to keep up to date with events at our website http://www.elliswickltc.co.uk and follow our Facebook page as well.