Glenhuntly Tennis Club

GHTC Newsletter October 2019

Glenhuntly Tennis Club Newsletter

SEPTEMBER 2019

www.tennis.com.au/glenhtc

Annual General Meeting: – Sunday 13 October, 11.30am – 1pm. Positions available for nomination include: President, Treasurer, Secretary and all other Committee positions and roles. If interested in nominating, please email Club Secretary Stephen Cramond at [email protected]

Apart from the standard AGM reporting from office holders, we will be updating attendees on the quotes and grant applications now almost finalised for our major courts project. As discussed below, success in our funding applications might mean some action on courts and fencing in the December-January period.

Membership Renewals – Thanks so much if you’ve renewed with us for 2019-20 – but if you haven’t yet [and if you’re playing Senior of Junior comp you must be registered with us before comp starts up] relax, it’s really easy to do – just visit http://bit.ly/renew19-20 and follow the instructions to pay online. Any problems, talk to membership coordinator, Ron Slamowicz. Ron can be contacted on 0424 004 388 or at [email protected]

Coaching Memberships: If you’re a client of GHTC’s club coach, Phil Mattei, then the Club now requires that, if you’re not otherwise a member that you take up one of the following membership options:

• Join as a [new] Club member – at http://bit.ly/renew19-20 – and receive a fee discount of 20% – or
• Become a Coaching Court Member – for a fee of $20 per year a person receiving accredited coaching (and any member of their family) may be registered as a Coaching Court Member and play on the courts (when available) during the hour before or after the coaching lesson; or
• Otherwise be registered with us as a Coaching Affiliate Member without fee so our Club can communicate about Club activities.

To join for one of the above options, go to our website at http://bit.ly/renew19-20, select the Member category you need and fill in the contact details. Payment by credit card or otherwise by EFT/cash/cheque.

Farewells – to Roger Yan, Megumi Sato and Simon Huxtable. Stalwarts of both competition and social tennis, they’ve all returned home this year – to China, Japan and New Zealand, respectively. They’ll all be missed – and we look forward to them returning, in the not too distant future, to play tennis with us again.

Court Redevelopment News: Glen Eira Tennis Strategy Funding – Council funding is available to clubs, including our own, for infrastructure upgrades, focussing on the introduction of automated court booking systems. GHTC will be applying for funding here [and, separately, for relevant grants from other government agencies] to upgrade courts, fencing and introduce automated entry and payment for casual use. We are gathering quotes from providers and development grant applications right now and are hopeful of success. So, fingers crossed!

High Winds, Court Damage and outreach to the Caulfield Racecourse Reserve Trust:– As a part of the recent Racecourse Reserve Trust Community Consultation, the club has raised again the possibility of the racecourse authorities restoring appropriate tree planting on the Racecourse Fence Line as one means for reducing wind damage to our courts and improving playability generally. While we have had a positive initial response, there will be a lot more discussion to be had while the Trust works out its priorities.

Tree coverage along the Club’s shared boundary with the Racecourse extended [per this aerial photo from 1969] all the way west to Glen Eira College. It gave much more protection from winds off the Racecourse than we’ve had since their removal.

Glen Eira College News:  For the second year running GHTC has, over the last six weeks, provided “Introduction to Tennis” classes for about 150 Year 8 students from our neighbouring Glen Eira College for their Physical Education programme. Each student had on average six hours of training time for which GHTC has provided the volunteer efforts with College teacher support. Each student had group and individual lessons on warm-ups, forehands, backhands, volleys, serves, court lines and scoring. We have now offered to the school for interested students to have follow-up hitting, participate in a squad selection and then coach a team for inter-school tennis. Our Club Coach, Phil Mattei, has agreed to help with some coaching free of charge. We are delighted that over 50 students have signed up to participate!

We started and ended the course by stressing that the purpose of playing tennis is to have fun! And clearly the students did have fun and want to go on with it.

Senior Competition Team News  – . The Glenhuntly Mixed Rubbers team (Loretta Garvey, Susan Stagg, Nola Hardie, Michael Stagg, Tony Luxmore and Cyril Sansano) just missed the Grand Final, losing by one set with games being equal.

The Glenhuntly Men’s Singles/Doubles team went very close to winning their Grand Final, down by just one set and four games. Nevertheless, they had a great season winning the Jack Butterworth Trophy for the highest percentage of any team throughout all the winter Bayside competitions.

“It’s a testament to the team, for their fantastic effort, sportsmanship, commitment and participation!!” Paul Laughton, Team Captain on the Butterworth Trophy award.

Our Adult comp teams start their summer season on 5 October (to mid-Dec and then Feb to March 2020). This season we’ve added one team so we have two Mixed Rubbers teams and one Men’s Singles/Doubles team. If you’d like to play please get in touch with the relevant Captain:

Men’s S/D Nicholas Chong 0409 536 067

Mixed Rubbers (probably Section 3) Loretta Garvey 0409 536 067

Mixed Rubbers (probably Section 6) John Sanders 0421 116 371

Junior Competition Team News – We now have five teams playing junior tennis on Saturday mornings. We hope to have an extra boys team and an extra girls team in the next season (from Jan-June 2020). We’d also like to start some Sunday morning junior teams from early next year. If you know of any junior who wants to play now or from early next year, please let Phil Mattei (0418 399 653) or Barry Farrell (0403 054 491) know.

Coaching – The “Lobster” Arrives: the latest tool in the arsenal of Club Coach, Phil Mattei, the “Lobster” is an automated ball-throwing machine, available for hire for adult members or as incorporated in Phil’s coaching sessions.

These machines can speed up a tennis player’s technical development and aerobic capacity by automatically “throwing” balls from the other side of the net. When incorporated into a coaching session, they give Phil more time to critique student shot-making giving better session outcomes.

The Lobster can be hired to our adult members for $30 per 60 minutes along with instruction on how to best use it. The Lobster can also be incorporated into Phil’s coaching, giving him more time to observe your technique, better identify problem areas and work on improved stroke production. Phil can be contacted on 0418 399 653 and at [email protected]

Social Tennis: Organised Social Tennis is on four times a week –

Sunday afternoons (with start of daylight saving, from Sunday 6 October social tennis for next 6 months will be from 2pm+); also,

• Mondays from 5.30pm
• Tuesday nights from 7.30pm
• Sunday mornings 10-12noon

Tuesday night social tennis will resume from Tuesday 15 October 7.30pm. For Night comp we’re looking at two possibilities, both starting in Feb next year :  a Wednesday Night Mixed Doubles Comp (7.30pm start) in Waverley District or the Tuesday Night Open Doubles (Section 2) (7pm start) in Bayside District.

Glenhuntly Tennis Club “Merch“:

Caps:  Our quality badged Club Caps are available at clubhouse. $10 for members and $25 for non-members. (Similar caps usually retail for $30-40).

Just see a Committee member, Coach or team captain: pay our account GHTC BSB 633-000 Bendigo Bank Caulfield A/C No: 149592107 Ref “Cap – Your Name”).

Club Shirts: We’re also now looking into Club shirts, particularly for junior teams. More on this later.

Graham Ihlein                                            Steve Cramond

(Club President 0400 598 705)                   (Club Secretary 03 9505 6267)