Dear Members,
What a year it has been, so much achieved in court development and in general around our club. I look across at our facilities now with such pride.
Developments: 2023/24
Achievements
- Courts 5 and 6 were laid with astroturf late last year. This was to combat the damp conditions at the back of these courts shaded by the Bowls’ clubrooms during the winter. They have already proved their worth and certainly are playing better with the addition of more sand.
In the future, the club may also look at putting astro onto courts 3 and 4. Currently it is a low priority.
- Finally Courts 9 and 10 have been turned into beautiful plexipave courts. It was a difficult and lengthy project. The club has much to thank John Larson for as he battled through council consents, charity funding applications, quotes and contracts and drainage plans. This project required considerable club funding but the results are wonderful. With courts 7 and 8 also resurfaced at the same time I was a very proud President who with Ewan had the pleasure of opening this bay of courts in February. This now gives us 8 plexi and 2 astro courts in very good condition and a clear management plan for these 10 courts for their future care.
At this point I do wish to acknowledge the substantial hours Richard Suckling has quietly put in maintaining courts 11 and 12. His persistence to keep the moss away is enabling all of us to have safe and prolonged use of these courts.
- Thanks to Mandy’s organisation we now have a smart new sign at the entrance indicating we are no longer a grass tennis court club.
- We have revised our RULES document. This will be presented to the members for comment and hopefully acceptance at our AGM. This updated document is required as we reregister for funding purposes as an Incorporated Society.
- Kay has produced a club information guide handout that will be given to all new members when they sign up.
- We were thrilled to receive a donation of $6000 from a longtime friend of our Club, Julian Faulls. It was his company that recently did such a good job completing the resurfacing of courts 7-10. We intend to spend this donation on seating beside court 10. Two new bench seats should be in place shortly..
- Our busy John has also deactivated our club alarm system. Our alarm was giving our neighbours grief as it went on intermitently during the early hours of the morning. We have replaced this system with security lights and cameras in the clubrooms. We also decided to change the code for the disabled door and key lock at the same time. Our disabled toilet has become a public facility and it is time to reset our codes to ensure just our members have access.
- Cathy Forrest has produced a financial planner for the Committee. This has enabled us already to prioritse our spending and being able to view broadly our financial commitments ahead,
Under Development
- Shortly we will be replacing some of our boundary fence along Crichton Terrace. At the same time as the fence is erected, we will put a gate back enabling access to Crichton Terrace. ( to get those balls that fly on the road ! ). This gate will have the same code as the door access to the disabled toilet. Thank you to Grant Eastlake and John who have built the new steps.
- John is also investigating the possibility of building a small multipurpose building to :
house additional equipment ie court sweeper ( our garage is full )
house our coaches and their equipment – racket stringing machine etc
This will take time as we seek consents, funding and consider where to locate etc.
- Maria and Jeremy are investigating the possibility of our club employing a part time administrator. They are presenting back their findings to the committee in September.
For the future
- We have put the intention to lock down our facility with a pay2play gate entry on the back burner in the meantime as we prioritise our spending.
- We are seeking a proactive member interested in coordinating our programmes for our junior members and families alongside our coaches. We are so grateful for the work Brendon Miller has done. Thank you Brendon. You will be very hard to replace. I will be advertising for this person asap. I am also hoping we can attract new junior parents onto an active junior committee.
- Tim McHarg with the help of Bill Graves is researching the possibility of our playing pickleball at the club. This is not an easy process as :
it requires council permission to allow play & change the usage of the courts.
we must meet acoustic standards – only courts 11 and 12 would just meet sound tests for
pickleball use
if on the back bay, the courts would need to be upgraded to asphalt / plexi at a big
cost with these courts needing new drainage as well. The Council has suggested that using
any of the courts in the bay courts 1-4 would be preferable for meeting sound standards.
We are currently in the research phase.
- Courts 11-13
Note as some damage was done to court 13 during the work on courts 9 and 10, to just make this
one court operational for tennis or pickleball would be in the vicinity of $80.000. Discussion will need to take place with members re the future of courts 11-13 before any new development is undertaken, as it would a require major financial commitment..
- Pay2Play was introduced to the club for its membership and financial packages. It has had its challenges as with all new systems and I certainly have found the changes with communication to you has not been easy. Thank you for your patience. We were able to introduce an online booking system for the courts. Well done to Mandy and James who efficiently cope with membership. As mentioned earlier we are considering in the future to have a pay2play system operating a one entry point to our club.
Calendar:
- The Thursday group again ran an incredibly successful BIG Day Out last October. Well done to Bede. Such is the success, teams are jockeying to enter. The club benefits from a very generous donation from this event with all proceeds going to our court development fund.
- The Seniors’ tournament was held at our club again at Show Weekend. This event was successfully run by Grant Eastlake and a dedicated band of volunteers. Of particular note is the group in the kitchen. Kay and volunteers did so well. It is a high profile event on the masters’ calendar and is a major fundraiser for the club. Huge thanks to all those involved in the organisation as it is a very busy weekend and we have a proud tradition to maintain with organising this event.
- This year we were blessed with the weather and successfully completed our 2024 Club Championships. It is proving difficult to find the calendar dates at the end of the interclub season between Easter, weather, school holidays and the start of winter sport. Thanks to Stu McHarg for his time and passion for this event. Congratulations to our winners.
Many members enjoy having the opportunity to play our top players regardless of the result. We continued holding our junior and senior prizegiving together and the pizzas were shared by those who attended. I would love to see more members ( senior and junior ) enjoy our two major social evenings – Club Championships and Christmas. It is so special to see a buzzing lounge of members.
- In May we continued our annual afternoon of social tennis against Elmwood at Elmwood. It is great to keep up this contact with a sister club. Thanks Cathy for your organisation and to those who participated. I hear we were the winners this year.
Subscriptions
Setting this year’s subscriptions brought about much debate on the committee. While we do not wish to have to increase members’ costs we cannot maintain or improve our facilities and service without doing so. Like any other business we are facing increased costs to operate. The senior subscription increase has been kept to a minimum however we had to increase our junior subscriptions by more in order to continue to provide the programmes we currently operate.
Please members support any fundraising activities where you can as these finance streams are crucial to our moving forward.
I acknowledge the expertise of Mandy our Treasurer. She is such an asset to our club.
Reports:
Social Play
Saturday Tennis continues to be well supported with most courts in use during afternoon play. The fine weather has played its part with good playing conditions on most Saturdays. The modification of courts 9 and 10 being plexipave and courts 5 and 6 being astro has made a very positive improvement to the overall playing conditions of those courts.
I would like to thank all those members who have put their name forward to do the board, as it can be a challenge at times. I would encourage anyone who has not done the board in awhile or maybe has an injury and cannot play to contact me about the possibility of filling in .
Full training provided!
Happy Tennis ,
Bill
Sponsorship
We are grateful to have the support of several local businesses . Since last year, several new sponsors have come on board and the funding they provide enables us to continue to have the programmes and facilities that make Cashmere such a great tennis club. We encourage members to support these companies.
Our sponsorship package includes signage on court and in the clubrooms, regular profile in newsletters, website branding with links and other benefits.
We welcome any club member who wishes to promote their business.
Current Club sponsors. (Excluding confidential supporters)
Walker Searells Ray White Cashmere
Sharp copiers GN Brewer Drainlayer
Upright Scaffolding Flexipave
Runacres insurance Anytime Fitness
Circuit Asphalt. Online Distribution
Watford Building Services.
The Oxford Group. Southern Monograms
NZ Community Trust Montreux Furniture
Jeremy Wilson
Social Play
No report received from Maria.
Wednesday Winter social play and Club Championships
No report received from Stu
Grounds’ Report
It has been a busy year and a lot has been happening on the grounds
Planning and acceptance of quotes for drainage and replacement of Courts 9 & 10 .
Meeting with community Board unopposed .
Work started the day after our very successful show weekend tournament and was completed and opened l early February .
With shading from bowling club which caused wet courts alot of the time in winter the committee voted in favour of replacing courts 5&6 with Astro . This has been a great move forward as these courts are used alot when other courts aren’t playable.
Richard Suckling has tirelessly been spraying courts 11 & 12 to remove moss and this has brought these courts back to life . Along with a new broom trailer and secondhand ride on mower we can groom both 5 , 6 , 11 and 12 without involving outside contractors .
Exterior fencing along Crichton Terrace has been replaced to match all our other fencing . Grant Eastlake put forward the repair /replacement of steps leading up to Crighton Terrace and myself and Grant have rebuilt these . A new gate will be incorporated in fencing to gain access from Crighton Terrace as we have had in the past
We have replaced our alarm system after numerous complaints from neighbours from false triggering .
We now have a camera recorded system along with internal auto sensor lights inside the club .
With the very generous donation from one of our major sponsors Julian Faulls ( Plexipave )we have 2 new seats arriving for the far end of court 10 .
Cheers John
Bar Report
No report received from Simon
Junior Report
No report received from James Meredith
Club Captains Report 2023-24 – Cathy Forrest
As Cathy is out of town, her report will be shared with the members asap after the AGM.
Midweek Interclub
No report received from Christine
Tuesday Racquets
Still in business after four years , the Tuesday morning session is still proving of interest to both members and non-members . Our market is largely members who look for additional organized tennis at times other than Saturday. Also see the session as a path for potential and new members to experience the CTC.It’s working well and with some days three to four courts in operation.
The main agenda is that we are seeing more use of the valuable asset our Cashmere Tennis Club with games being organized at a further playing session.
There is a What’s App’ link up and if play is cancelled for the day with dubious and doubtful weather members on the App are notified
We operate from 10.30 am to 12 noon every Tuesday morning, looking forward to welcoming more takers.
Ewan Maxwell
Coaching –
No report received from Matt Meredith
Coaching Staff :
Thank you to Matt and James Meredith who are responsible for the coaching programmes at the club. It is good to see how many members take the opportunity to work with Matt and James as they look to improve their game. I also want to thank Alan Hawkins for his devotion to coaching. We are blessed to have him. I also welcome Salomon to the group. He is so enthusiastic with our juniors. I hope he is able to get his work visa extended.
Volunteers:
It takes many to ensure the club runs smoothly and provides the service it does. On behalf of the members, I thank all those who do take their turn: on the bar, on the board organising games, attending working bees …
As I looked to those members who are so generous in giving up their time it does strike me that each year I am thanking the same people. As with all organisations we can only provide what we do with the love and time given by us all.
A special thanks again to:
- Des who spends much time pottering in and caring for our gardens
- John Larson who looks after the building and the grounds. John continues to give his time and expertise so generously. Grant and Bede thank you for your support of John with our buildings and grounds needs.
- Lionel who purchases supplies for the kitchen and the bar.
- Simon who runs our bar and all the volunteers on the bar roster..
- Ewan who continues to devote time to the Tuesday Racquets Group and for his expertise behind our court development programme.
- Thanks to the junior committee for your support over the season.
- Katrina our wonderful cleaner
Members where would we be without you !!
Successes – Seniors:
Committee
Cashmere Tennis Club is very fortunate to have a capable, active committee. Each of the committee members makes such a commitment to the club. I do hope members that you celebrate the work of these members and support them in whatever ways you can. You will see their names sprinkled throughout this report as they are such an integral part of the club. Thank you so much all of you for your dedication.
Bill Graves, Stu McHarg, John Larson, Jeremy Wilson, Cathy Forrest, Lesley Joyce, Kay McGown, Mandy Wilson, Maria Austin and Ewan Maxwell
.
I acknowledge in particular, Stu and Ewan who are now stepping down from the committee. Both are dedicated to the future and the well being of our club. Ewan has brought his expertise in our court development in ensuring our projects have moved through and his financial background to funding. He remains the backbone of the Tuesday mid week group. Stu runs the Wednesday night social sessions through the cold winters. He loves following the senior members ( and his talented children and grandchildren! ) With his passion, our current club championships were rightfully revived. He was central to our successful celebration of our centenary. In common they love the club. Well deserved retirement from the committee.
You can see that we are losing key members from the committee and therefore looking for keen members to replace them. Please let me know if you are interested.
Looking ahead :
Thank you all for choosing to be a part of this great club.
Play hard, keep safe, have fun it is but a game!
Thanks,
Noelene Hodder
President Cashmere Tennis Club