Our ballot of Wimbledon tickets

StickyMarch 15, 2019Club NewsKatherine Rusbridgefor Zana Fletcher

Please note that the date for our ballot of Wimbledon tickets is May 8th at 7pm. We have now received our notification about our ticket allocation – 44 pairs of tickets to be won. Click Wimbledon tickets 2019 for details. Please note the information on that. It makes the evening flow MUCH better if you decide in advance which tickets you will choose should you be lucky enough to be one of the early names to be drawn.

Wimbledon have provided a detailed document called Wimbledon info 2019 about your visit to the event.

Good luck!

Well done to U14 boys

March 20, 2019JuniorsKatherine Rusbridgefor Kathy Charles

A huge well done to our U14 boys team who scored an impressive 6-0 victory over The Avenue Club at the weekend. Very well played Max, Freddie, Ben and Oli.

New ball machine – training sessions

March 20, 2019Club NewsKatherine Rusbridgefor coaching team

We have a new ball machine which sounds very versatile. Click here for details. In order to use this, you need to have attended one of two training sessions with Jamie : April 3rd at 19:45 or April 4th at 11:30. You will then be issued with a key to its storage area – and can get busy improving your game!

Fun Day : June 1st. Reserve the date!

March 11, 2019Club NewsKatherine Rusbridge

Avondale are going to run a fun day for all their members, players, friends and family on 1 June which is when Robyn Moore starts her Breakpoint 2019 campaign and therefore she will be at Avondale for the afternoon. Robyn is embarking on a monumental tennis challenge in order to raise awareness of, and raising funds for, mental health in the UK.Playing for 8-10 hours a day, on every day in June, she will hit 200,000 shots, sending the ball travelling a total distance of 5 million meters.

If you wish to help Robyn or just join in other activities on our Fun Day, make a note of the date! More details to follow : here, on Facebook and on the club noticeboard.

More on Robyn’s challenge

What a day to have to play a match!

March 10, 2019Juniors, LeagueKatherine Rusbridge

Sunday March 10th was windy, very windy! There was an U16 Girls match and a Ladies C match on at Avondale and everyone had to play through very blustery and showery conditions. Izzy and Nina didn’t quite manage to get a win, though they with Ciaro and Emma had a good win earlier in the season. Well done to them though for trying their best on such a difficult day! The Ladies C team did win their match – well done to them too!

The Ladies B team had an away match that day. They gained enough points to secure their promotion to the Premier Division next season. So congratulations all round!

Handicap tournaments : entry now open

March 8, 2019TournamentsKatherine Rusbridgefor Zana Fletcher

From Zana : I am writing to invite you to attend the 2019 Handicap Tournament which I hope you will enter.

If you have never entered this tournament before please give it a go as it is a lot of fun and a great way to meet some new members and play alongside members you may not have paired up with or played against before.

These are knockout events but the stronger players are handicapped by the scoring rules which aim to ensure a broadly equal chance for all players and an opportunity for the lower ranked players to enjoy the thrill of playing in a Final.

Entries welcomed from Senior Members and Senior-Junior Members.

Entry deadline: Sunday 24 March 2019.

Entry Fee: £2.00 per person per event.

As this is a handicapped event everyone has a chance of reaching the Final so please do not enter if you know you are not available on Finals Day 7 July 2019 (Reserve Date in case of bad weather: 14 July 2019).

Players organise their own matches from April through to finals day at dates/times convenient to them.

The draw will be published on the noticeboard at the beginning of April so that entrants can start to organise their matches.

Click here for Handicap Entry Form

Update on court re-surfacing

March 8, 2019Club NewsKatherine Rusbridgefor Paul Treacy

Message from Paul : I have heard from Trevor May that they are unable to start work on courts 1 and 2 as planned on 18th March and they have proposed pushing the timetable back by one week to commence on Monday 25th March. Assuming a 2 week timetable the courts will hopefully be complete by Friday 5th April. I believe that the reason for this is a delay in work underway elsewhere because of intermittent wet weather.

This is disappointing but we always knew that there was a risk to the dates quoted and I expect we can cope but if this causes any issues please let me know as soon as possible.

Although the courts should be ready for the Smiths Cup weekend on 6th/7th April it might be prudent to restrict the entries to 10 pairs (8 playing on 4 courts with 2 pairs sitting out). Based on experience in previous years this should be OK.

We passed our LTA Audit – thank you for your help

February 9, 2019Club NewsKatherine Rusbridgefor Paul Treacy

In September last year the LTA decided to end Tennismark accreditation and required that all LTA registered clubs must meet Minimum Standards in five areas, focusing particularly on Safeguarding and Health & Safety. These Minimum Standards are audited by LTA visits to the Clubs and we had our first audit on 6th February.

Following the audit I am pleased to say that the LTA confirmed that the Club meets all their Minimum Standards and in some areas we exceed them. Thank you to Paul Kemsley, our Welfare Officer for his work in preparation for the LTA visit. If you have any concerns about Safeguarding issues please contact Paul on 07747 105459. To find out more about Safeguarding at the Club click here.

Thank you to all members who completed the LTA survey which formed part of the audit. It was pleasing to note those three little words “well managed club” cropping up frequently in the survey comments and we shall follow up on suggestions made for further improvement.

PS : Paul insisted that I include the following comment from him : “You may also be interested to know that the LTA auditor was very impressed with our website – well done to Katherine and, of course, to Chris Hazell who did so much to give it such a professional look”

Programme of summer tournaments

February 8, 2019TournamentsKatherine Rusbridgefor Zana Fletcher

The programme of summer tournaments has now been posted, giving all the dates. Details of how to sign up, where required, will be issued later. Hope you find something which you can enter and enjoy!
Click here to see the programme

Congratulations to Mens D team

February 4, 2019LeagueKatherine Rusbridge

Congratulations to the Mens D team. They already have enough points to be sure of promotion to the next division and they have achieved this with two matches to spare. Their current total is 92 with the next closest club having only 56 and they cannot win enough points in the remaining matches to catch our team. Well done!

Safeguarding update

January 27, 2019Club NewsKatherine Rusbridgefor Paul Treacy

Members may have seen recent press comment regarding Safeguarding in Tennis. All members should be reassured that Avondale Tennis Club has appropriate Safeguarding Policies in place and these can be accessed by clicking here. If any member has any issue relating to Safeguarding at the Club please contact our Welfare Officer, Paul Kemsley on 07747 105459.

Easter holiday courses

January 26, 2019CoachingKatherine Rusbridge

Details and booking links for our Easter holiday courses are now available, under Coaching, Holiday Courses. We are running Mini Tennis Red and Juniors in both weeks. In week 1, they run over 4 days, from April 9th – 12th. In week 2 of the holiday, they run over 3 days , from April 16th – 18th.