chairmans chat 2005 ...

Another summer season beckons, and for those of you who haven’t been playing in the winter you will no doubt be trying to find your racquets and hoping to fit into that tennis gear that you last wore in September!! For those of you who have been playing through the rain, sleet and snow, I bet, like me, you are looking forward to the warmth and sunshine.

Great Shelford Tennis Club is the second largest club in the county. The AGM in February saw the retirement of Mark Sanders after five years as a tremendously successful Chairman and, from my point of view, a very difficult act to follow. This year there will be plenty of new things happening. We now have a Club crest, which represents both the game we love and the place we live, as well as incorporating a Latin motto that the committee felt summed up GSTC well. Non-classical scholars can ask a committee member for a translation! There is a brand new clothing range with the new crest emblazoned on all items (already selling like hot cakes). We hope to give the Club area a makeover with some improved signage, wind breaks and banners and our web site (www.gstc.org.uk) is also being revamped. The hugely successful black tie dinner of last year will be repeated, this time at Gonville and Caius College on 17 September at 7pm, so put it in your diary now! There will also be the first ever GSTC punting outing (details to follow) and many other social events to take your minds off how badly you’ve served or why your volleys never quite go in!

Many of you will have noticed that we have a new head coach in Hamid Hejazi. Hamid has thrown his considerable skill and enthusiasm into re-structuring our mini-tennis, junior and adult coaching programmes and is having quite an impact right across the board. Those of us who thought we knew what we were doing have been put straight and the improvement is immediately noticeable. I urge you all to consider having lessons with Hamid and his team; the standard of coaching is quite superb.

We have been seeing promising juniors participating in the senior teams, a trend we hope will gather pace in 2005. This, coupled with the appointment of two enthusiastic new captains in Ailsa Weir and Neil Harvey, will deliver some fantastic results in the Cambs leagues. It is also hoped that a major assault on the upper echelons of the National Club League (NCL) will be launched this year with Hamid as the skipper and his assistant, Guy Thomas (formerly top 30 ranked junior in the world, yes world!!) as the first pair. So, if our teams are playing at home on a Saturday, especially if it is an NCL match, do pop down and support them. It should be, hopefully, the best tennis you will see in the region at no cost and a bit of support goes a very long way on court.

A new style Club handbook will be winging its way to you, full of everything you need to know about GSTC in 2005, once you have paid your subscription. You will also be sent an orange GSTC official member’s 2005 shoe tag that I urge you to put on your laces as soon as you get it. We expect all users of our courts to be members and thus contribute to the considerable costs we incur for maintenance of our facilities. The tag is easily identifiable to ensure this is the case and I would like to thank you in advance for your help and consideration.

We, on the committee, rely on you as members, to keep us on our toes, and come up with bright new ideas to improve our facilities, playing conditions, website, social events or anything else you can think of, so please do contact us with your thoughts, views and ideas.

Finally, I’d just like to say what a huge honour it is to serve as your new Chairman. It is particularly special for me as this is the Club at which I first swung a badly aimed racquet when I was 8 years old. I promise I will give it my all! Let us hope we can create some fond memories together, on and off the courts. Here’s to a happy and successful 2005!