CHAIR’S REPORT 2015 Firstly I would like to welcome all the members present and thank them for attending our AGM. This has been another busy year and I would like to take this opportunity to review the developments and look forward to the future. I have been Chair for 18 months now and I am happy to continue for another year as I am fortunate to be involved with a very hard working committee whose members support each other and are a pleasure to work alongside. I would like to take this opportunity to publically thank the Committee for their commitment and dedication organising all the various parts of our Club and enabling it to run efficiently and smoothly. I would just like to use this opportunity to say a huge thank you to Mark Taber who is stepping down and introduce and give a warm welcome to Sarah-Jane Streatfeild-James on taking up the position of Club Secretary. The good news is our club is thriving. We have increased the numbers of Juniors and Minis (Under 10s) and Adults playing League, We have also extended the breadth and depth of our Tennis programme for both Juniors and Adults alike. The courts, grounds and Clubhouse are well maintained; all in all it’s a great place to play tennis. COACHING Mike Kopacki our Head coach manages a dynamic and enthusiastic team of coaches. He has extended the Tennis programme introducing more appropriate age and ability Junior , Mini and Adult groups. For the Juniors and Minis he has increased the number of sessions and has introduced performance groups for various ages. For adults he runs ‘Open’ free, turn up and play sessions on Tuesday evenings, and on a Wednesday mornings he offers the added incentive of coffee and cake to encourage new and ‘rusty returner’ players . At present he is running pre season coaching for the Adult league teams, Mens training on Monday evenings and Ladies on Wednesday evenings. In order for Mike to extend the Tennis Programme he has enlarged our hard working Coaching Team recruiting Matt Everett (a previous member) and Dan Burgess (new member) who have joined our existing committed Team of Nathan Hawkins, Sally Kingston, James Baber, Sue Lewis, Sophie Webb, Adrian Davis and Tom Warren. Very sadly Duncan Grew, a previous senior member of our coaching team has left our club as he no longer has the time to devote to coaching because he works full time in another career. He will be very much missed by his former pupils and also the Men’s First Team as a major contributor to their success. We wish him all the very best in the future. THE TENNIS FORUM This was set up 18 months ago to help support, monitor and develop all aspects of our Tennis programme. It is made up by representatives of all our various groups. It is lead by Lyn Jones our league fixture secretary, Sue Lewis and Nicola Kerr our Welfare officers, Mike Kopacki Head Coach, Mark Taber (Tennismark ) Suzanne McDonald parent captain for years and now club sportswear manager, Nick Phillips our Parent captains and myself. The Forum meets regularly to discuss the current tennis programme, management of all the League teams, and future development of all the different aspects of tennis at our Club. The aim is to provide a comprehensive Tennis Programme that is inclusive, welcoming and encouraging for all our members to play and enjoy tennis to their full potential. It enables those members that wish to attain higher standards of tennis to compete at the appropriate level with clear transparent pathways in to our many teams. The forum also wants to ensure those who wish to play friendly arranged fours can continue to do so. I would like to take this opportunity to say a big thank you on behalf of our members for all the hard work of the Forum members thus enabling our players to take part in all the various competitions and tennis activities we have on offer at our club. Tennis events throughout the Year GBTW EVENT / OPEN DAY 18th May: This was our first time joining in with the LTA led GBTW to help promote ‘ ‘Tennis for All’ combining it with our Open Day for members and non members, creating a fun day of many tennis activities for all including ‘beat the coach’ , longest rally, free play and introducing Cardio Tennis. Nearly 200 people young and old took part and enjoyed the various tennis activities available and of course the delicious BBQ and refreshments including scrumptious cakes, all kindly donated by members of our Ladies League Teams. On behalf of the Committee I would like to thank all our wonderful volunteers who worked tirelessly helping on and off court, making our event so enjoyable and successful. Not forgetting Mike who organised all the tennis activities with his team of coaches who managed to keep the enthusiasm going for all 3 hours on court, no mean feat. We had an Avon LTA representative supporting the GBTW who dropped in to see our event, he was very impressed with all he could see, and complimented us on the lovely atmosphere and the number of happy people of all ages taking part and enjoying the activities, enabling us to achieve our aim to promote 'Tennis for all'. We will be hoping to recreate this event on Sunday 17th May this year. CLUB TOURNAMENT FINALS DAY 7th SEPTEMBER This is a big day in our year where the winners of the summer long knock out tournament compete to win one of our great trophies. We were very fortunate to have a glorious warm sunny day to enjoy watching some superb tennis from all age groups of our Junior and Senior sections of our club. The matches were all of a very impressive standard, closely fought but with great sportsmanship displayed from the young and not so young. Gareth Collier (Treasurer) managed to secure a donation from Barratts which covered the cost of all our trophies and help pay for their engraving. Our Men’s Singles trophy was badly damaged, we sent out a request and very generously Roz Laporte donated our new trophy as a memorial to her husband Keith who died suddenly last year, we are very proud that he will be honoured in this way as he was a keen sportsman. 55’s AND OVER MIXED TOURNAMENT – FONDLY KNOWN AS THE ‘OLD GITS’ On a hot, sunny day back in July, 18 players - all over 55 - took part in the Annual Mike Browning Tournament, familiarly known as the Old Gits. It was organised by Keith Beeton on a Round Robin basis where every player played everyone else accumulating individual points along the way. After an excellent morning’s play for all, Lynne Browning, Gareth Collier, Max Childs and Phil Collins made it through to become the four semi- finalists, with Max and Phil coming out as eventual winners. It was a fun day of competitive tennis much enjoyed by all. It would be great to see more members participating when it is staged next summer. Successful Mulled wine and American Mixed Tennis Tournament on 21st Dec. Lyn Jones organised a most enjoyable and well attended Tournament with fun competition to the fore. Players drew a number and played with different partners with the winners collecting the most points. Some felt that the mulled wine affected their game mostly for the better, myself included. Many thanks to all those who took part in organising this event and providing delicious festive goodies. Lyn will organise more similar American Tournaments during 2015. Santa’s Delivery of B.S.T.C Hoodies In December Mark Taber organised a timely order of BSTC hoodies enabling Santa to deliver these for Christmas which meant many junior, adults and coaches started the New year proudly wearing royal blue hoodies with our club logo, a really heartening sight. Many thanks to Mark for arranging this and who has now handed over the managing of orders to Suzanne Mc Donald who is in the process of putting in a new order. LEAGUE TEAM NEWS. Junior Leagues Mike entered 8 summer and 5 winter junior teams last season. With the help of coaches and parent captains we managed to complete every match and our u12 boys, u16 girls and u16 Boys teams won their leagues. Congratulations to all our Juniors who took part, great work. Our youngest players in 8&under, 9&under and 10&under categories were not competing to win the leagues but to gain experience, therefore instead of using only the strongest 4 players for all the matches we allowed anyone who showed interest to take part, to make sure everyone was given a chance to experience the match day thrill. In total we had over 50 different children playing matches for Bishop Sutton TC, and this year we are looking to almost double these numbers making sure children as young as 6 year old get a chance to play. Special thanks to team captains: Nick Phillips (12&U boys), Lucy Moorhouse (14&U boys) and Vanessa Knight (16&U boys) who work hard to manage, arrange, support and transport their teams. Abi Rees-Jones wins our JUNIOR ROAD TO WIMBLEDON Tournament The annual Under 14 Road To Wimbledon tournament was one of our highlights in 2014 due to the exceptional performances of one of our girls Abi Rees-Jones. First, she won our club RTW competition and therefore qualified for the county RTW tournament. She went on to win this without dropping a set! This meant that she qualified for the national competition which is actually played at Wimbledon itself a truly wonderful achievement. Unfortunately she was to unable to attend but we would like to congratulate her on her success for progressing to such a high level in this tournament. On finals day this triumph was acknowledged when she won ‘The most Improved Junior ‘award for 2014. ADULT LEAGUE The 2014/15 saw another very busy season for the adult league teams. We had 8 adult teams playing the Avon LTA Summer league with a grand total of 64 players taking part from the club. This is a great commitment and I would like to thank all the players and captains. The summer league requires 32 BSTC players every Friday for the 10 week season so it is both a feat of organisation and endurance! Ladies : Our 1st team ladies stayed up in division 2 which is great results for the club. Sadly the 2nd and 3rd teams both faced some tough opposition and were relegated to divisions 4 and 5 respectively and the 4th team (new last year) were promoted again also to division 5. The ladies continue to practice throughout the year on Weds and Sunday evenings and have goals for the 2015 summer season which include getting the 2nd and 3rd teams back up again! Mens : The men also had a tough season with the 1sts and 2nds finishing 5th in their divisions and going down from division 1 and 4 despite some great tennis. The 3rds narrowly missed promotion and so like the 4ths will remain in Divisions 7 and 8 respectively. We welcome 3 new captains for the 2015 summer season and also have men's pre-season coaching Monday evenings. Mixed League: The winter season which is played in a mixed format had some great successes this year. The Vets team won Division 1 which is fantastic achievement and puts them at the top of the tree! The 1st team missed out on winning division 4B by 2 points and the 2nd team played some great tennis and finished 4th in division 4D. All round a great result for the club. So we look forward to the summer 2015 season and are actively encouraging as many BSTC members to play as possible! CLUB REWARDS and A FEW THANK YOU’S The Committee wish to take this opportunity to reward certain members of our club who we think have given ‘above and beyond’ for the benefit of our club. We have thought long and hard and wish to award: Chair’s Award – Nick Dell - 1 pair Wimbledon tickets for all his hard work sorting the legal aspects of our club and changing our Trustees , involving a lot of time and effort all given freely to the club. Committee Award - Shaun Green , stepping down as Social event / club tournament organiser in recognition of his hard work for the club. Members award – Nick Phillips – Parents U12 captain and Forum member, supporting junior teams for several years Special Award – Jane Heeley: 1years free Single membership, given as recognition of her 15 yrs of dedication as Ladies and 1st Team Captain Special Award – Harry Connell for his many years of hard work and dedication given to the club as Chief grounds man and Committee member. Special Award – Alistair Gibson for his work as Honorary Club Auditor for many years :1 pr Wimbledon tickets Special Award – Duncan Grew – Senior Coach leaving after several years of coaching at our club, he will be sadly missed by many of his pupils and members of the Mens 1st team as a major contributor of their success. We wish him all the very best in the future: Token A special THANK YOU to Mark Taber who is stepping down as Club Secretary- he has done a lot of hard work for our Club helping with the Tennismark, our website, IT, Sportswear , helping Ladies 3rd and 4th teams and also working hard at our events. He will be continuing on the Forum as a non Committee member. A big thank you to Max Childs who is stepping down from assisting Keith Beeton as Groundsman. Special Award – Annie Sewart for many years removing all our recycling every week. Gardening token Sally-Ann Eggington – Sorting our ever changing Booking sheets each week : Gardening token We also wish to thank Fleur Wilcox for doing a great job cleaning our Clubhouse every week and her husband Justin who cleans the windows. (Just to confirm all members who are awarded Wimbledon tickets have to pay for them themselves). Last But Not Least : Last year our Committee’s aims were Improve lines of communication. We have done our best with regular newsletters by email, posters in the clubhouse, improving our website, introducing regular twitter updates and Facebook . Promote and develop our Tennis Programme to encourage new and retain members, which we have done by extending and improving our tennis programme for juniors and adults. Encourage more members to join our team of volunteers: this is work in progress and we shall continue to make this one of our main aims for the coming year. New Aim To investigate further ways to use I.T. to help with day to day running of the club for example Membership management, subscription payment and possibly court bookings . David Tonkin has kindly agreed to look into the LTAs package called Clubspark to see if it is suitable and cost effective for our club, many thanks David. As I said at the beginning our club is thriving. We have excellent well maintained courts and clubhouse facilities. We have enthusiastic hard working coaching team inspiring the young and not so young alike. We have a large membership. All of our Committee are volunteers. Our aim as a committee is to continue to strive to maintain and improve our club to enable our members young and not so young to play at the level they wish to and provide a Tennis Club to be enjoyed by all. To coin a phrase ‘our future looks bright’. Hilary Cripps, Chair