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There has been a considerable amount of change at the club since I took over the chair just over one year ago.
 
Richard Whichello and Billy Macmanus have been appointed to lead the clubs tennis coaching programme. I confident that Richard and Billy will bring to the club a truly excellent quality of coaching that will satisfy the requirements of the membership as a whole. They will also become very much involved in the overall development of the clubs tennis activities.

Much of the clubhouse has already been refurbished and the following improvements to club facilities will also be completed before the end of this financial year:

1. Ladies changing room refurbishment.
2. Bar refurbishment to include new equipment and decoration.
3. Covered walkways around squash courts to be remove and new erected.
4. Major works to be carried out on squash courts to include the relaying of the floors in courts 1 and 3.

We are currently considering the possibility of introducing a management system starting with a membership data base from which we can expand into: court bookings, visit records, access control, Internet bookings etc.

In February of this year we applied to the LTA for an interest free loan of £100,000 and a £40,000 grant to assist us in the resurfacing and floodlighting of courts 9 to 12. At the end of July we received the excellent news that subject the legal and security process being satisfactorily completed the award would be granted. Unfortunately the legal process can take up to 8 weeks which takes us almost into October before we can place the order with the contractors and into November before work could commence. It is not advisable to resurface courts in the winter months we therefore have no alternative but to start the work in the spring of next year. The plan is to complete the project prior Open Day 2008. In the meantime we have to change or constitution before we can accept the loan and grant this will hopefully be agreed by the membership at the AGM in October.

I had intended not to stand for the position of Chairman at the next AGM, however due to the fact that the court resurfacing and floodlighting projects will not be completed in time I am very happy to put myself forward for re-election and hopefully see these exciting changes to the club through to a satisfactory conclusion.

Bob Wilson