LTA Chief Executive Roger Draper took time out of his busy schedule on Friday 12th February to visit a number of thriving clubs in Derbyshire and attend the First Annual Awards Evening.
Draper started his tour in the north of the county where he visited Chesterfield LTC and was shown round the new indoor tennis facilities by Paul Hatton, Director of Coaching and Club Chairman Allan Taylor. Chesterfield have formed a successful partnership with Win Tennis to deliver their Performance Programme and Draper took time to meet some of the players and chat with Chief Executive Mike Walker and coaches John Black and David Sherwood.
From Chesterfield the tour moved south to Duffield where Roger was greeted by Club Secretary Keith Murcott and Head Coach James Grindell. James has played a pivotal role in turning round the coaching programme at the club following his appointment in 2008. Roger then took the opportunity to view Duffield's new artificial clay court that was only completed the week before his visit. Roger also took the time to catch up with former long serving County Secretary Margaret Robinson.
From there the next stop was Derbyshire Tennis Centre, where Roger had a question and answer session with county officials including County President John Last and Secretary Bob Gibson. He also met centre coaches Phil Wilcock and Mike James.
The final club visit of the day was at David Lloyd Derby. The club are one of the strongest satellite centres in the Midlands and Roger spent time talking about how they had achieved their success with General Manager Mike Hilkne and Adult Rackets Pro Matt Lambert. Roger saw at first hand the thriving environment created by the coaches at the club.
The final appointment of the day was the first annual Derbyshire Awards Evening at Pride Park Stadium. The event was attended by over 350 tennis enthusiasts from around Derbyshire and Roger gave a short speech before helping present some of the individual award winners.
Roger was accompanied during the visit by Tennis Development Manager Paul Sheard and Talent Performance Co-ordinator Andy Barnes. Paul commented "Roger's visit to Derbyshire gave everyone in the county a real boost. He really enjoyed meeting everyone and was very impressed by some of the work that is taking place. The day was topped off by the first Awards Evening which was a great success."