The AGM of Notts LTA took place on Tuesday 3rd Decemeber at the Coutny Ground.
See below the report given by Christopher Walker, Chairman of the Notts LTA:-
CHAIRMAN’S REPORT 2013
17.29 million people watched Andy Murray win the Wimbledon title in July, the biggest television audience of 2013. This was fractionally less than the 17.3 million people who watched the Borg/McEnroe final of 1980 – the most watched Wimbledon match of all time. A pair of debenture seats for the final was apparently sold for £72,000. Statistics like these underline the significance of the event for British sport and, more importantly, for British tennis. This was a rare and golden opportunity to turn celebration into increased participation. MurrayMania events were held by a number of Nottinghamshire tennis clubs, including Collingham, East Bridgford, Eastwood, Lady Bay and Welbeck – an excellent way for the clubs to promote themselves, to promote tennis and to attract new members.
There were a number of other opportunities this year to promote tennis and to get more people, young and old, involved. More than 4,000 people had a go at tennis at community events in Nottingham – in the Market Square, on Clifton Playing Fields, at the Forest Recreation Ground and in Vernon Park. Vernon Park was one of 39 park venues across the country to hold a Great British Tennis Weekend event; sessions included Mini Tennis, Family Play, Adult Coaching and Cardio Tennis. Valley Road, Vernon Park, Magdala and Wollaton ran open days as part of National Mini Tennis Week and nearly 2,500 children, from 61 schools, attended the Nottingham Festival of Tennis schools’ festival – all of them leaving with a Mini Tennis racket and balls and a leaflet about on-going opportunities.
A number of Great British Tennis Weekends are being planned for 2014 and all clubs, parks and other tennis venues are encouraged to get involved to promote their activities. We supported the community events above as part of our partnership with Nottingham City Council and the tennis activity has been run with the assistance of coaches and tennis leaders from a number of clubs. Our relationship with Central College continues to develop; students and staff were again involved with the Festival of Tennis and there is increased tennis activity across the college campuses with links forming with neighbouring clubs and opportunities for volunteering.
Building links with local authorities, universities, colleges and schools means that there is a joined up approach to the encouragement of tennis in Nottinghamshire and clubs are seeing the benefit of engaging with the wider community. Nottinghamshire County Council established a £1.7 million Nottinghamshire Legacy Fund to respond to the legacy challenge, created by the 2012 Games, to maintain the momentum of increased sports participation. Twelve Nottinghamshire tennis clubs received Games Legacy funding totalling £198,000 for court lighting, court resurfacing and for revenue projects. In addition, Collingham, Magdala and Mapperley Park received grants totalling £143,000 from Sport England’s Inspired Facility fund, part of its Olympic and Paralympic legacy programme. These awards are not easily come by and we all acknowledge and congratulate the clubs and their dedicated officials, who put together the successful applications. Sports England has recently announced that it is extending Inspired Facilities until 2017, with an additional £40 million of National Lottery funding to invest.
Clubs wishing to upgrade their facilities should also consider a loan from Notts LTA. The Club Development Fund provides loans for clubs, who wish to make improvements, and I urge all clubs to take advantage of the assistance we can offer.
We have continued to encourage and support tennis in schools. Representatives from 80 different schools have attended teacher training courses and they all received a free equipment bag and resources to support the delivery of tennis in their schools. The last primary school course of the year was promoted to all teachers, who attended the Schools Festival, and was very well attended. This kind of result makes all the time and effort we invest in these showcase events worthwhile.
The School Games final was held at Nottingham University in July. Eight school tennis teams, the winners of their district competitions, joined approximately 1000 athletes from other sports. The overall winner was Lady Bay Primary School (representing Rushcliffe), who beat the last two years’ winners Underwood School (representing Ashfield) by only three points. 356 children had participated in the Year 3 and 4 school events across the county. 2014 will see an expansion of the programme to include Year 7 and 8 events.
192 children competed regularly in the Nottinghamshire Mini Tennis Leagues sponsored by UNSOY. The county finals were held at the Tennis Centre in March. David Lloyd West Bridgford won the Red Finals, Farnsfield won the Orange Finals and West Bridgford won the Green Finals. Many thanks to Dave Everington, our Junior Competitions Organiser, for making all this happen.
The county teams have had a busy year. Last week-end the Ladies’ County Team won promotion to Division Two in the Winter County Cup. In the Summer County Cup they did well to keep their position in Division Three, but the Men’s County Team were not as fortunate, dropping back to Division Four. Sarah Usher has joined Sarah Wright to share the captaincy of the Ladies’ and Dan MacShane is the new captain of the Men’s. Three of our Vets teams did particularly well. The O35 Ladies, captained by Aldona Greenwood, were unbeaten at Eastbourne, winning promotion to Division 5, while the O35 Men, captained by Tim Phillips, did very well to keep their position in the very tough Division Four. The O65 Men, captained by Bill Sissons, won all their matches this year and have been promoted to Division Two. Thanks to all of them and to all the other Vets teams and their captains for their efforts.
With special thanks to all the parents for their support, we are also grateful to the Junior captains, Simon Ashmore, James Cale, Dave Everington, Chris Martin, Charlotte Palul, Dan MacShane and Jane Stokes and to all their players, who represented Nottinghamshire.
Nottinghamshire players, who represented Great Britain this year, were Luke Bambridge (18U), Freya Christie (16U & 18U), Marcus Walters 14U) and Dominic West (14U).
On the international tennis circuit, Luke Bambridge played tournaments in the Philippines and Thailand, winning doubles titles in France and Malaysia. Freya Christie played in Hungary, Korea, South Africa and Sweden, winning both singles and doubles titles in Portugal. Other Notts players, who have competed internationally this year, include Jocelyn Rae, David Phillipson, who won titles in Israel (doubles) and Spain (singles), and Joshua Ward-Hibbert, who won back-to-back doubles titles in Vietnam.
Closer to home, last week-end in Nottingham sixteen year-old Freya Christie won the AEGON British Tour Masters, a fantastic achievement. She also won the AEGON British Tour tournament in Hatfield in May and 18U ITF events in Newcastle and Nottingham. Aaron Banasik, who also qualified for the end of season Masters, had won the AEGON British Tour tournament in Newcastle in August.
In the AEGON GB Pro Series Joshua Ward-Hibbert (with Liam Broady) won the men’s doubles in Nottingham in July and last month Luke Bambridge (with George Morgan) won the men’s doubles in Edgbaston and Jocelyn Rae (with Anna Smith) won the ladies’ doubles in Loughborough.
For the second year running, the AEGON Junior Nationals were held at the Nottingham Tennis Centre in August. Nine Notts juniors played in the main draw of the competition, the most successful being Freya Christie, runner-up (with Alannah Griffin) in the 18U doubles, Dominic West, runner-up (with Will Davies) in the 14U doubles and Marcus Walters, winner (with Jay Clarke) of the 16U doubles. Dominic West also won the boys singles in the 14U Tennis Europe event in Nottingham in April.
Freya, Marcus and Dominic train at the MyTennis Nottingham Performance Academy at the Nottingham Tennis Centre, the LTA having merged the Nottingham and Loughborough HPC programmes during 2012 and 2013. The new Junior Academy programme provides coaching, physical training and tournament support to the most promising 11U junior players in the area. Will Nolan, Puneet Sunner and Millie-Mae Matthews have all been selected for the LTA National Talent ID programme. Millie-Mae (Most Improved Junior Girl in the Notts LTA 2012 Awards) won the Orange Ball AEGON Winter Regional Tour final in March and came top of the National Tour Leader Board for girls 9 and under. She also reached the semi-finals of the Green Ball Scottish Open Championships for girls 10 and under in August and went on to play in the National Finals at this level.
Millie-Mae won the 10U event at the Junior County Closed with the loss of just one game from the round robin through to the final. Eleven year old Anna Buckley won both the 12U and 14U girls’ singles titles. Harry Harold-Vaux won both the 12U boys’ singles and the 14U boys’ doubles with Daniel Blackburn. Christopher Wood and Donovan Cellupica-Towers won the 18U boys’ doubles, Christopher also winning the 21U singles and Donovan the 16U singles. The event at the County Ground was refereed by Andy Bradley – many thanks to him and to all the members of the Junior Tournaments Committee.
Also at the County Ground for the second year running were the League Club Championships, most finals being played on the grass. Ann Brown and Sue Copestake (West Bridgford) won the ladies’ doubles and Chris Holmes and Barry Seamons (David Lloyd Nottingham) won the men’s doubles. Defending champion Ann Brown won the ladies’ singles and Andrew Higham (West Bridgford) won the men’s singles. John Poxon, our League Chairman, was disappointed that less clubs than last year took part, but the event produced some sparkling grass court tennis. Many thanks to him and to the league secretaries for all their hard work during the year.
It is good to see Nottinghamshire Lawn Tennis Association’s grass courts being brought back into play and also to hear that nationally the grass court season will be extended from 2015 onwards. The extra week between the French Open and Wimbledon and the upgrading of the AEGON Championships at Queen’s Club to an ATP 500 is likely to have a knock on effect on the other grass tournaments and we hope that higher rated players will be attracted to the lawns of Nottingham Tennis Centre.
Last month for the first time the Tennis Centre hosted the East Midlands contribution to the BBC’s Children in Need. Over 1000 people attended for a fun night of tennis and other activities. As well as helping to raise over £1 million for Children in Need, this was an excellent opportunity to raise the profile of tennis in the local community. The Tennis Centre, home to the British Open Wheelchair Tennis Championships, is also hosting this month a Disability Tennis Festival. Run by the Tennis Foundation, in partnership with the LTA, the ITF and the University of Nottingham, the Festival celebrates the United Nation’s International Day for Persons with a Disability. Building on the momentum from the London 2012 Paralympic Games, it will demonstrate the range of options available for disabled people to get involved in tennis.
I should like to take this opportunity to thank Andy McFeeters, the Tennis Development Manager, and Rosie Watkins, Tennis Services Assistant, for all their hard work in the County Office and around Nottinghamshire. Much of what I have outlined above would not have happened without them. Rosie’s contribution this year even included icing 200 cakes in red, white and blue for the Great British Tennis Weekend. Unlike some other counties, we are very fortunate to have a permanently manned County Office and such enthusiastic and dedicated staff.
In April, Jill Shelvey, the Vice Chairman, and I attended the British Tennis Experience for Volunteers at the National Tennis Centre, the theme of the weekend being ‘Participation – Accelerating Growth’. It was not only an opportunity to be updated on the priorities of the LTA, but also to network with volunteers from other counties. We have also continued to attend meetings of the informal Midland Counties’ Discussion Group. Since the LTA is now penalising those counties, ourselves included, which have reasonable reserves (achieved through sponsorship and prudent financial management) by withholding grants to fund core activities, there is plenty to discuss. On the positive side, we can also share good ideas and success stories with each other.
I should like to acknowledge and thank our sponsors and all the volunteers in the county for their contribution to growing the game in Nottinghamshire, as well as paying tribute to the hard work and dedication of my fellow volunteers on the management committee. In particular, I should like to salute and thank our Treasurer, Chris Cobb, who for the last 25 years has been looking after our accounts and ensuring the financial stability of the Association. He is an excellent Chartered Accountant, who doesn’t actually play tennis. However, in giving us his time and expertise, he is a fine example to others of what volunteering can mean in sport.
Volunteering was acknowledged at the beginning of the year in the New Year Honours list when Rita Rhodes was awarded a British Empire Medal for her services to the village community of Welbeck. Since 1991, Rita, assisted by her husband, Brian, had been running Welbeck Lawn Tennis Club, which she started. Anybody who has ever visited Welbeck and seen what she built up will be aware of her outstanding achievement. This thriving village club is a shining example of the best of British tennis at the grass roots. Sadly Rita passed away in the summer, but to the end of her life this remarkable woman continued to do what she loved, helping children to participate in tennis.
It is no surprise that Welbeck was one of the Nottinghamshire clubs, which held a MurrayMania event.
We want to see more Wimbledon champions, like Andy Murray, emerge from British tennis; we need more champions of tennis, like Rita Rhodes, in order to achieve it!
CHRISTOPHER WALKER
December 2013