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County Chairman’s spring update

On a sad note for those not aware, our President Bill Curtis has passed away. Bill will be sadly missed as he has been a long standing and instrumental figure in tennis for many years. We are working on how we can continue his legacy on in the future. There is a separate legacy page on this website.

With the AGM now behind us for this year, its back to work in what is going to be another busy year ahead of us. I am keen to see tennis develop further in the County. There are a number of areas where we believe we have a means of moving forward tennis on in the future in the County. One of the many areas is to focus on this year is improving our means of communication with clubs and their members. We are reviewing our present use of the two websites that are available. One being the LTA system and the other our own system. At present neither of them are being used to their full potential. Social media is also linked to this which for those who choose to use it and are regular users have to be catered for. Any form of communication system is only as good as the news and material that is fed into it. There have been many requests over the years for clubs to forward information to be included, I am doing this again. There is a tremendous amount of good work and great events taking place, why not share this, it’s all good for showing efforts, successes something many seem shy of. Let’s show the whole community what a great sport we are all keen in and help promote the game for greater participation.

Some of the other areas that we will be looking at, is how we can encourage more assistance with County activities, sponsorship, school’s tennis links with clubs & coaching governance.

We will be posting on another page on this website Dates for your diaries, this will cover all the main activities we are aware of locally. If any clubs wish for some of their key activities and dates to be included, please forward them to us.

A number of activities have recently taken place in the County. On the 13thMarch there was a Ladies Doubles Charity Tennis Event held at Ipswich Sports Club where the proceeds of £800 was raised for the EACH Charity (East Anglian Children’s Hospice) a tremendous effort to a very worthwhile cause. There is a separate report for this on the website.

More recently the Suffolk Tennis NFA Easter Tournament was held at the Ipswich Sports Club (there is a separate report for this). The event being a key tournament of our NFA (National Fostering Agency) open to Juniors and Adults player and was played from Sunday 9th April through to Thursday 13thApril.

Also over the Easter weekend the 22nd Suffolk Indoor Open Seniors Tournament event was held at the Ipswich Sports Club. A summary of the results is on a separate page on the website. Details of all the match results are available on the LTA webpage.

We have also over the next few weeks further Junior County Cup teams travelling around the County competing in the competitions, for which wish them all success.

The Great British Tennis Weekend events are now being organised for May, these weekends are for many clubs an ideal way to help get new members and help kick start club summer programmes.

Enjoy your tennis and have some fun doing so, remember to respect all players and spectators.

Mike Watling
County Chairman
Suffolk Tennis