Henley Tennis club held their Annual General Meeting on Wednesday 11th January 2012. The meeting was well attended by club members and Peter Crawthorne who is the Chair of Henley in Arden Memorial Trust. Attendees heard from The Chair, Treasurer and Head Coach.
2011 saw many changes at the club. In December 2010, following 18 months of preparation, the club received the news that the Lawn Tennis Association (LTA) were offering a grant of £40,000 and an Interest free loan of £38,000 to complete a new facility project. This cash injection was added to club monies raised through membership fees and fundraising to rebuild and resurface three courts including new floodlights. New fencing was installed around three other courts. This means that the club now has floodlights on all seven courts, two of which also have Astroturf. Work began in February and thanks to good weather by June the club were delighted to welcome Roger Draper together with several members of Warwickshire LTA for a Grand Opening. Juniors put on a display of cardio tennis while adult members donned Edwardian dress to take part in a wooden tennis racket tournament. The evening concluded with cucumber sandwiches and strawberries washed down with Pimms!
Despite the recession club membership has risen slightly from last year. It is hoped that this reflects the clubs improved facilities and members who are friendly and approachable. There are 272 juniors regularly taking part in coaching sessions. The coaches have worked hard to increase the amount of match play that juniors undertake. This has resulted in far more opportunities for youngsters to play with brilliant results; the club’s 14 and Under team won Division 2 group A in the Aegon Team Tennis Awards. They also received the Midlands and Welsh nomination from the LTA for the Sports Club of the Year awards in London and received a Highly Commended certificate in their category. However the club recognises the need to increase the amount of youngsters starting tennis particularly in the mini tennis age group. To address this, the club now offers two sessions a week for children as young as 2 ½ to encourage early childhood development and basic co-ordination skills. Over the year the club had a total of 74 regularly competing juniors who completed over 300 internal tennis matches. With this in mind Henley are in 11th place on the Warwickshire junior league table, which has over 50 clubs listed.
During the year our coaches have also provided tennis or sports coaching to over 600 school children during curriculum time by linking to 9 schools. They also run four after school clubs located at local primary schools on a regular weekly basis.
The three men’s teams have all undergone team changes but are active within their respective leagues. There are five ladies teams in winter leagues, four in Stratford and District League and one in the Birmingham Veterans League.
The Club now has a wealth of experienced coaches with two Level 4 Coaches, two Level 3 Coaches and two Level 1 Coaches. They are well supported by young leaders who have undertaken training to achieve a qualification which enables them to volunteer to support the coaches during the busy Saturday morning junior coaching sessions.
During the year between 65 to 80 adults took part in regular group or private coaching sessions including two cardio tennis sessions a week, four group coaching sessions and one doubles tactics group. This has encouraged more members and has helped with the amount of adults playing on a regular basis. Two all day adult coaching day’s with approx total of 16 adults attending were held which proved to be very popular even the one in January 2011 which was held in subzero conditions.
The club continues to thrive with good links with other sports and social clubs in Henley in Arden and Warwickshire. It also has good links with the Town’s Memorial Trust and Parish Council. All this activity and development would not be possible without the hard work of the Committee and Coaching Team; in recognition of this our Club Chairman Judy Wilde has been shortlisted as a finalist in the Club Volunteer of the Year category at the 2012 Stratford-on-Avon District Sports Awards. The club is also short listed for “Club of the Year” and “Team Leaders of the Year” at the WALTA awards (Warwickshire Association LTA) to be held at the Botanical gardens this February.
For further information about the club please contact Judith Mathias 01564 792378