RLTA News
RLTA Newsletter – February 2007
The club's AGM is to be held on Saturday 3rd February
2007 at 12:30 pm at the RLTA clubhouse. All
members are welcome and will be offered free tennis at
the centre for the afternoon after the AGM.
Fixtures begin again
in early February:
Monday night
fixtures begin on February 5 (see
http://www.users.on.net/~rlta/fixtures_mon.htm for
details).
Thursday night
fixtures begin on February 8 but teams and the draw will be
finalised at the hit-up night on February 1, starting at
7:00 pm.
Saturday fixtures
begin on February 10, with teams and draw being finalised on
the hit-up day of February 3, starting after the club AGM.
All is relatively well is the world of the Redlands Lawn
Tennis Association. This past year sees our membership at
close to 500 of which about 100 are juniors, which in itself
bodes well for the future of the club. Our facilities are
the envy of most clubs in south-east Queensland and, in my
view, our members include some of the nicest people that you
are ever likely to meet.
Highlights of 2006
Administration
From an administrative point of view, there have been some
subtle but very significant changes at the RLTA in 2006. Our
full time club administrator role (Betty McCoy) was cut back
to a part-time position (Secretary/Manager), which is
largely responsible for the site management and club
activities. In conjunction with this change, our club coach,
Jani Kroyherr, and his Universal Tennis team have now taken
full responsibility for all Pro-Shop activities (including
court hire and collection of membership fees, etc) and for
running the junior fixture program. Despite a few teething
problems, the new arrangements seemed to work out, with
Betty finally getting the opportunity to come up for breath
and even managed an overseas holiday in April. The smiling
new faces who helped Jani out in the Pro-Shop included Penny
Rogers and Danielle Green. Jani also depended heavily on
parents to help with the junior fixtures and thanks must go
to Di Green, Julie Ward, Wasiela Weary, and Andrew Ross for
their wonderful efforts in keeping the kids on track and the
fixtures on time.
Volunteers
Our volunteer groundsmen Keith Collyer and Pat Cleary
continue to do a wonderful job of keeping the site clean and
the courts in good shape. This year they have been joined by
another volunteer in the form of Bev Hogan, who helped Betty
in the office with the book-keeping, banking and membership
functions. On behalf of the club I wish to thank them all
for their efforts.
Site Redevelopment
As part of the larger long-term plan to redevelop our site
and its facilities, there have been quite a few subtle
enhancements at the centre this year, with many enthusiastic
members helping out in working bees to clean the exterior
walls and windows of the new clubhouse, paint the remaining
besser brick walls and umpire stands various shades of
Griffin green, and erect new shade sails at the western end
of the clubhouse. For those members who have something
positive to say, there is even a new suggestion box at the
clubhouse entrance (also painted Griffin green). Special
thanks must go to committee member Reg Griffin for his
efforts and persistence in ensuring that many of these
worthwhile projects were completed on time and in a
professional manner. The club is also indebted to him for
constructing magnificent new Club Champions honour boards
destined for display within the clubhouse.
After a couple of attempts at getting it right, we now have
a functional drain at the western entrance of our complex
and some high-tech water control devices between courts 2 &
3 (the “Keithy-baby” bump). As a result, our clubhouse is no
longer in danger of flooding and, of course, it has hardly
rained since.
The Veterans and in particular, Yvonne Willson, deserve a
special mention for their fund-raising efforts during the
past two years with the aim of buying new furniture for the
centre. Their efforts so far have not only resulted in the
new portable BBQ, but also new wooden tables for our
verandas (thanks to the building skills of Bill Turner).
While we now enjoy excellent and energy-efficient lights on
all eight courts, we have for some time had recurring
problems with those lights that were installed a few years
ago on courts 5, 6 and 7. Finally the problem has been
resolved and the supplier has admitted that they were part
of a deficient batch and has now replaced the inner workings
of them all on those courts.
At the end of 2006, courts 2 and 5 have both been completely
re-surfaced with synthetic grass (Omni super 10) at great
expense to the club. The fact that we were in a financial
position to do this after the major expenses of clubhouse
and lighting redevelopment in the past couple of years is
further evidence of sound financial management at the club.
We now have in place separate accounts to plan and cater for
long-term asset management in relation to courts and
clubhouse. Special thanks should go to our Treasure Bill
Tapper and his fastidious assistant Reg Griffin for their
efforts in this regard, as well as a special mention to the
Mid-week Ladies club whose timely financial contribution to
the court re-surfacing was most welcome.
However, at this stage, there are still two issues that we
have yet to resolve: the first of these is the ultimate fate
of the original clubhouse and the second is the problem of
sun reflection from the new clubhouse roof.
In the case of the original clubhouse, the plan was for its
demolition as soon as practical after the completion of the
new clubhouse. However, both the cost of that demolition and
the unforseen need for additional ground storage space have
meant that we have been re-thinking its fate. The existing
roof leaks badly and we are faced with the prospect of
spending significant funds to replace the roof (about the
same as to demolish and remove it) or to spend even more
significant funds to re-roof and refurbish the old clubhouse
in the style of the new clubhouse so that it is more
aesthetically integrated into the site. It is not something
that warrants quick action without all the implications of
those actions being fully considered and explored. In the
mean time, some cosmetic work has been undertaken to soften
the image of the old clubhouse (trees planted at the eastern
end and lattice work and plants added between the posts at
the western end) and a few bandaids used to restrict the
water leaking in during wet weather.
In the case of the sun-reflection, we have attempted to
minimise its impact with shade cloth erected vertically on
tennis court fences (courts 2 & 3) but with very limited
success. A cost-effective solution has yet to be found.
Tennis – Club Championships
This year for the first time in several years, the club
again conducted annual club championships. The reason that
they had been in hibernation for a few years was that there
was insufficient interest in playing tournaments that were
conducted on weekends. The change to a night-time
round-robin format seems to have re-kindled interest and
there were sufficient entries to conduct both A and B
division events for singles, doubles and mixed doubles. The
winners for 2006 were:
A Mens Singles: Steve Parr
B Mens Singles: Austin Ward
A Mens Doubles: Jani Kroyherr & Damian Gunn
B Mens and Ladies Doubles: Janelle Spittle & Jo Brooks
A Mixed Doubles: Steve Parr & Janelle Spittle
B Mixed Doubles: Alex Muga & Lynley Taylor
The RLTA conducted its Under 16 Junior Club Championships on
Sunday 15th October, with club coach Jani Kroherr the
tournament director and referee. It is the first time in
several years that this tournament has been conducted and it
was very well supported with sufficient entries for three
events, A & B Singles & A Doubles, with boys and girls
competing together. Sean Anderson claimed the Junior Singles
crown while Mikayla McKenna and her partner Daniel Ferre
claimed the Junior Doubles title. The B Grade singles was
won by Jayk Pascoe.
Tom Ferguson Shield
On 13th August, 12 men and 12 ladies represented the RLTA at
the annual Tom Ferguson Shield match between Redlands, Gold
Coast, Beenleigh and Beaudesert. After winning the shield in
2005 for the first time ever, our team was unable to defend
it this time around. However, we did finish in second place
behind Beenleigh, who were far too good for everyone on the
day.
Redland Bay Challenge
On 27th August it was our club’s turn to host Redland Bay in
what has become the local derby with the Rosie Dunn Memorial
Shield and a few egos at stake. A total of 28 players from
each club participated in teams of 4, the players of which
were all ranked to keep the tennis as even as possible.
After the RLTA gave them a tennis lesson last year, Redland
Bay returned the favour this time round, winning 28 set to
13.
Redland Bay Junior Challenge
This was our first junior challenge match with the Redland
Bay club and was organised by the two coaches from the
respective clubs. It was held at Redland Bay on 12th August
and was fun for all. Redland Bay proved to be the better
team on the day winning 28 sets to 8. Coach Jani Kroyherr
hopes to include Beenleigh in these junior challenge matches
in 2007.
Club Fixtures
Club fixtures remain strong with Monday and Thursday night
competitions running at full capacity. The Saturday A Grade
fixtures have dropped from eight to seven teams and are now
using just three courts each week. At the same time, the
Veterans social tennis of a Saturday afternoon is growing
rapidly and has been making full use of the additional
available court. The junior fixtures in 2006, under the
guidance of Jani Kroyherr and Universal Tennis, were divided
into three separate divisions which were played on three
separate days (Wednesday and Friday afternoons and Saturday
mornings). This new structure provided more flexibility for
juniors who played multiple sports and also allowed more
room for growth in junior numbers given the limited number
of courts.
Thank you
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