Newsletter September The VOLLEY

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1 Newsletter September 2016 Welcome to the September, 2016 edition of The Volley! The VOLLEY The foul weather continues to disrupt everything - including tennis unfortunately. It is does not make for a good start to the new tennis year 1 st October. AGM Our AGM was held on Sunday 25 th September at 2.00pm at the Club rooms. President David gave an account of the year at the Club which proved to be a very successful year in every way. The Club s finances are becoming healthier, we have 3 refurbished plexi-pave courts with lights and the membership has consistently grown over the year to reach 156 at the end of September. David outlined what the Committee is striving for over the next 12 months which is in line with the Club s Strategic Plan. David thanked all involved in getting the Club to where it is in such a short time frame. But David also deserves a big thank you from the rest of the Committee and the membership for the tireless work he does around the club as well. For those who could not make it to the AGM, I have included David s President s report at the end of this version of The Volley. Treasurer, Colin Mathew presented his report for the year. He emphasised that despite spending $118K on courts 4, 5 and 6, the free cash position increased by approximately $5K. This was principally due to the success the Club achieved with our Grant applications. Of the $118K spent on refurbishment, $102K was from Grants or professional work in-kind (kindly volunteered by Deryl Edwards), meaning that only $16K of Club funds needed to be expended. However for cash flow reasons the Club needed to take out a $30K loan with Tennis Australia which is repayable with interest over 3 years. This loan can easily be serviced from Club funds. The net assets of the Club rose from $102K as at June 30 th 2015 to $212K as at 30 th June Fundraising activities deserve highlighting here as well the Club held two main social events (Music by the Sea and the Devonport Jazz night) which were both great events due to the sterling work done by Jane Harris and helpers on the Social Committee. The office bearers elected at the AGM were as follows: President David Johnston Vice President Bill McMurtry Secretary Leigh Titmus Treasurer Colin Mathew Committee Members Jane Harris, Lucy Titmus, Hector Lenton, Sean Martin, Chris McCoy, and Sam Gleeson. Greg Corbett declined re-nomination for the Committee due to work reasons. We thank Greg for his input to the Committee over the last 3 years. Following the AGM, Tony Stevens indicated that he would like to come onto the Committee, so he will attend the next Committee meeting.

2 It was also decided that the Club should have a Club Captain with the advent of some inter Club matches starting to re-emerge. So our Club Operator, Gray Hiller was nominated and he accepted the position of Club Captain. Social Events The Club rooms have been booked for a few private events in the next couple of months The next Club social event will be a Christmas drinks event on Friday 23 rd December And then the Music by the Sea event will be held again on Saturday 11 th February Future developments Work is continuing with further Grant applications for the refurbishment of courts 7 to 12. This will involve removal of the existing fence mesh, the removal of sections of the court surface around the edge of the 6 courts, renewing the base course and laying new Hotmix over the base, pouring a new concrete plinth under the fence where needed, re-surfacing and re-fencing the courts. This is a big job and if the funds are available, the work is planned to be done around March/April next year. Other news Please note that the new tennis year started on October 1 st and membership renewal/application forms are available at the Club house and on our website. An up-to-date membership list will be held at the Club rooms and until fees are paid, patrons will be charged the non-member rates for Rosters and court usage. Regarding the Twilight Competition now called Team Tennis, the sign up night was last Thursday and if you can recall the weather last Thursday we had about 2 inches of rain and the event was a wash-out. Gray is organising the Team Tennis competition this year and he is still looking for starters. So if you would like to be involved in a fun team event, please contact Gray on Note that Team Tennis starts on Thursday 13 th October at 6.00 pm. and will run for 17 weeks. Tennis Connect Rewards system unfortunately we have had a very poor response so far from members regarding the Rewards system. Only 38 of our 156 members have responded to an from Tennis Connect. By doing so you will earn our Club $5 which translates to $780 if everyone responds. All you have to do is nominate the Devonport Tennis Club as your Place of Play. You will shortly receive a third regarding this, so please help your Club by nominating the Devonport Tennis Club as your Place of Play. The Burnie/Devonport Challenge is on again this season. We will host Burnie on Saturday 3 rd December, so get some tennis under your belt in preparation for this big day. More details to come soon. Tennis Rosters and drills Gray s tennis program for the month of October is as follows: Monday am Ladies drill session pm Junior squad training pm advanced drill session pm Ladies doubles Quadrant Tuesday am up close drills pm Junior Hot Shots pm doubles quadrant Wednesday am up close drills pm Ladies midweek pm Junior squad

3 Thursday am up close drills pm Junior Hot Shots pm Team Tennis Friday pm singles and doubles Saturday and Sunday private coaching. FOR MORE INFORMATION ON ANY TENNIS RELATED PROGRAMS CONTACT OUR CLUB PROFESSIONAL GRAY HILLER on PRO-SHOP RACQUETS, SHOES, GRIPS, RESTRINGING AND ACCESSORIES ALL AVAILABLE. Find us on Facebook and on the internet at Sponsorship Thanks again to our wonderful sponsors who are: Betta Milk Lending4U Landscape Concepts Devonfield Gardening Services Radio 7AD/SeaFM Spreyton Butchery Halliwell Property Agents Physica Synectic Opteon Property Group Devonport Mazda Cambridge Services The Devonport City Council has provided wonderful support to the Club as well. Our sponsors logos can be seen below. Leigh Titmus Secretary Devonport Tennis Club

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5 Devonport Tennis Club AGM 2016 President s Report It is with pleasure that I present the 2016 Devonport Tennis Club President s Report. On behalf of the Devonport Tennis Club Committee we welcome all to our AGM to be held today (Sunday 25th September 2016). The main thank you of course is to our current members and players that participate in our tennis rosters and functions, as without your continued support we would not have a tennis club. I would like to thank our existing and past committees for their efforts in striving to help run our Tennis Club. All have had a common goal in trying to improve our club and tennis facilities. Existing committee members include myself (President), Leigh Titmus (Secretary), Colin Mathew (Treasurer), Chris McCoy (Vice President) with the general committee members being, Bill McMurtry, Jane Harris, Greg Corbett, Hector Lenton, Sean Martin, Sam Gleeson and Lucy Titmus. I have listed some thank you s however my apologies if I miss someone out as there are a lot of people that help our club out including some that are here today at our AGM. Thank you to all that have helped in any way. I particularly would like to acknowledge Leigh and Colin s support again for another busy year as they have done a considerable amount around the club, in helping myself and the balance of the committee. A lot of hours are put into this club behind the scenes, in strategic planning, seeking funds/loans and also the general operations of the club. There are numerous times when we are firing different financial scenarios to Colin on behalf of the committee, to see if our financials are viable and can support our proposals. Leigh is an excellent Secretary, which has linked our committee member base to a high standard which has been further improved with the regular newsletters presented to members. He also continues to be our general Mr Fixer around the club and helps immensely in organising our working bees and other volunteers together with hands on in our various functions. Myself, Leigh and Colin have done a considerable amount of work again on the various grant applications and we were successful this year in obtaining funding and also are now currently working on grant applications for the next project. The balance of the committee members are also very supportive of the Devonport Tennis Club and have contributed in a positive and constructive way. We are a hardworking team trying to improve our club. I do not like singling out individual committee members as everyone has a role and input into the future direction that we think this club should go. Some examples of some of the very hardworking roles committee members have done include Jane Harris for running our social committee of which the two highlights this year were the running of The Music by the Sea Club function and the Devonport Jazz night. These events involved a considerable amount of effort - which I also acknowledge help of other club members (in particular Ross Harris). For those who attended these functions they were excellent events and also helped fundraise for our club. We have continued to build numbers attending these functions which is encouraging not only from a fund raising point of view but also from a social point of view. I would also like to thank Sam for running our Devonport Junior Tournament last year while Gray was away together other volunteers who help out. We continue to offer support for tournaments which is needed if we are to build tennis numbers in the future. Thank you to our balance committee members who are very constructive and hands on and I thank them as a good team effort.

6 A particular thank you must go again to Deryl Edwards who has always helped this club out immensely for a number of years. This year Deryl helped ran our footy tipping competition (before he handed it over to Gray to go travelling ) which is an excellent fun event enjoyed by all which concluded with a barbecue night recently. Again we managed to contribute approximately $1,000 to the club for this event. In particular, Deryl is the main driver in our lighting projects, and this year we have managed to erect new lighting to courts 4, 5 and 6. Deryl project managed this project and it went ahead close to budget. This project represented a saving to our club of approximately $20,000. The lighting has enabled us to increase our playing time this winter and it is a pleasure now to have five lit courts at the club. Deryl also helped us with the other projects around the club for which we are all extremely grateful. I would like to thank Gray Hiller again as our tennis operator and coach. Gray ran our footy tipping (while Deryl was enjoying the sun in northern Australia) for most of the year which as mentioned was a successful event. Gray has been at this club for many years and has extensive knowledge in running tennis coaching activities, rosters, functions etc. Gray is offering many tennis activities to all groups of which we hope he will continue to gain support from both member and non-members who would like to enjoy a game of tennis. Gray runs the bar/function operations as well and we continue to grow the social part of our business. Gray is always looking to support both younger and older generations who aspire to play tennis. Tennis is not all about winning, it is an excellent sport for health and community and social interaction. I stress that Gray and the committee can only offer services however, and need the support of members and participants for these services to progress. In applying for grants, a huge emphasis is on the participation levels of a club, and hence the future lies in support from members and participants alike. This year was encouraging in the increase numbers in all tennis rosters and we are hoping to build these numbers. I would like to thank our existing and past sponsors for the support to our Club. Our main sponsors are Devonfield Gardening Services, Sea FM/7AD, Devonport Mazda, Brett Whitely, Betta Milk, Opteon Property Group, Halliwell Property Agents, Landscape Concepts, Lending 4 Cambridge Services, Physica, Spreyton Butchery, Synectic together with support from the Devonport City Council. As you can see we have considerable increased the support of sponsorship which is not directly shown in the financials as some are services offered rather than cash contribution. As most members are aware we successfully carried out a major redevelopment recently which included resurfacing courts 4, 5 and 6 along with new fences and lighting. Other works included replacement of our entrance drive and new garden shed. These projects were estimated at around $130,000 which we have managed to complete for around $100,000 due to savings in volunteer labour. Some external acknowledgements of appreciation I would like to extend are to the Devonport City Council, Tennis Tas and Tennis Australia, Community Sport and Recreation together with some local business and members volunteer labour which helped with our recent redevelopment project. The Devonport City Council have supported us immensely in our strategic plan vision for the club together with grant funding for our recent redevelopment projects. As you are aware we have developed a five year strategic plan which we have now commenced. We are currently in the process of finalising grant applications to complete the western side courts which will involve resurfacing of 6 courts and replace the surfacing. Our estimates for these are approximately $100,000 and will also

7 require volunteer labour similar to our last project. This project excludes the replacement of the club room s roof which is also estimated at $10,000. The success of this will depend on how successful we are in our grant applications and hence the project will be adjusted to what cash funds we have available. We do however still have most of our loan funds available (which we obtained last year from Tennis Australia) so can do part of this project if we are not successful in grant applications. The grant applications are quite extensive and are only offered on merit. They are highly sought after by the various sporting bodies. We were successful last year as we managed to leverage the Devonport City Council grants with other grants. These grants are only a short term fix and it is crucial that our club stands on its own two feet and we need to set aside a future sinking fund for the replacement of these assets over time. Hence we need to grow both our membership and non-membership base with sustaining our financial viability. The cash flows streams of grants and sponsorship should be seen as a bonus. I do stress again on behalf of the committee, that all of these proposals are still subject to funding (other than the ones granted to date) and we are not promising successful completion, but we are definitely hoping for a successful outcome for the club. Members need to be aware that we are conscious of trying to keep our fees to as low as possible, however people need to realise that we live in a real world and costs go up. These fee increases cannot be absorbed by the club and therefore, if members and future members/participants want a tennis club, the future of the club is in your hands and requires your support. The key to success of our club is the same as I said last year, ie the need to increase our membership base, increase our rate of participation, sponsorship, fundraising, functions and hopefully succeed in grant applications. Any help that can be offered within the club is always welcome. Yours faithfully, David Johnston President Devonport Tennis Club