Essex LTA Junior Tournament –Grade 4

For the 8th year in succession we ran An Essex LTA Grade 4 tournament for Juniors at the beginning of August.Our previous years concern, of clashing with the Essex open held at Billericay did not materialise but we were operating in the same week as Westcliff. However, Graeme Luckin who we employ to referee our tournament liaised with Westcliff to ensure that no events were taking place at the same time between the 2 tournaments.

Graeme Luckin is a National Referee & is well known by Junior players & their parents & can attract a number of good juniors around Essex. Graeme advertises our event within the LTA website, does all the pre-tournament arrangements including collecting all the entry fees & does the draws & is referee during the duration of the event.We attracted around 85 juniors during the week.

We as a club have to provide court supervisors to assist Graeme & can I thank those members who helped out in this area. Also those members who acted as car park attendants. We also provide refreshments all day & can I thank Kerry Pryor & her happy band of helpers for their contribution to making this event successful.

As you all know this does mean that the courts are usually tied up during the day for 4 or 5 days (this year it was 4) but the upside is that we made about £1200 profit from this event. This is easily the most profit we make from any event we hold.

Furthermore we do get a lot of quedos around the County for such a tournament & Graeme advised me recently that he sends out questionnaires following all tournaments to all the participants & the Satisfaction Response to all the questions is usually about 70/80% . However in Grove’s case it was 100%. He said that this was a rare figure. Kids & Parents love coming to our cosy & warm welcoming club not only for the tennis but also for the refreshments.

One thing I should mention is that due to some family commitments I may not be around during the duration of the tournament so we would need somebody or somebodies to step into the breach .

However ,having said that ,it was felt in committee that we should reapproach members to obtain their approval for us to continue with this event . So before proposing a motion are there any questions about what I have said.

So I propose that a vote be taken with the motion “that Grove LTC holds an Essex LTA junior tournament at the end of July/Beg August in 2016 as in previous years”