Tennis Renewals
Many of you have yet to renew your membership, required by April 1st. I can understand that with the current closure of the club you are wondering whether or not you should do so.
Please go ahead and renew and pay the full amount. The club is a classified leisure company and thus able to benefit from both the waiving of business rates and eligible to claim for a grant. Our treasurer, Martyn Webb, is focused on this. Our plan, therefore, is to apply a pro rata credit to your account once we are able to open the club for play again and we thus know how long the closure was for. Martyn will then be able to claim from the local government the total value of all the pro rata credit. So please renew as normal.
Regarding the Wimbledon Ticket ballot, we will conduct this as planned in mid-April, but without, obviously, a club meeting. As usual, only those whose membership for the new season has been paid will be included. Of course, Wimbledon might not go ahead and, even if it does, it might do so with empty show courts. On the other hand, events are moving so fast that a staggered release of the lockdown might happen at the end of this three-week period. Who knows? I am alive to the possibility, also, that the Wimbledon Tournament may well be cancelled soon anyway, in which case even a closed ballot won't happen.
Middlesex Tennis has just cancelled this season's Summer League. Also, the annual club tournament will not be going ahead. We will keep in mind the possibility of holding it later in the year.
Keep well and keep active. In the meantime, enjoy this.