The club’s committee is very pleased to confirm that the guest of honour at the 50th Celebration Dinner at the Empress Hotel on Friday 7th October will be The President of The Lawn Tennis Association, Mrs Cathie Sabin.
The dinner is to celebrate 50yrs since a very small club and an even smaller committee bought one acre of farmland at Ballaughton Meadows for the princely sum of ?485! Cheap it may seem now but we still had to borrow five ?50 loans from supportive members. Following years of fundraising – coffee mornings, jumble sales with Nora Dobson in the old Red Cross hall, Christmas Fayres, sponsored walks and tennis, stalls at Tynwald Fair etc etc members now have a first class facility valued at over ?700,000 !! So there seemed a good reason to celebrate.
On the night Mrs Sabin, accompanied by her husband will present the Club Championship trophies and the W K Dale Trophy and draw the main prize tickets for a Grand Tombola. Yes the club still needs to fundraise. Whilst on the Island Mrs Sabin will visit the popular Friday Morning Ladies group and have a buffet lunch with them. She hopes to make a lap of the TT course an on the Saturday will visit the club’s very successful Mini Tennis coaching in the indoor court. Our social secretary, Kirsten Hall is preparing a DVD to be shown on the night, outlining the various stages of the club’s progress – floodlights, indoor court, excellent clubhouse.
Last Friday we held the annual Quiz Night with 50 people attending and enjoying trying to think of answers to the very intricate programme prepared by our Chairman, Stuart Colligon a lot of help from James Davis and their “good ladies” and Teddy Davis. With a break for fish/sausage and chip suppers the evening flowed well with many laughs. Eventually the winners were :Quality Street with 190 pts Jackie, Colin and Robert Russell, Clare Skelcher and Jay & Sam Skelcher Maxwell. Their prizes were Quality Street and tins of shorbread biscuits. Runners-up were The Rowdies with 181 pts.- Andy Varnham, Colin Brown, Margaret Brown , Sean Crossley, Maria Parsons, Alan ?? and 3rd (179pts) was United + One – Alastair & Wendy Montgomerie, Phil & Anne Bannan, Jackie Clague and Hester Allan.
On the 30th April Albany will be hosting a team from Dublin and Jackie Russell and Tim Davies are looking for players who would like to take part in the International should contact Jackie jackierussell@manx.net. More details next week. The match will be followed by a barbecue and social evening.
