April Newsletter

Hello Squasharians!

I write this as we await another update from Boris this afternoon regarding the state of things and what the next stage will be. Whilst I wish I could be waiting with great anticipaction, racket in hand and ready to hit the courts, the likelyhood is that we will still be where we are for a while longer. I appreicate all of the emails and live chats that people have had with me over the last few weeks, I know a lot of you are itching to get back to Squash.

A lot of you seem to be in the same mindset at the moment though which is to try and keep as fit as possible over the break. You may read this and think uhhhhhh I haven't! and that's ok. This is a downtime for a lot of people and weather you have been utilising the time to rest and recover or you are trying to keep as fit as possible whilst at home, the one thing that links us all together is that we miss our club and miss the sport. Even watching it, the amount of old mathces I've watched on Squash TV and You Tube is insane. I really miss keeping up to date with the PSA Tour and seing who is doing what in the rankings.

Similarly whilst we are on the subject of rankings, some of you may be wondering what will happen to our league system when we return. For those of you who don't remember I'm pretty sure I was top of the Premiership after just beating Cameron 3-0. He didn't even put up a fight to be honest and it was an easy win. Yep pretty sure that's how it was.......

In all honesty though when we went into lockdown we were about a week or two into the March leagues. Despite some of you getting a few games in (myself included) the leagues will be reset and all games played will be wiped. There will initially be a cool off period when we return to the club where the leagues will not be in play, this is to allow members time to adjust to playing again and getting match fit. We understand that some people may not agree with this but please understand that this is a very unique situation the World is currently in. Never before have we had to do something like this but, exceptional times cause for exceptional action. We feel it is sensible and best for all concerned to allow members the opportunity to have some time getting used to the game again. Squash is after all a high intensity and high impact game. This period will be decided amongst the committee and Tony who organises the Leagues. Once this period is over, members will be reintroduced into the leagues they were in back in March when we all went into hibernation. If anyone has any issues or concerns about this then please do not hesitate to contact me.

Membership and Subs

This is something that a lot of you have asked about over the last few weeks and I have done my best to find answers. If you are one of the members that contacted me about subs then this next bit will be a bit repetitive for you.

So bascially when we come out of lockdown and are allowed to return to the club the question of subs and any abatement due to the close down will be raised with the school in due course, once the restrictions are lifted. We can't make any suggestions or promises as to what this will be as we (like the rest of the world) simply do not know when this will be. We appreciate your patience with this and we will keep you updated as we know more.

Ladies catch up

Well we may not be able to meet up to play squash at the moment but that won't stop us enjoying our pizza and prosecco over a group zoom call - the first of which was held at 7pm on Friday 24th April. A total of 7 ladies zoomed in (not all at the same time) wine/prosecco glasses to hand. Lots of tips were shared on how we're all keeping fit (online yoga, running, walking) with many of us exploring new walking areas near our homes. We all sang "Happy Birthday" to Alison (badly) and marvelled at how on earth those online choruses manage to sing in sinc (and tune)!

All keen to do this every other week so for any ladies who'd like to join us the meeting ID is 732-4861-8432 with Pin 9YH11Q. It's a recurring meeting so these should remain the same. Next date 7pm Friday 8th May. Be prepared for a mini quiz too!

Cheers, Tracy WP tel. 07854 544732

Live Chats

You may have noticed that a couple of weeks ago we did a Live chat on Sunday at 6pm ( Club Night time) It was good to see those of you who made it online. We will endeavour to make this a regular thing but again please bare with us as we all have personal commitments and can't always commit to hosting a live chat. If we can we'll let you know via email.

Thanks again to those of you who have joined in so far. It's been good to see all of your lovely faces again.

Keeping Trim

You'll either want to read this or you'll be sick of hearing about it. For those of you looking for ways to keep trim, shorten that curve for getting back into being match fit when we return to the club or maybe you just want to work on some part of your fitness whilst you have maybe a bit more freetime, we have some useful info and links for you to go over.

SquashSkills : https://www.youtube.com/user/squashskills For those of you wanting to specifiaclly improve or maintain your racket finese and body movement, SquashSkills has some great videos on YouTube that can help you whilst you are in lockdown.

Joe Wicks : My kids love him and he's certainly someone who has benefitted from this outbreak. His You Tube channel is https://www.youtube.com/user/thebodycoach1 and currently has 2.3 Million followers. His workouts are light versions of HIT Training and are good ways to get you moving and improving your explosive movements and strength. I do them at home with my kids and it's a fun activity to do together.

Metafit : Ryan is well know to members at the club he is also running his sessions online until further notice. Fridays at 6.30 to 7pm. He is also on Facebook under the name of Rapidz Fitness and can be found here:
www.facebook.com/rapidzfitness/

Faith Page: Faith was the Yoga lady/teacher who ran sessions at the club on Saturday lunchtimes and is known to some members already. She normally runs sessions at Bowmere Heath but has moved them online, every Monday 7 - 8 PM until the current measures are lifted. She can be found on Facebook under the Name of Shrewsbury Yoga. Faith would be delighted for members at the club to join her sessions and has agreed for this to be circulated.

She can be found here and there is a chance to view any missed sessions:
https://www.facebook.com/shrewsburyyoga/

Miles Jenkins: I have contacted Miles (our Pro Coach) and he is going to be setting something up to again help with fitness and Squash Skill whilst we are in this lockdown period. More information on this will follow.

So that's it for April. Boris is about to come on TV. It's a weird thing when this happens in our house. My kids are 12 and 7 and they usually have no interest in the news. Soon as they know Boris is talking to us live, they jump on the sofa and listen intently. I appreciate all children are different and are handling this as best as they can but it really hits home to me that this is something that for them, they will remember forever. They will talk to their children about this one day and it really is a historic moment in time. For their sake I do everything I can to follow the guidelines right now and stay safe. I miss my squash but family comes first.

Keep up the good work everyone. It's not an easy thing we are doing here but we can all appreciate each other's efforts.

Speak soon.

Scott

30/04/2020