May Newsletter - Only 4 months in the making...

Dear [[firstname]],

This newsletter has been a long time in coming, so I apologise for the brain dump of information. I hope that we can return to regular updates in this form, and would be only to happy to hear from anyone regarding information that they would be happy to be included or even provide something for publishing.

Throughout this email I have bolded some items which need particular attention, as the committee look for some additional assistance. If there are areas where you feel that you can help, please do get in touch for more information and to have a chat.

Teams & Leagues

Great results from the teams this season with the A-Team winning division one, Stephen Nankivell’s C-Team being (painfully) pipped into the runners up spot in division two, and Matt King’s D-Team winning division three. In racketball Max Ball and his band secured a 3rd spot! Anyone interested in playing team squash or racketball next season, please contact Max Ball, maxfball@hotmail.co.uk, 07859 123417. As a reminder in the squash we are running 2 division one teams, plus hosting the Academy Team, 1 division 2 team, and 2 division 3 teams, and 2 racketball teams.

I appreciate that the season puts additional pressure on court availability where at times two teams have played at home taking up all 4 courts. This is something that I am hoping we can better remedy next season talking with the county league organisers and as a club. That said, I am pleased that we have such a strong team set up across all the divisions performing at the top of each.

Leagues are in good order with Finley Aimer holding onto the top spot for the second consecutive month. May leagues kick off again after a break in April for the Club Championships. I am conscious that the number of leagues has reduced, running 12 in May and I would encourage people who aren’t involved in the leagues to put your name down. It is a great way of finding and challenging your level as well as playing and meeting other people at the club. Simply put your name down on the sheets on the board, or speak to Ben, Max or Myself when you see us around the club.

The racketball ladder continues to run, with Steve Owen holding solidly onto the top spot. Can anyone knock him off it?? It is great to see more people playing Racketball, as it grows in popularity. Some players choosing to play both squash and racketball, and others choosing to specialise, and great to see some new names to Racketball in the club champs. Anyone interested in joining the racketball ladder, or wanting to know how to access playing racketball generally, please contact Steve Jones shrewscam@outlook.com, 07867 824550 for the ladder, or Carl Griffiths, 07766 528400 who organises a racketball mix in that generally takes place on a Friday afternoon.

We are trialling moving the squash leagues onto the My Courts system. I have been speaking to Tony Burgan who has and is doing an incredible job with the leagues for over 30 years!! For now we are going to run both systems as we transition. Please put your results BOTH on the board as you would normally, AND on My Courts during May and we will see how we get on. When entering the result on My Courts you DO NOT need to put the individual game scores on, and DO NOT tick the Squash Levels option for now. When you put your first result on it will make sense, but you can always contact me if there are any questions. Either player can put the result on, and your opponent will receive a confirmation email of what has been entered.

We are looking for someone to administer the leagues on My Courts. It will be a monthly re-jig of the league positions based on how they have ended up, as well as adding any new players in the right spot and removing any who wish to be left out for any reason. My Courts makes it relatively straight forward and intuitive to use – if you are interested, please let me know, phil@thecaudles.co.uk or 07768 747727 and I can show you what is involved before you make any commitment.

Club Championships

It has been fun running the club championships with Max Ball and Stephen Jenks. After some mixed messages from me regarding what the comp was going to look like, I am really pleased that we have been able to run a more traditional competition with multiple plate competitions with the aim of getting people a minimum of 3-4 games and have been delighted by the numbers of entrants.

Running a ladies competition is a really feather in the cap for the club with other clubs in the county not being able to boast enough women members to run separate competitions.

Finally we also have the racketball competition and I echo what was said earlier, that it is good to see so many players entering.

I hope that everyone is enjoying it so far, and I would welcome any feedback and suggestions that anyone has for next year. I would hope to run the same format with any considered tweaks.

A reminder that the finals night is on Friday 17th May where there will be 15 matches to get through and I would like to think that as many people as possible will join in supporting the finalists for an evening of squash and racketball and to celebrate the successes of the club over the course of the season.

If there are people who would be happy to help on the night – score games, man the bar – please let Max Ball know and he will find you a slot.

Ladies Pizza & Prosecco

It has been great to see the monthly Pizza and Prosecco evenings continuing, and our lady members and guests improving with coaching from Linda, generally having fun and our female membership numbers increasing.

Great to see more female members in the leagues, and taking part in team squash, and I would like to see the numbers increase yet further, and for the club to become a hub in the county for the ladies squash. Damian and Linda have run some county inspired coaching sessions earlier in the year, and I would like to think that we can host further sessions in the coming months and keep this trend on the upward trajectory.

Junior Coaching

Ben Schur assisted by Finley Aimer continue to run the Saturday morning coaching sessions and have recently run another set of squash stars for 5 to 9 year olds. It would be great to see the numbers of youngsters playing squash increasing and new crops coming through, so please get the word out there!!

In recent time seeing the likes of Cameron Parry, Finley Aimer, Jaydan Ingram, and Billy Schur coming through the ranks of the club’s junior program and now competing in Division One in the top spots has been a real highlight, and possibly the largest influx of young talent in the county for many years – not sure if that is a bit of Trumpism type saying as I really have nothing to back it up with, but it sounds great.

With George McGurk and Fred Schur leading the next generation, the future continues to be bright and we are certainly punching above our weight in the county.

Coaching

We are lucky to have a number of qualified coaching options at the club, and I hope in the coming weeks we will be able to release more detailed profiles on these coaches for those who are not aware, and provide additional options and ideas for potentially more individual or group coaching to members across the club. We will be looking for opinions, as well as people who might be looking to get their qualifications, so please look out for this when it comes.

If in the time between you want would like to access coaching, please reach out to Ben who will be happy to assist or point you in the right direction.

News from the Committee

The committee meet general the first Sunday of each month. I would like the work that the committee do to be more open and transparent, with the minutes from meetings to be more accessible to anyone who is interested in reading them, and providing any feedback. I hope to find a suitable vehicle for this soon.

I really appreciate the feedback and suggestions that I get from members, and knowing that we meet each month, please feel free to provide any items for the agenda and we will ensure that they are included and I will provide feedback.

To clarify, the current committee consists of the following people;

Philip Caudle – Chair

Max Ball – Club Captain

Debbie Hamil – Safeguarding and Welfare

Wendy Lloyd – Ladies

Ben Schur – Junior Section & Coach

Grant Thomas – Treasurer

Richard Green – Bar Manager and Licence Holder

At the AGM other officers who were appointed were Millicent Evans – Marketing & Comms, Vanessa Dee – Events and Rebecca Wright – Assistant Club Captain. All have resigned for various reasons and whilst the activities of these roles are required, I am looking to integrate these within the committee or find additional support on specific projects.

From the AGM a couple of the major focuses of the committee have been to increase membership numbers (with 24 new members since the meeting on the 12th November,) and tighter focus on the finances particularly with the regular activities that take place – this is an ongoing with difficulties still transitioning the bank to the new committee members, but I am confident that we moving in the right direction here putting controls in place, and will provide more information in due course. The bank balance is around £1.5 up on where it was at the AGM.

Sponsorship

We would like to look at sponsorship for the 2024/5 season for things like team squash. We are hoping to get new club and team kit organised and it would be great for it to carry sponsorship details of companies who would be prepared to sponsor either a team or the club. If you have any potential interest or can suggest people to contact in providing any form of sponsorship, please get in touch to discuss options.

Summer League

With the official season behind us it is getting around to the time where we get Summer League underway ably stewarded by Max Ball. The format is generally going to be as it has been in previous years, and we will be sending out a separate email and WhatsApp to gauge interest of people wanting to be involved and make any appropriate tweaks from there.

If you would like to get involved with assisting with the organisation of the Tuesday night extravaganzas, please speak to Max and he will be able to give you a bit more information about what is involved. Support will be required ensuring teams are running smoothly, rules are being followed, in and around the bar area (very important as you are all aware) and generally keeping the show on the road.

Graphic Design, Marketing, Communications

Over the course of the various activities that we undertake as a club, emails that we send out and other items that we would like to promote within the club, at events, on the website, or via social media there is a need for some Graphic Design. I am hoping that within the club we have people who either have a business or work in a business that may be willing to provide a little time for activities, or are keen amateur Graphic Designers with appropriate software themselves. If you are, and you think you can help, please get in touch and we can discuss what that help might look like.

The same is true of the marketing and communications activities. Whilst I don’t think that social media makes or breaks the influx of new membership enquiries, coupled with the website and making the communications that we send out look more professional, it would be good to have proper professional input or again, keen amateur assistance.

With all the bolded items, I am not looking for people to be tied into the committee, but instead provide some consistent and coherent input, advice on a project by project basis.

If this sounds like something that you can help with, please get in touch

If there is anything within this initial newsletter that you would like more information about, or you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.

Enjoy your squash, racketball and the social at the club!!

All the best, and stay safe,

Phil

05/05/2024