Tennis during the lockdown

June was a great month for all of us who love tennis as some of the previous restrictions were relaxed and we were able to resume playing doubles. It’s been great to see so many people back on court.

With players from up to six households able to meet outdoors provided social distancing is maintained, Robbie Watt has managed to reinstate Saturday Singles.

Meanwhile our rota organisers have been busy and the Monday and Thursday rotas have been in operation for several weeks.

Club sessions are now allowed but the limit of six people from different households meeting outdoors still applies. We are also required to keep a temporary record of who plays for 21 days. Therefore we will continue to use pre-booked groups organised via WhatsApp for Sunday mornings, Wednesday morning ladies and Thursday morning men Similarly there are WhatsApp groups for men’s and ladies’ match practice. This means, should track-and-trace become necessary, we will know who has played. Let’s hope it is never required.

Sessions for players with disabilities have resumed on Friday evenings with free coaching:

• Players aged under 18: 4.00-4.45 pm
• Adults: 5.00-5.45 pm

If you are interested in joining any of these groups, please contact:
Robbie Watt – Saturday singles.

Chris Baker – Monday evening rotas.

Chris Backway – Men’s match practice.

Catherine Kennedy/Sarah Wilson – Ladies’ match practice.

Geoff Green – Thursday morning men and Thursday evening rotas.

Sarah Wilson – Sunday morning.

Joan Thompson – Wednesday morning ladies.

Mark Love mdlcoaching@hotmail.com – Coaching and disabled sessions.

If you do not have an organiser’s contact details, please contact them via the Club’s email: mail@purleyburytennisclub.net

Many thanks to all our organisers for the hard work they put in.

New members 

We are delighted to be able to welcome a number of new members, several of whom have been tempted by our temporary membership offer during the lockdown. Our current offers are:

• temporary parent/family membership until 30 September 2020, so that families can play together – two parents and two children for £25, with any additional children at £5 each.
• temporary full adult membership until 30 September 2020 – for £40.

Tell your friends who may be interested!

Competition

Nathan Ascott is investigating the possibility of holding a club tournament in a few months’ time, so watch this space for further information.

Lockdown arrangements

As many of the Government’s restrictions are now being lifted, we have reviewed all of our Coronavirus related arrangements. The latest LTA Guidance for players can be found at https://www.lta.org.uk/globalassets/news/2020/lta-guidance-for-tennis-players—covid-19.pdf

and for venues at http://image.lta-tennis.com/lib/fe3811717564047c751c78/m/1/46fec065-845d-4c06-b991-29f6cc9dc32f.pdf

 

Who can play

There is fresh emphasis on the need for a pre-attendance symptom check:

Anyone attending a venue (including players, coaches, staff and any other

visitors), should undergo a pre-attendance self-assessment for any COVID-19 symptoms using the information on the NHS website before leaving home.

No-one should leave home to participate in tennis if they, or someone they live with, has symptoms of COVID -19, currently recognised as any of the following:

• A high temperature.
• A new, continuous cough.
• A loss of, or change to, their sense of smell or taste.

Should an individual have demonstrated any such symptoms, they must follow NHS and PHE guidance on self-isolation.

REMEMBER

• If you have been asked to isolate by NHS Test and Trace because you are a contact of a known COVID-19 case, do not exercise outside your own home or garden and do not exercise with others.
• If you are in a clinically vulnerable group (e.g. over 70) you can play tennis but should be especially careful and diligent about social distancing and hand hygiene.
• If you are classified as clinically extremely vulnerable, from 6 July you can consider playing tennis and meeting up with one person outside your household, always maintaining social distancing and with robust hand and respiratory hygiene.

 

Coaching

Coached sessions are still limited to groups of no more than 6 adults (including coach) but groups of up to 15 children (plus coach(es) are now allowed.

 

Tennis balls 

As most of you know, the requirement for each player to use their own tennis balls was lifted at the beginning of June when it became permissible to share tennis balls again.

We took the view that, to mitigate the risk of the Coronavirus being transmitted via common touchpoints, one set of tennis balls should be used by no more than six people in a session, corresponding to the limit on the number of people from different households who can meet outdoors. We have achieved this by providing new balls per court for each session, and asking club session players and those playing in the Rotas who previously played with used balls to contribute to the cost (£1.25 per person per session).

We trust you agree that to protect the Club and our members it is necessary for these arrangements to continue for the time being, and we ask those of you who are playing in these sessions to pay for the balls you have used at the end of each month, by BACS – we are following the advice to eliminate all unnecessary cash transactions. Hopefully the Government will further relax the restrictions in the near future and we will be able to revert to our normal practice of reusing balls in good condition.

 

Use of the toilets, kitchen and bar

The latest Government and LTA guidance does permit us to reopen these facilities provided certain conditions are met.

Our ethos at Your Purley Bury is that our Club is run by volunteers, and all members are asked to contribute what help they can, when they can, in order to run Our Club. As we do not have any paid staff, this poses some problems when it comes to meeting the additional health-and-safety requirements during the lockdown, which are so essential to prevent a further outbreak of the Coronavirus.

We all come down to the club primarily to enjoy playing tennis, rather than to implement the rigorous cleaning and social distancing measures required to enable the use of the bar, toilets and kitchen areas. Therefore, the Club House will remain closed and will not be available for general use other than by people who require access for operational reasons, such as the session organisers, or in emergencies such as accessing first aid. Once the conditions for use are less onerous, our intention is to have the Club House thoroughly cleaned before it is made available for general use.

 

Grounds maintenance

Many thanks to Martin Hopgood and Dave Winton for cutting the hedges, and to the Friday morning ladies who helped clear up.

It is not appropriate to hold a working party at the moment, but there are always lots of little jobs that need doing around the grounds such as:

• weeding the area by the tap on the side of the club house.
• trimming the box hedge on the patio.
• trimming the hedge in the carpark.

So if you have a spare half hour it would be great if you could help.

 

Sponsorship

We are delighted to report that Streeter Marshall have agreed to continue their sponsorship of our Club for another year.

 

Coaching and Juniors

MDL Coaching would like to thank all of the juniors and adults who attended our partial return to tennis coaching sessions, and all followed the rules that we put in place impeccably.

We have tennis camps starting from 20th July and hope that our players attending will do the same.

We will be in touch over the course of the Summer holidays with our Autumn Term programme for both children and adults and wish you all a great Summer break.

Details of our Summer Holiday programme can be found here: https://clubspark.lta.org.uk/MDLCoaching/Coaching/Junior

 

Play in Hot Weather

It is forecast to get hotter again this week and we have to take care of our newly laid courts when the temperature is over 22C. IF THE SURFACE SOFTENS STOP PLAY IMMEDIATELY because serious damage can result from continuing play. The first sign of the problem is usually when black marks begin to appear as a result of the paint being rubbed or scuffed off. WHEN THE TEMPERATURE IS OVER 25C THE COURTS MUST NOT BE USED.

Many thanks to members for having followed the rules and refrained from playing during the recent heatwave.

Your Purley Bury Management Team