2007 and the early months of 2008
have proved to be yet another successful period for all sections and members of
the Club.
Since the last AGM and Chairman's Report, Michelle Wheeler, our Club Manager, has continued to implement improvements to all the sporting facilities and both our clubhouses over the last twelve months seeking to improve the enjoyment of the members in addition to all her usual managerial duties and I would like to express our thanks to Michelle for all her efforts over the past year.
Steve Jarvis, our head groundsman who joined us from Lord's Cricket Ground towards
the end of March 2007 has brought about a transformation to the quality of both
the grass tennis courts and the cricket square/outfield way beyond our
expectations and we are extremely fortunate to have the benefit of Steve's
expertise and enthusiasm for which we are extremely grateful. We were also delighted when Steve and Elaine
became the proud parents of baby Jack in May last year.
As noted above, the facility
upgrade programme has continued over the past 12 months with further general
internal refurbishment to the CLTC and HCC Clubhouses, the resurfacing of the 3
HCC and 5 CLTC Acrylic tennis courts, an extensive programme of repair/replacement
works to all 8 squash courts and general repairs and redecoration to our staff
accommodation.
We submitted a planning
application for an extension of the roof terrace above the squash courts in the
CLTC Clubhouse accessed from the Ramus Room which would
have provided an added outdoor facility from which members and guests would
benefit from views across the whole of our site and indeed into the City and
The installation of the new high
level "catch netting" along the north and south perimeter of the
cricket field proved successful during the 2007 cricket season and has reduced
the number of incidents where cricket balls have landed on the adjacent tennis
courts albeit it is impossible to eliminate this risk completely.
The tennis section enjoyed another
successful year with the Ladies first team winning the Middlesex Premier Division
albeit their run of twelve consecutive years success in the Middlesex Cup
competition was brought to an end by an early defeat by Queens Club. The Ladies 1st National Club
League (NCL) Team were unfortunately relegated to National Division 2 whilst
the Ladies 2nd NCL team retained their place in Division 2.
The Ladies 2nd Team
performed extremely well to retain their place on the Middlesex Premier
Division whilst the 3rd team remained in Middlesex Division 1 and
the 4th team were unluckily relegated to Division 2.
The Men’s 1st Team
reached the semi finals of the Middlesex Cup Competition once again and in the
Middlesex League competition retained their place in the Premier League where
they will be joined in 2008 by the 2nd Team who gained promotion
from Division 1. The Men's 3rd
Team performed creditably and remained in Division 1 whilst the 4th
Team stayed in Division 2 and the 5th Team were promoted to division
4.
The Winter Middlesex Cup mixed
team, captained by Caroline Jones, has recently repeated last year's success by
winning the 2007/08 event defeating Hazelwood in the final.
The Club Open and Handicap Tournament as ever saw all events
fiercely contested with Susie Dart winning the Ladies' Singles defeating Zofia Fodor in the final. Simon Curtis emerged as the 2007 Men's
champion after receiving a walkover from Ekow Carboo in the final as Ekoo
unfortunately was travelling to
John Taylor was elected as Chair
of Tennis at the 2007 AGM and subsequently invited a pro-active group to join
the tennis sub-committee comprising Ivan Ezekiel, Caroline Jones, Paul Smart,
Chris Bradnam, Marilyn Brooks supported by Michelle
Wheeler and Peta Churchman. John's first year in the role of Chair has
been very successful including the resurrection of social American Tournaments,
extension of juniors playing rights, review of coaching policy, implementation
of a revised Saturday Club Afternoon format and the Committee has also
benefited from John's legal background when confronted by several difficult
challenges over the year.
We are also very grateful for all
the efforts of the Junior Tennis Committee who promote the interest of our Junior players which is chaired by Marilyn Brooks supported
by Nicki Siddall, Caroline
Cohen, Jennifer Labrom, Jenny Hughes, David Kilbourn and Liz Shinder.
The LTA have invited us to host a
$15,000 Men's Event as well as a $10,000 Women's Event from 10th to
17th August 2008 following another successful tournament held last
summer, when members enjoyed seeing Thomas Oger (No.
1 seed and ranked 303 in the world) winning the Men's event and Pauline Wong
(No. 2 seed and ranked 450 in the world) triumphing in the Ladies' event.
We attended a Centenary Clubs
event in the summer of 2007 at the Barcelona Club where we lost our first round
match to a strong
Chris Bradnam
with his team of coaches continue to run the coaching
programme and the junior tennis school with great success. Many members benefit from individual coaching
from the team albeit demand, at times, outstrips supply of coaches/court
availability so early booking of lessons is recommended. In an attempt to make more coaching time
available to members we have reviewed and tightened the opportunities and
arrangements for non-members receiving coaching which have generated more capacity for those members who wish to
sharpen their game. Chris continues to
be actively involved with both the BBC and Eurosport
tennis commentary teams and we all enjoyed his daily bulletins earlier this
year from the 2008 Australian Open and recent Qatar ATP event.
Wednesday evening tennis “club
nights” are ever popular and during the summer, acrylic courts 1, 2 and 3 were
made available for Saturday Club afternoon between 3 and 5pm. This was reviewed
with the onset of colder weather and shorter days with further consultation
with members taking place at the November American Tournament. Following this
Saturday Club afternoon has continued over the winter on acrylic courts 4 and 5
during the daylight hours of
Our younger tennis members
continue to benefit from the income generated by the Eleanor Caplin Fund which has a new board of Trustees, namely John
Taylor, Marilyn Brooks and Richard Churchman who are committed to use to the
full benefit of all younger members and non-members in the local community – we
are very grateful for their efforts.
The Squash section has, as usual, been active with teams
competing in the Middlesex Leagues, as well as the prestigious
The Men's Veterans competition
held in early 2008 saw some stiff competition amongst our more experienced
players with the finals played recently which saw Mike Spreckley
overcome Stephen Parke in the Men's 55 Finals,
Jonathan Hale triumphing against Chris Rogal in the
45 Final and Simon Evans taking the 35 title defeating Tahir
Hussain.
We continue to benefit from the coaching support from our
former world ranked squash professional, Zubair
Khan. Zubair
has continued to play an active role in conjunction with Mark Rayner in promoting the Middlesex Junior Squash programme
which sees a number of talented youngsters coming to the Club on a regular
basis.
2007 also saw the launch of the
"London Open" Squash Tournament hosted at the Club with world ranked
players competing. Our thanks are due to
Zubair for promoting this new tournament supported by
the organising Committee including Chris Rogal, Mark Rayner, Tracy Parker and Matt Crawcour
which we hope to see repeated in 2008.
The winter team squash event took
place in January earlier in the year and was as usual incredibly popular and
well supported. Thanks are due once
again to Rikki Kent and Tracy Parker for giving up
their weekend to organise the event.
The squash members also remain, as
ever, very grateful for Rikki
The Cricket Section were very pleased with their performance during the 2007
cricket season. The 1st XI
consolidated and improved its position in the ECB Premier Division of the
Middlesex County League ending up in 3rd position for the second
year in succession. The 2nd
XI maintained their place in the Middlesex 2nd XI Division One where
they finished in a creditable 4th position and the 3rd XI
also improved their position in the Middlesex 3rd XI Division One
finishing in third spot. The Club
performed well in the two limited over knock-out competitions.
We were very fortunate when the
Middlesex and ex-England player, Paul Weekes, joined
the Club as Director of Cricket in 2007 and all teams have benefited from
Paul's experience and coaching skills.
The Colts Section continued to
thrive and thanks are due to Alan Brooks and Roger Carter for ensuring the
success and progress of the section.
We are grateful for all the
efforts of the cricket sub-committee chaired by Frank Berendt
and wish them success in their 2007 season.
The Hockey section is thriving
both on and off the pitch under the leadership of Chairman Timur
Asar, fielding 6 ladies teams and 6 mens teams each week and enjoying a full calendar of social
activity in the HCC Clubhouse. A brief
review of the 2007/08 season so far is as follows:
After a difficult first half of
the season, the Ladies 1st X1 squad have upped their game since
Christmas with increased commitment levels and strong team spirit enabling them
to claw their way back up the South Clubs Division 3A league table where they
belong.
The Ladies 2nd team
have been going from strength to strength throughout the season and are
currently fighting for top of the table position.
The Ladies 3rd team
have gone from strength to strength so far this season, developing a consistent
triangular style of play and are currently near the top of the table.
The Ladies 4th team
have had a challenging season to date having been newly promoted into division
1 this year.
The Ladies 5th team
have continued in their success, following an unexpected promotion in the 06/07
season and the 5's are on course to stay up in Division 2.
With
a squad of 28 ladies the Ladies 6th team haven't seen an awful lot
of continuity … but that is probably a mere reflection of
The Men's 1st XI have
had a very successful season to date after narrowly avoiding relegation on the
final day of last season, they recruited well and have had a very strong squad
to choose from this term and found themselves top of the league after 5 games
but after a few disappointing results against stronger sides in the league,
dropped back slightly.
With only a few games to go, they
find themselves in joint second with every chance of achieving promotion in
their first season under captain Jamie Dru.
The Men's 2nd XI have
strengthened their squad and entered the season with high hopes. They finished 3rd on their debut
season within the Southern Premier Open League 2nd division and feel
they could go one better and gain promotion this year.
The Men's 3rd XI have
had quite a mixed season so far after making to the play offs last year against
Kent/Sussex & Hampshire/Surrey but hope to finish in the top half of their
Leagues.
This season the Men's 4th
XI have not enjoyed the success on the pitch that they've been used to in the
past, particularly as the end of last season showed great promise. However, they are hopeful that they will be
challenging for a top place in the table later this year.
After a healthy mid-table finish
in 2006/07, the benefit of a largely unchanged squad combined with a few new
players was always going to pay dividends in 2007/08 for the Men's 5th
XI. At the time of writing the 5th
XI are three points clear at the top of their division, needing only one win
from their final four games to ensure promotion.
Having just been formed a Men's 7th
XI played a number of friendlies over the course of
the season with a mixed bag of results as a regular team was formed, the back
end of the season has seen some strong performances and some good wins.
Chris Halder
continues to devote many hours work in managing and controlling the finances of
the Club on behalf of the membership and will be presenting the 2007 accounts
to the AGM. Chris will continue to
advocate that we should budget for a surplus each year in order to make
provision for continued improvement of the club facilities and also to cater
for any unforeseen emergencies. We are
very fortunate to benefit from the time and effort that Chris dedicates to this
role.
The Social Committee led by
Caroline Jones organised a series of social events during 2007 including the
annual ball held for the second time in the Long Room at Lord's Cricket
Club. Due to other commitments and also
in recognition of the need for an injection of fresh ideas Caroline and the
previous Social Committee "stood down" in the summer of 2007 and
following a request for new members willing to form part of a new committee,
Peter Brown, James Churchman, Steve McCormack, Valerie Barber, Anna Hay and Ros Krouglikoff volunteered and
to date have organised a successful Christmas function and more recently a Quiz
Night with further events to follow throughout the year. The new committee have also decided that the
2008 Summer Ball will revert back to Highgate Golf Club where we have enjoyed
several great evenings in the past.
Tony Corby has continued to
successfully lead a thriving Bridge section throughout the year with regular
Friday evening sessions mixed with several popular matches against The All
England Club, Hurlingham, etc.
Paul Tereo,
our new gym instructor, is available to introduce and induct new members to the
gym equipment and also offers members personal training/fitness programmes.
The Annual Tennis Section Cricket
match against The All England Lawn Tennis Club, once again took place at the
end of August at
Rob Sumner took over the role of
Snooker Chair in 2007 and has organised a number of successful tournaments
throughout the year.
The Cumberland Golf society played
various matches during the year and the well supported knock out tournaments
were very capably organised by Pat Broadway whose ongoing efforts are greatly
appreciated by the golfing members.
2007 and early 2008 saw the
continued growth of the newest section of the Club, the Backgammon Group, which
came together due to the enthusiasm of Ray Kershaw. Regular social evenings now take place where
players of all abilities are welcomed.
Ray also entered a "
Our thanks are due to John Mark
for his behind the scenes input in organising the Staff Xmas Fund which thanks
to the generosity of members saw a record sum of £2,800 in 2007.
For those computer literate
members who have visited our website over the past 12 months, you will have
seen significant improvements to the style and content of the site for which
thanks are due to our "Webmaster" Alex Edwards, who has dedicated
many hours of work.
James Barlow has again dedicated
significant time in his role as Honorary Secretary throughout the year and the
Club has benefited from his expert legal knowledge on a wide range of matters
which has been invaluable.
I would also like to take the
opportunity of thanking our other colleagues on the Main Committee, not
mentioned previously in this report, Alan Brooks, Jonathan Potter and Richard
Churchman for all their help and contributions during the year.
All
members benefit from
the support and service we receive from our magnificent staff team for which we
remain very grateful. Particular thanks
are appropriate to Adriana Kocurova in her role and Trudi who have shared the role of clubhouse manager during
Adriana's maternity leave closely supported by Rob Kocur
whose catering team provide such a wonderful good value menu of food throughout
the year for members and visiting teams.
Also our congratulations were given to Rob and Adriana on the arrival of
baby Nina last year.
Peta Churchman
as ever has played a significant role in the day to day administration of the
Club and proved to be an invaluable support to the membership.
I hope you will all agree that
2007/2008 was a successful year for the club at all levels and in all sports,
however the Main Committee supported by the various sub-committees will
continue to drive forward for further improvements both on and off court in
2008/2009.
Simon A Jones