CHAIRMAN’S REPORT 2009/2010

2009 and the early months of 2010 turned out to be yet another successful period for all sections and members of the Club. You may recollect that the Committee approached this period with some caution over our finances as we were uncertain whether the general economic problems and the recession would adversely affect our member numbers and associated income. However as the year progressed our confidence grew as we maintained pretty much 100% capacity in all our membership categories. As a result our finances remain in a very healthy state with good cash balances at both the start and the end of the year. As all the economic and political commentators are advising 2010 may well prove to be another tough year for the economy in general and we will learn whether this has any impact on the club following the issue of the tennis renewal notices in April which account for circa 75% of our annual income – if people do feel unable to re-new their memberships and we see a decline in income we have several areas of the budget where we can make corresponding savings primarily by deferring planned capital expenditure associated with improvements to our existing facilities. We will keep members informed as we progress through the next few months.

Those of you who have received tennis renewal notices recently will have noted the move to a direct debit system of collections which is a much better and more economic methodology of collecting the annual subscriptions – we are very grateful to Richard Churchman who has masterminded this transition which will see the club benefiting this year and in future years through this change.

During the last 12 months Michelle Wheeler, our Club Manager, has continued to support all members and sports sections in her usual impressive manner for which we remain very grateful.

Steve Jarvis, our head groundsman who joined us from Lord's Cricket Ground in March 2007 has continued to improve the quality of both the grass tennis courts and the cricket square/outfield year on year and we remain extremely fortunate to have the benefit of Steve's expertise and enthusiasm.

The facilities upgrade programme has continued over the past 12 months with further general internal refurbishment to the CLTC and HCC Clubhouses. The next major project is the renewal of the boilers and heating installation in the CLTC clubhouse which following years of being repaired and patched up have finally reached the end of their economic life – there will be some minor disruption to members during these works which we aim to keep to a minimum. Members will be aware that we have recently submitted a planning application for floodlighting to HCC tennis courts 6,7 and 8 which if successful will see 3 additional floodlit courts available for the 2010/2011 winter season.

As reported previously over the course of the year three committee members, Regina Dodge, Marilyn Brooks and Jim Carter have continued the dialogue with our neighbours aiming to improve relations and have seen positive developments in that area.

The tennis section enjoyed another successful year with the Ladies first team winning the Middlesex Premier Division and also the Middlesex Cup competition for a record 14th time out of the last 15 years!! The Ladies 1st National Club League (NCL) Team successfully qualified for the new Regional tier in 2010 whilst the Ladies 2nd NCL team were relegated to County Division 1.

The Ladies 2nd Team performed extremely well to retain their position in the Middlesex Premier Division whilst the 3rd team remained in Middlesex Intermediate Division and the 4th team were promoted to Division 1.

The Men’s 1st Team were unfortunately knocked out of the Middlesex Cup in the second round but in the Middlesex League competition retained their place in the Premier Division as did the Men’s 2nd team. Both the Men's 3rd Team and 4th teams maintained their place in Division 2 and the 5th Team remained in Division 3.

The Winter Middlesex Cup mixed team have battled their way through to the finals due to be played at the end of March and the Ladies winter floodlit team are currently doing well in Middlesex Division 2.

The Club Open and Handicap Tournament as ever saw all events fiercely contested with Gemma O’Donoghue winning the Ladies' Singles defeating Michelle Barber in the final. Colin Taylor emerged as the 2009 Men's champion after a hard fought final against last year’s winner Pierre Pourquery. The 2010 tournament will take place between 3rd and 17th July. A milestone in 2009 saw our youngest ever winner of a senior event and also our oldest ever champion. Congratulations to Edgar Mehl for emerging triumphant in the veterans men’s doubles and also to Ben Jones who, at 11 years old, managed to win the adults handicap mixed doubles with his mother Caroline playing a supporting role! The Committee and all participants in the Tournament are especially grateful for all the scheduling efforts and diplomatic refereeing provided by Mike Marsh assisted by Peta Churchman and Anna Hay, all of whom somehow managed to retain their composure and sense of humour whilst trying to balance competitors' individual diaries, court preferences, handicap appeals, etc, and still managed to complete all events on schedule!

Marilyn Brooks was elected as Chair of Tennis at the 2009 AGM and has put a huge effort in over the year continuing to improve all aspects of the tennis section. Marilyn has been supported by her sub – committee which is traditionally formed by the Chair of Tennis to provide feedback and guidance through the year comprising Zoe Billingham, Karen Stoker, Gary Back, Caroline Jones, Richard Wetzki, Ben Gudzelak, David Turfrey, Paul Smart, and Chris Bradnam supported by Michelle Wheeler and Peta Churchman. Marilyn’s first year in the role of Chair has been very successful including the expansion of social American Tournaments and the continuing review of coaching policy.

We are also very grateful for all the efforts of the Junior Tennis Committee who promote the interests of our Junior players which is chaired by Marilyn Brooks supported by Nicki Siddall, Caroline Cohen, Jennifer Labrom, David Kilbourn and Liz Shinder, Therese Raphael, Elena Rizk, Chris Bradnam and David Turfrey

We started a new Junior Development & Performance programme at the Club in January 2009 aimed at improving the playing standards of all age groups. A number of juniors were selected by David Turfrey and the team of coaches to participate in a series of performance squads. We currently run 5 squads each week (to include the Eleanor Caplin squads) and there are 30 children who regularly attend these squads and compete outside in LTA competition

The LTA have once again invited us to host a $15,000 Men's Futures Event from 4th to 11th September 2010 following another successful tournament held last summer, when members enjoyed seeing the rising stars of the future in action. The 2009 Men’s event was won by Colin Fleming who, along with Dan Evans who won the event in 2008’ featured in our most recent Davis Cup team.

Many thanks to are due to Donald Macleod supported by Brian Hatton who continue to represent our interests in the exclusive International Association of Centenary Clubs. We are extremely proud to be one of the 8 Founder members of this Association which now numbers over 50 member clubs around the world who have been in existence for more than 100 years and who host serious International tournaments. The member clubs rotate the hosting of various events each year and in 2009 three clubs hosted senior events and three hosted junior events one of which we attended. The Cumberland was represented by an under 12 mixed junior team captained by David Turfrey who visited the Carrickmines Club in Dublin last summer and had a wonderful time. The current plan is possibly for ourselves to send a senior team to one of the senior events in 2010 and possibly considering acting as a host venue in 2011. One of the benefits to our members of our involvement is the opportunity for members to visit any of the other clubs in the Association as guests – further details are available through the club office as an introduction from the office ahead of any proposed visit is essential. The prestigious Wanderers Club in Johannesburg has specifically invited any member who is visiting South Africa for the football world cupto come along to their famous club for a game of social tennis.

Chris Bradnam with his team of coaches continue to run the coaching programme and the junior tennis school with great success. We were fortunate to add David Turfrey to the coaching team last year and David has continued to transform and improve our junior programme. 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 2010 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. Saturday Club afternoon has continued over the winter on acrylic courts 4 and 5 during the daylight hours of 1.30pm to 3.30pm. These arrangements were reviewed again by the Tennis Sub-Committee and Main Committee in March last year ahead of the (hopefully) warmer weather that brings out more participants for Saturday Club afternoon and it was agreed that these arrangements should continue for 2010/2011.

Our younger tennis members continue to benefit from the income generated by the Eleanor Caplin Fund which has a new board of Trustees, comprising Richard Churchman, Marilyn Brooks, Debbie McCormack and Scott Grieve who have created programmes which benefit young players both inside and outside the club – we are very grateful for their efforts.

Alun Webster was elected as Chair of Squash at the 2009 AGM and has continued to improve all aspects of the squash section over the past 12 months. Ably supported by the rest of the Squash sub-committee; Matt Crawcour, Nick Dart, Rikki Kent, Chris Rogal, Tracy Parker and Zubair Khan.

As usual we have been active in the Middlesex leagues this winter in addition to the prestigious Bath and Queens Cup competitions. All our teams are currently battling away in their various League and Cup Competitions and are currently coming towards the end of this season. The Men’s Cumberland Cup team unfortunately lost in this year’s first round to Bath & Racquets whilst the Men’s Bath Cup teams are doing well in their respective leagues at the time of going to press.

The Middlesex League Men’s teams have generally got off to a reasonable start to the season. The Men's 1st team having been promoted back to the 1st division have benefited from Zubair coming out of retirement, dusting off his racquet and finding his competitive edge. The Men's 2nd team are having a mixed season struggling for consistency not only of results but of team selection, currently lying 10th in Division 2. While the Men's third team currently topping Division 5 and looking good for promotion at the date of writing this report. The Ladies 1st team are currently 2nd in Division 1.

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 and Chris Rogal in promoting the Middlesex Junior Squash programme which sees a number of talented youngsters coming to the Club on a regular basis.

A successful junior’s afternoon has been well attended on Tuesdays organised by Zubair. Through Chris Rogal the Cumberland has hosted an U13 Inter-county match on behalf of Middlesex. Reuben Philips having won the Middlesex U19 closed championship is currently ranked no.1 U19 in Middlesex and no.17 in England. This season he has been representing the Cumberland in both the Middlesex and Bath cups.

2009 also saw another impressive “London Open” invitation event organised by Zubair. Building on the success of previous tournaments Zubair was able to increase the level of prize money whereby he was able to attract players ranked in the top 30 in the World. Following the success of this tournament some of the sponsors have already indicated their willingness to support the tournament again this year. Our thanks are due to Zubair for promoting this new tournament supported by the organising Committee including Chris Rogal, Mark Rayner, Tracy Parker and Alun Webster which we hope to see repeated in 2010.

The club championship was once again a closely contested affair with a new open men’s champion emerging in Merik Toms defeating Simon Evans in the final, Simon still managed to get his name on the honours board winning the over 35s against Nick Dart. Jon Siddall won the over 45s against Simon Esplen, and Berge Kay continued his dominance of the over 55s beating John Alcock. The women also had a new champion in Sally-Anne Disher beating Louise Church. Sally-Anne returned for the handicap final but was unable to defeat Oliver Merrill-Hemming. Our thanks go to Rikki and the office for organising the tournament and chasing those late entries and Zubair for officiating in the finals.

The winter team squash event took place in January earlier in the year and was as usual was incredibly popular and well supported. Thanks are due once again to Rikki Kent for giving up yet another weekend to organise the event.

The squash members also remain, as ever, very grateful for Rikki Kent’s input into the organisation of the Squash Leagues and Monday evening “club nights”.

Cumberland members continue to be active in and around Middlesex, with both Merik Toms and Obaid Khan representing the county. Obaid won both the Middlesex closed and the prestigious Jesters tournament. Jacob Wilson also made the ‘B’ final at the Middlesex closed. Tahir Hussain was unlucky to lose in the final of the Jesters over 35s

The Hampstead Cricket Club section were very pleased with their performance during the 2009 cricket season. The 1st XI consolidated its position in the ECB Premier Division of the Middlesex County League ending up in 4th position whilst the 2nd XI maintained their place in the Middlesex 2nd XI Division One where they finished in a creditable 6th position. The 3rd XI had a very successful season ending 2nd in the Middlesex 3rd XI Division One. The Club also performed well in the two limited over knockout competitions.

After 20 years of playing cricket at the highest level our Director of cricket, Paul Weekes, has decided to end his playing days. Paul has made a huge contribution to HCC both as Captain and player and he will be impossible to replace. He topped the Middlesex league batting averages for the second year running as well as taking 46 wickets. We are delighted that Paul is staying on as Director of Cricket and he and his team will continue to provide coaching of unparalled quality to colts and senior players alike.

Our Ladies cricket team managed a creditable 4th place in the North London Women's League winning 8 of their 14 games. Much credit must go to coach and captain Vicky Fisher who was also selected to play for Middlesex.

The 2009 cricket AGM saw the end of an era when Frank Berendt stepped down after 10 years as Chairman of the cricket section. Chris Winn also stepped down as Club President. Both Frank and Chris have devoted a huge amount of time, energy and passion to the cricketers over many years and the club remains enormously indebted to them.

Jim Carter was elected as the new Chair for the 2010 season and we wish Jim and the teams every success for this summer's season.

The colts cricket section continues to thrive and thanks are due to Paul Weekes, Alan Brooks and Roger Carter for ensuring the success and progress of the section. Thanks are also due to the hard working team managers and all the parents for their dedicated support of the colts.

The Hockey section has thrived both on and off the pitch under the leadership of Chairman Timur Asar, fielding 6 ladies teams and 8 men’s teams each week and enjoying a full calendar of social activity in the HCC Clubhouse. The 2009/2010 season so far sees the Men’s 3’s, 4’s, 6’s, 7’s and 8’s all vying to win their respective leagues whilst the Ladies 1st IX are also on course to have their best ever season in the South Premier League Division 3A. All other men’s’ and Ladies teams are hoping to retain their positions in their respective leagues.

Alan Brooks was elected Hon. Treasurer at the 2009 AGM and has devoted many many hours over the year to prepare management monthly accounts and the year-end results, which Alan will present to the 2010 AGM. I am sure Alan will continue to advocate that we should budget for a healthy surplus each year in order to make provision for continued improvement of the club facilities and also to cater for any unforeseen emergencies.

The CLTC Social Committee, consisting of Anna Hay, Steve McCormack, Nick Jones and the office staff, organised a series of excellent social events during 2009. These included comedy evenings, the ever-popular quiz nights, a second Philip Godfrey music night and a resurrected Christmas Review, all of which were incredibly well attended and enjoyable occasions. One imminent social date for your diaries is the 2010 Summer Party which will be held at the Club this year on Saturday 19^th June and should prove to be hugely enjoyable.

David Iwi 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. David and other members of the Bridge section would also wish to thank Colin Hess for all the invaluable support Colin has provided over the year

Paul Tereo, our gym instructor, is available to introduce and induct new members to the gym equipment and also offers members personal training/fitness programmes.

The annual Cumberland Tennis cricket match against The All England Lawn Tennis Club took place at the end of August at Raynes Park ending in victory for the Cumberland. Steve Jarvis scored a match winning 68 runs and we won by 6 wickets. At the traditional reception hosted in the prestigious surroundings of the All England Club Steve had the honour of being crowned Man of the Match with a trophy presented by the ladies tennis legend Martina Hingis who also presented the match cup to team Captain Matt Crawcour.

Rob Sumner continued in his role of Snooker Chair in 2009 and has organised a number of successful tournaments throughout the year.

The Cumberland and Hampstead Golf society held Spring and Autumn meetings together with the well supported knock out tournaments which were all very capably organised by Sue Edwards and Avril Munro who have succeeded Pat Broadway as Chair of this section of the club in 2009 and whose ongoing efforts are greatly appreciated by the golfing members. We are very grateful to Pat supported by Sheila for all their efforts in taking the golf section forwards over the last decade. Any member interested in golf should let the office know and details of planned events will be forwarded.

2009 and early 2010 has seen the continuing growth and popularity of the newest section of the Club, the Backgammon Group, which came together due to the enthusiasm of Ray Kershaw. Regular social evenings have continued to take place where players of all abilities are welcomed. Ray also enters a "Cumberland" team in the London Backgammon League where we compete against an impressive list of other members clubs, including RAC, Chelsea Arts, Hurlingham, MCC and Roehampton emerging as winners of the 2008/9 League and are currently in mid table in the 2009/10 season.

As ever our thanks are due to John Mark for all his behind the scenes input in organising the Staff Xmas Fund which, thanks to the generosity of members, saw a sizeable sum collected and distributed by John to thank all our hardworking staff.

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 diligently spent a significant time in his role as Honorary Secretary advising the committee on various constitutional issues relating to the club and also guiding us through the increasing amount of external legislation with which we now have to comply which has been invaluable.

I would also like to take the opportunity of thanking all my colleagues on the Main Committee, Alan Brooks, Marilyn Brooks, Richard Churchman, Regina Dodge, Charles Woodruffe, Celia Goreham, James Barlow, Jonathan Potter, Timur Asar, Alun Webster, Jim Carter, and our President Donald Macleod for all their help, support and contributions during the year without which the club would not be as successful as we are.

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 in her role as clubhouse/bar manager 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. Peta Churchman as ever has played a significant role in the day-to-day administration and smooth running of the Club office and the membership systems for which we are very grateful.

I hope we can all agree that 2009/2010 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 2010/2011.

Simon A Jones

Chairman