Chair's Newsletter (July 2025)
Dear All,
We hope all of you are enjoying a summer full of tennis.
Club Tournament : A very big thank you to the Club Tournament Committee of Alex Heath, Alyson Fox, Graham Sylvester, Hamid Irshad, Jess Moody and Virunee Viravong for organising all aspects of our tennis fortnight. This has included making sure we turned up on time for our matches, composing those daily updates with such humour and panache and arranging catering teams for each of the fifteen days of our tennis tournament. Thank you too for all those played, those of you who were there cheering them on and all those members and non-members who helped behind the bar and behind the scenes.
Other Summer Events Our club tournament may be over, but our summer of tennis is not! For those of you who might like to a change of pace, pickleball is now available Monday and Wednesday mornings. Pickleball is great summer fun for all the family and can be booked as MyCourts Group Sessions. Thanks to Caroline Periton for suggesting this and then making it happen!
For juniors, the summer holiday camps started on Monday. To sign up for these (full week or selected days) please visit the following page: https://oldcollege.co.uk/
It is now nearing the end of the Wimbledon fortnight – the bar will be open on the final Saturday and Sunday and the TV will be on. Pimm’s and strawberries will be available on Sunday. If you would like to volunteer to help, especially from 1:30pm to 4pm on Saturday, please contact Virunee at viravong@gmail.com.
We also hope you will be able to join an afternoon of Tea and Tennis in memory of Sara Pearce on the 26th July. This will be held alongside the usual Saturday afternoon Club Play of which Sara was a regular attendee. You can join for tea only or just for club play, there is no obligation to do both! Watch out for further details sent out by Guita, Jill, Henrietta, Anna, Manjit & Stevo,
Off Peak Membership Places are available: If you have friends or relatives who might be interested in Off-Peak membership and joining us this summer, we currently have a small number of immediate vacancies. Off-Peak members can play Monday to Friday from 8am to 6.30pm and join in Club group sessions arranged during those times. Off-Peak members cannot play at the weekends or after 6.30pm during the week. Therefore, please advise them only to apply for Off-Peak membership if they are able to play during Off-Peak hours. https://oldcollege.co.uk/
Later in the year: If you would like to propose any events for later this year then please let the Committee know. Recently, members have requested some tennis related private events. We are open to these if they will be held when courts are less busy and provided members accept the current facilities as they are. If you are considering a private event then please discuss this with our Facilities Manager, Hamid Irshad, at an early stage.
Surrey Tennis Quarterly : Further afield, information on what is happening in Surrey can be found in the Surrey Tennis Quarterly or STQ. Anyone can subscribe by clicking https://tennis.us6.list-
Thank you for all you feedback and comments on the Clubhouse Regeneration. Our project steering committee chaired by Charlotte Ireson and our architects, BSA led by Bernard Stillwell, have now considered all your comments and adapted the design. BSA is preparing the final design templates in advance of our planning permission application. Further details on the project will be circulated in a separate email shortly.
Lastly, we are looking for a volunteer to work with the Committee to take responsibility for communications to members through our website, newsletters and our social media feeds. It is possible that this role could be combined with the Executive Secretary role (which is currently vacant). If you would like to have a chat with Bob, Virunee or Caroline about this role please don’t hesitate to get in touch.
On behalf of all the Committee we hope you have a good tennis summer.
Best wishes, Caroline