AGM sets target for court resurfacing project

The club AGM, held on November 20 2023 at the clubhouse, agreed a fund-raising strategy aimed at ensuring we are able to resurface out two main courts in the spring of 2025.

As a first step they made two minor changes to the new club constitution that had been adopted earlier in the year. This was necessary in order to meet the requirements of becoming a Community Amateur Sports Club, as recognised by HMRC, and therefore able to claim giftaid on individual donations. This means that donations from members and others will potentially be worth an extra 25percent. The full new constitution can be seen in the relevant section of the website. The committee will now look at how best to take advantage of this new status.

Over the past year club members have looked into the scope for obtaining grants and loans from other organisations and these leads will be followed up over the next year, bearing in mind that many organisations make it a requirement of grants that organisations are able to match grants from their own funds and are in a position to spend monies within 12 months.

In a further move to strengthen club finances the meeting agreed to increase subscription rates for 2024 -25. The new rates will be £60 a year for adult members; £130 for family membership; and £10 for juniors. It was also agreed that whenever a member brings a guest to play they should be expected to make a £5 contribution to club funds. We will however continue to accept non-playing members of the club free of charge.

Treasurer Robert Burdett reported that the club now had assets of around £12,000. The current estimate for the cost of resurfacing the courts is at least £30,000.

In other decisions the officers and committee were re-elected for the next year.

In his annual report club chair, Mike Smith, reported that the club’s two teams in the Wharfedale mixed doubles leagues had both finished mid-table in their respective divisions and that there were hopes that we could return to fielding three teams next year, as we were now doing in the winter vets league. The ladies team had gone down to the second division of the Bradford Parks League, but it was good that we were able to continue to take part in that league. He said social tennis sessions, that were generally well attended formed the core of club life and was pleased that the MonFris – Monday and Friday morning social tennis- was enjoying a revival after a number of years in which support had been declining. The return of the summer coaching programme had also been a positive feature of the past year.