Changes to Indoor Tennis Court Booking

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When I took over as Tennis Chair in January 2020 the first task that confronted me was to understand issues raised by some members about the allocation of Indoor Court availability.

They had a point, so along with the Tennis Committee I set out to investigate further. Using historical data from MyCourts we decided to focus on November and January bookings over the past 5 years.

The results told us that court utilisation rose by over 10% in that time to over 72% of all available hours 7 days a week.

That was a measure of the successful increase in the number of members playing tennis, but it did mean that there was increased pressure on availability.

In reality, we have twelve outdoor courts for the summer months, and only 3 indoor courts available on a cold, wet and windy January day, so it is not surprising that we can’t always get the courts we would like, especially at short notice.

Our next challenge was to understand the balance of availability between members bookings, our junior programme, and one-to-one coaching sessions.

We strongly believe that our Juniors are the future of the Club and the opportunity presented by our excellent coaches to our members to achieve their ambitions is an essential element of the overall picture. And, of course, we must recognise that members who wish to play socially, in leagues and competitions are the backbone of the Club.

To balance these elements was always going to be difficult and we knew that we would never satisfy all members all the time. However, it was clear to us that the increase in court usage had come largely from an increase in the Junior programme and a significant increase in demand for one-to-one coaching, and whilst member bookings were relatively static, it did mean that free and available court opportunities were reduced.

We concluded that the way forward was to reduce the amount of time allocated to Junior coaching and to cap the total number of hours available to the coaches for one-to-one coaching, releasing more courts for members bookings.

And then came COVID 19, and regulations restricted us from using the indoor courts all last winter season, so we could not put any of our plans in place.

At the AGM in January 2021 the subject was again discussed, and we have taken on board some of the suggestions made.

Primarily the key points going forward are: -

1. Members may book any available court up to 14 days in advance. Other than club organised adult programmes (Mix-In, Ladies Coaching etc) Court 1 is exclusively available to members. (Coaches may only book court 1 four days prior to the date of play).

2. Coaches continue to have the opportunity to book in advance of the 14-day window but can only do so at predefined times and cannot exceed the cap on court hours booked. Coaches can only book court 1 if it is free four days prior to the date of play.

3. A reduced Junior coaching programme continues to occupy post school court times but will not use court 1, except on Saturdays
These changes will become effective from Monday 25th October. Overall, we estimate that they will release an additional 25 hours per week of court time for members bookings, but it will still be beneficial for members to plan ahead.

I have attached the plan for the period up to the year end.

We remain committed to maximising the use of the indoor courts and will be monitoring, policing, and measuring usage. To achieve our objectives will require a measure of flexibility from all involved.

All areas of tennis membership are important to us and as a committee we try to represent all fairly. In the long term we aspire to providing additional covered facilities, however, that is a whole new ball game.

Please don’t hesitate to contact me should you wish to.

Yours in Sport

Steve Chilvers – Tennis Chair

18/10/2021

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