Saturday, June 23, 2012

President's Blog for June 2012

I was out the other night playing my Intercounty match at Richmond Hill Lawn T.C. (RHLTC) and saw president Mike Bowcott mingling with the members. RHLTC as you might remember just celebrated their 50th anniversary. The club has had an amazing transformation, from rebuilt courts, new fencing and lighting, new brick walkways and patio, new seating areas and great landscaping. The town finally put some money into this facility after many years of neglect, thanks to Mike and his team's hard work dealing with the mayor and councilors to free up the money. I spent some time talking with Mike about growing the game and he is a big proponent of grassroots tennis for young kids (ages 5-8), and is continuing to work with the town to have some additional public courts in the area redone with proper tennis surfacing so that camps, lessons and even leagues can be started. Negotiating these kinds of changes and improvements is always tough but Mike seems to have the town's attention, and I wish him luck.

My own home club (Markham T.C.) was incorporated this year and now has the opportunity to apply for grant funding to upgrade their tennis facilities. The largest funding available is through Trillium. Many people don't know that by simply incorporating their club, they open up a whole new source of revenue through these granting options. If you read through the requirements, it specifically indicates: "....We help sports and recreation organizations in their efforts to be more effective and responsive to community needs and fund new equipment and the repair of community facilities to improve access to sports and recreation." I know the president, Donna Carpenter, will be working hard with her executive to apply for and capture available funding to hopefully upgrade that dated clubhouse, replace the deck and perhaps even look at putting a case together to bubble the courts during the winter. The OTA can help in all those areas so I encourage clubs thinking about this to give the office a call and discuss it further.