President's Blog - January 2024

A wonderful calendar of events was held at the Club in December with magnificent food, courtesy of club chefs, Garni, at several of these. A big thanks to the staff for the incredible work they put in and for whom this is the second busiest time of the year after Marquee Week.

Work on resurfacing and the addition of lights on the lower Tennis Astro courts is due to start on 12th February. This will improve playing capacity in the evenings and will provide a greatly enhanced Artificial Clay surface for our tennis players. A great deal of thanks is due to the many members, tennis committee members and club officers who have worked tirelessly over a considerable amount of time (and against all odds, it seemed at times) to finally succeed in this wonderful venture and we look forward to an enhancement of our wonderful Club Facilities.

I am so pleased to see that the Pavilion is almost complete and that the Fitness classes have taken off - some being fully booked. Currently there are classes in Yoga, Pilates, Tai Chi and Body Conditioning. This offers added value to our members and also can help to shed any extra pounds gathered over Christmas. If you haven’t already tried a class I would highly recommend you do. You can go online to book or speak to the Office in the clubhouse and they will talk you through it.

Bern Thorne and Dave Collyer have launched a Crowdfunding site to support the new Cricket Nets - work will get underway later this year. The current nets are well past their best and definitely need updating and making safer. It’s worth going on the site as there are some very good Rewards on offer in return for a donation.

Thursday Group has published their season of Spring/Summer events, including charity lunches, trips and speaker meetings. This Group is growing at a regular pace and just shows what a necessary support network it offers to our Senior Members. We are just about to set up a WhatsApp Comms for the Group in addition to emails from Pam the Chairperson, so we are sure we reach everyone.

Riff Raff tennis players have produced a book of the history of the group - which is probably one of the longest standing groups at The Neston Club. This will be available as a hard copy or for you to view online in due course.

Above is one of the weekday tennis groups, braving the blustery winds and chill of January.

If you haven’t booked in for either of the two Sunday Lunches coming up at the Club then please hurry - they are booking up. We went last Sunday to the Burns Night Dinner, the food was exceptional. I’m sure we’ll have a few daffodils at table centre for the St David’s Day Sunday Lunch on 25th February and I promise not to sing!! Mothering Sunday Lunch is also on Sunday 10th March.

Wishing you every best wish in 2024.

DEB

Deborah Mason-Smith
President - The Neston Club