DATE: August 2010 [PDF]
Presidents Parley | From the Manager | Hunter's Lair | Results | New Members | Last Month's News
The July board meeting took place on the twelfth. The first order of business was the election of our new board member, Kim Schlessinger, who will replace John Myers and serve out the rest of his term. We are very happy to have her on board.
The main topic of our discussions was the roof repair. It will be essentially a two-year process. This time, we intend to do it right. By dipping into our funds set aside for maintenance, emergency reserves, and prudent budgeting and spending, we should be able to pay for the work.
A number of other items were discussed. There was general agreement that in addition to the detailed monthly financial statement, a simplified version of the most pertinent points should be given. We also discussed a possible mission statement for our club. We would appreciate any input from the members. Pam Edinger put forward a possible mission statement at the June meeting. It can be found in the minutes of that meeting. Please read it over and give us feed back. We could either make minor changes to it, leave it as it is, or simply replace it with something different.
Manager Gary Quandt and tennis pro Hunter Lipscomb reported on their activities. Their reports are part of this newsletter. Again, please read them over carefully. The restoration of Thursday night men's tennis has been a success. There are some members who would like to see a similar evening for women. Kim Schlessinger has agreed to spearhead that. If you have any ideas how that should be structured, when, etc., let her know. She would welcome your comments and ideas.
The annual barbecue was very enjoyable. The attendance was down this year and that was too bad because those who came had a good time, there was ample and tasty food, and the barbecued chicken was excellent.
I have gotten a number of complaints about the effectiveness of the frame shots. Some say, their frame shots tend to go into the net or out of bounds, others claim that their balls spin off into the other court causing consternation among the neighboring players; still others maintain that their balls have bounced off their rackets and into their faces. I admit there are risks, but the psychological damage done to the opponent after successfully hitting a few of those is worth the effort it takes to master the shot. Go for it.
President Ron Guenther
The origins of Tennis!
Nobody ever invented tennis. The game's main features have evolved over nine
centuries - the court itself, the racquets, balls, scoring system and other
rules having been standardized since around 1600. The oldest indoor court in
existence today, at Hampton Court Palace in England, was built by Charles I
in 1625 (on the site of Henry VIII's earlier court) and is still widely used
for championship play. An outdoor court as Falkland Palace in Scotland celebrated
its 450th year of play in 1989.
Tennis started as a form of handball ("Jeu de Paume"), played by monks in the cloisters of French and Italian monasteries in the 11th century. The design of today's indoor courts, with its sloping penthouse roof, galleries and other openings, clearly originates from the architecture of cloisters and courtyards. The original balls were, as now, made of bound cloth or hair covered with stitched felt.
With the development of gloves, and later, wood and strung racquets, came heavier balls, standardized court dimensions and scoring. By the 13th century tennis was evidently the sport of leisured French clerics so much so that it was at times prohibited by church authorities.
In the 14th century the game began to be played more by kings and nobles than the clergy. From France, which gave tennis much of its vocabulary (including the name, derived from "tenez", the server's warning that the ball was on its way), the game spread to England and Scotland and had its many royal devotees. Henry VIII was perhaps the best known, but others were just as keen. By the 16th and 17th centuries, tennis was clearly the most popular ball game in Europe and not just with aristocrats. Paris alone had around 250 tennis courts in the mid 1500s. No wonder various monarchs tried to prohibit commoners from playing tennis rather than attending to their military and religious duties.
The second half of the 19th century marked a major revival of the game in Britain. Tennis courts were built, with today's dimensions, not just at the country estates of wealthy families, but at new urban clubs to cater to the burgeoning growth of competitive sports in Victorian Britain. Both men and women participated in tennis making tennis one of the few sports enjoyed by both sexes as it is still today. Lawn tennis also took off internationally in the mid 19th century, spreading to Australia and the United States, and has been around ever since.Wimbledon held its first championships in 1879 and has continued to this day.
Timberhill Birthday BBQ (Thanks Roy and Arlene)
A special thanks go out to Roy and Arlene Burnham who have hosted our
birthday BBQ for the past 34 years. We will miss Roy's great BBQ chicken and
Arlene's positive spirit around the club. They have been great members to me
and to furthering Timberhill to be the great club that it is. They will be moving
to Seattle shortly to be near their children. We appreciate all the years of
service and friendship and hope they stop by the club when they come back to
Corvallis.
We wish them all the best!!
Fall USTA Senior and Super Senior Teams
For anyone interested in putting together a senior or super senior team,
the deadline for getting a team registration form in is August 1. Gary has team
registration forms, so please contact Gary for more info on this fun Fall league.
If you are interested in playing talk to Gary and he can let you know who may
be captaining a team at your level or about captaining a new team.
Late Night Players
Please make sure that you sign up in the clubhouse sign up sheet when you use
the ball machine. We get lots of ball machine use without people signing up
for it, especially late at night and weekends when we do not have staff at the
club. This is a member owned club and everyone pays when you don't sign up for
the ball machine or sign in a guest.
Roofing Committee
The roofing committee is meeting with an architect to discuss the design and
planning of the skylight leaking. We will talk about the feasibility and the
replacement of the panels and if we can keep the courts leak free in the rainy
season. This summer however we will not be doing any panel replacement, only
patching, since we do not have enough money to take care of that task. We will
be putting away some extra monies so that next summer we can do some sort of
replacement and potentially some other improvements as well. We are working
hard to take care of this problem, which was our #1 item on our survey and few
months ago that you the members wanted fixed.
Adult Sunriver Tennis Camp
Gary will have his 24th annual Adult Bend Tennis Camp at the beautiful Sunriver
resort. The dates are September 16-19. We will start on court Thursday late
afternoon at 4:00pm until 6:30pm and then have a welcome BBQ. Friday on court
schedule will be 8:30 - 11:00am and then 2:00 - 4:30pm. Saturday and Sunday
will be from 8:30am - 12:00pm. The cost is $209. You must provide your own accommodations.
Ask Gary who is going if you want to share a house or if you know someone else
you can bunk with. This is great learning environment and lots of fun, so plan
ahead now. If you have any questions just call Gary at the club.
Hunter's Ad
The last stretch of summer means Mixed Doubles league heating up, summer
junior classes winding down, and lots of lessons going on as we get into fall.
A couple of things happening around the club:
Thursday Men's League
The summer men's league has been a blast, and we've had a great turnout. We'll plan on expanding this league to 4 courts each Thursday in the fall, beginning September 16. We'll have a signup posted in the lobby if you want to be a regular or a sub, or you can call or email Hunter.
Women's League
The guys can't have all the fun! We'll be initiating a women's league, based on the same format as the men, in September. All levels of play are welcome to participate. We're still looking at possible days/evenings and times. If you want to play and have an opinion about when we hold the league, give Hunter a call or email.
Fall Junior Ladder
Look for another fun "getcourtside.com" ladder for September-December so you can get lots of match play in.
"Stroke of the Week" clinics
This will be a weekly (well, most weeks, anyway) series of FREE adult clinics that tackles a different stroke each week-it's a great way to get to know our teaching staff, and a way for us to give back to you. Look for specific dates and times in next month's newsletter.
Tennis Welcome Center
Anyone you know have an interest in learning tennis, but they don't know where to start? Send them our way and we'll get them going in our award-winning Tennis Welcome Center classes!
For those of you on this social networking site, add Timberhill Tennis Club to your list of "Likes". We'll keep you updated on club events, post pictures, and you can discuss all things Timberhill with other folks.
Have a great end of the summer!
USTA Regional results
Timberhill had three teams at the USTA regional championships held in Salem. The Men's 4.0 and Women's 3.5 team went down to defeat, but the Women's 4.5 team qualified to go to the sectional championships in Portland in August. They will play against 6 other teams for the right to represent the Pacific Northwest at the national championships this Fall.
Our Women's Senior 4.5 team lost at the sectionals held in Sunriver last month. They lost to a team from Bellevue in the championship match in a very close match.
Megan Louden 541-602-3149: Megan is a junior at Corvallis High School and played on the team last year. She is looking for other junior players to hit with.
Nesssar Alsaeed 405-334-9036: Nasser is new to tennis and is working on his game to bring it up. He is currently a 2.5/3.0 level player who enjoys singles but will play doubles as well.
Looking for substitutes or new people to play? Please feel free to use these
new members listed below to fill-in play times, or you can join our Timberhill
Yahoo Group, check out our substitute listings in the TTC clubhouse, or check
out our Web directory. Access to that involves a user and password.
User: ttc
Password: GaryandHunter
There are lots of ways to find other players as well as joining up to play in
many of our programs. If you really get desperate for players you can always
call or email Gary and he can help you out as well.