Monday, January 24, 2011

Weekly Update - Monday 1/24/2011

We had a wonderful Soup/Salad social with loads of great food and a large crowd of tennis club members! A good time was had by all! Sieny found a silver goblet when cleaning up after the event. If you lost it, Sieny has it at her park model. You can reach her at 6687.

The February Men’s league sign up sheet has been posted on the Tennis Club bulletin board.

The Cancer Awareness Tournament is on pace to be a great event! We are having an awards banquet following the last session of mixed doubles on Friday, February 4th. The meal is free to all players and their spouses. If you are not signed up to play we would love to have you join us. If you or your spouse have not signed up to play the cost for the meal is only $5 per person. We want to make sure we have the right amount of meals and we want to contribute as much as possible to the cancer awareness funds. Therefore, we are asking for everyone who is planning to attend the awards banquet ( players, spouses and non players), to sign up on the Cancer Awareness Awards Banquet Sign up sheet that is now on the tennis club bulletin board (in the same place where you sign up to attend tennis club socials).

Tennis Club shirts can still be purchased. If you are interested, please let me know. The shirts are Antigua shirts that have a suggested retail price of $60. With the volume discounts afforded to Palm Creek, we are able to offer these quality shirts for $25. Not only are they great for playing tennis but they also make great golf shirts. And the best part is you just wash them (with no fabric softener) and hang them up and they are dry in minutes. I hope to have samples at the Cancer Awareness tournament so you can check out the sizes and place your order. I will only be placing one more order.

The last matches for the January session of Club Team Tennis are going to be played this Thursday, January 27th. If you are not scheduled to play come on out and cheer for your favorites. I will have samples of the Palm Creek Cancer Awareness Shirts and Diane Gaines is offering the sporting clubs special pricing. The t-shirts which are normally $11 will only cost $10 and the Hats and Visors will only cost $8 if you buy them through the tennis club. I will have a sign up sheet and the samples at Club Team Tennis this Thursday and at the Tennis Club Happy Hour that follows.

The Annual Palm Creek Tennis Tournament is scheduled for February 17-20. The seeding tournament will take place on Tuesday, February 15th. Its time to find a partner and sign up to participate in this popular tennis club event. The sign up sheet is attached to this email and there are plenty of sign up sheets available on the tennis club bulletin board. We celebrate the end of this tournament on Sunday afternoon with a pizza party for all tennis club members. If you don’t have a partner but want to participate, let me know.

The updated roster is available on this website. Look on the right column and the third item is “Tennis Roster.” Click on tennis roster and you will see two tabs “2009-2010” and “2010-2011” Just click on 2010-2011 and you will see the entire tennis roster. You can print it from this site if you would like.

A reminder to all court captains, anyone with permanent court time or anyone who has reserved court time that you will not be using - it is important for you to let us know and we will release the courts in our on-line reservation system, reservemycourt.com. As the park is filling up it is critical that we optimize the usage of the tennis courts.

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Weekly Update - Sunday 1/9/2011

The courts are getting busier and it is great to see our court utilization continually improve. The on line reservation system appears to be working well. Mark and I have worked very hard to get the organized play, the permanent court times, the tennis events and the pickleball events on the schedule. But, we are not perfect, so if you see something that does not look right, please shoot us an email or give us a call (6459). If you have any problems signing on reservemycourt.com or if you have a problem making a reservation, please give us a call and we will be more than happy to help you with your problem. So far, the only problem we incurred is that we had to limit the time frames to 1 ½ hours for prime time slots and therefore when you book non-prime time slots you can only book for 1 ½ hours even though you are reserving for 2 hour slots. Robson Ranch is looking to go to an online reservation system and they were very impressed with our system!!


Club Team Tennis had 8 teams playing last Thursday and this Thursday we have added two more teams: the “Racqueteers” and the “Court Jesters.” We will now have play on all of our courts. If you are not on a team, please call and get on the sub list. And, please come out and cheer the teams on. If nothing else come out and see the wild and crazy teams that take to the courts every Thursday! Tennis Club Happy Hour follows club team tennis and last week we had a “rockin” full house with lots of great appetizers. I requested additional tables and about 25-30 white chairs from the park but as this is a weekly event we were turned down. I know that many of you ride your bikes over to the courts, but if you are not riding a bike and it is not too much too ask it would be great if you could bring a chair.

We have just added Men’s Intermediate (3.0 & 3.5) to the organized play schedule on Friday’s 11:00-12:30. This is for men who play at the 3.0 and 3.5 level. Currently Men’s advanced (4.0-3.5) only has four courts available, this addition will provide our Men players with another chance to have a permanently reserved organized play in addition to the Men’s League. Bob McConnell and John Blessen will be co-captaining.

Sign up sheets are up for the Palm Creek Tennis Club’s Cancer Awareness Tournament. You don’t even need to find a partner as partners are drawn at random. The ladies are playing on Wednesday, Feb 2nd, the Men on Thursday, February 3rd and Mixed is on Friday, February 4th. There are lots of sign ups for the ladies and the mixed but where are the Palm Creek tennis club’s men’s players? I know we fill up all of our courts for Men’s leagues…so I know you are here. I am hoping that it just takes the guys a little longer to remember to walk over to the board to sign up! This is for a great cause and it is really a lot of fun. We will have an awards banquet for all of our Cancer Awareness Tournament players and their spouses, following the mixed doubles play on Friday and then we can all walk over to Palm Park for the lighting of the luminaries and the Balloon Glow!

We have a Tennis Club Soup and Salad Social/ Meeting scheduled for Sunday, January 23rd at 4pm in the San Tan Room. The first page of the sign up sheet was full so I added a second sheet – Wow isn’t that wonderful. This is always a great event with loads of great food. Please remember the next time you are at the courts to sign up and let us know if you plan to bring a crock pot of soup or a salad. I know I have said this many times but it is really important for our great social committee to know how many people to expect. I hate when they have to scramble to set up tables and chairs and dig around for extra plates. Let’s make it easy for everyone and just sign up – if something comes up and you can’t make it, I promise we will understand!

Speaking of making it easier for everyone else – Mark and I make a lot of phone calls following up with people and it is just amazing how many people do not have an answering machine on their phone. I know that Walmart has a cordless phone with an answering machine and it is not a lot of money. If it is not too much to ask, this would be a great help to us and I am sure your friends would appreciate it as well.

Tennis Lessons begin on Tuesday for every level of play from beginners to “pros!” Skip had a meeting with the instructors, Walt got our nets with holes changed out, and we have plenty of tennis racquets for those who don’t have a racquet or don’t think their racquet is quite “up to par.” Every Tuesday at 2 pm courts 2-5 will each have an instructor to help us improve our game. Come on out and hit lots of balls and have fun with your fellow tennis players. We are trying out Ball tube retrievers to pick up balls. In other words you don’t even have to bend over all you do is position the tube over a ball and give a little push. When the tube is full you invert it over the ball machine or the instructor’s basket and get back in line.

Couples Tennis on Sunday used all of the courts, Social Tennis has had days with all the courts in use and people lined up to rotate in, Club Team Tennis has all of the courts utilized – this is great news. But, we still have lots of non prime time available for permanent court time reservations. Get with some of your tennis friends and call Mark or me (6459) to schedule a permanent weekly game in a non prime time slot (Monday – Friday after 12:30PM and all day Saturday and Sunday). Once your permanent court time reservation is confirmed you don’t have to bother with making another court reservation for that time. Mark and I take care of all of the reservations for you and a permanent court time reservation is posted on the Palm Creek Tennis Club White Board.

I have distributed most of the Tennis Club Shirts and I have a new order sheet started. The shirts are available in White or Dark Red and are high quality Antigua Shirts that retail for $60 but our cost is only $25. The shirts are and easy to care for in that all you need to do is wash it (without fabric softner) and put it on a hanger to dry. I will have the order sheet available at club team tennis as well as at the January 23rd social. Shirts will be only be ordered once I receive your money.

Sunday, January 2, 2011

Weekly Update - Sunday 1/2/2011

Before anything else this updatecomes to you with wishes for a very Happy, Healthy, Prosperous and Fun New Year to all of our tennis friends.


Its January and the Park is filling up fast. For those of you who signed up to play on the Leagues – they start at 12:30 PM on January 3rd for Ladies and January 4th for Men’s. Great news – we have filled all of our courts for both Men’s and Ladies!!! If you are not going to be able to play, please call a sub from the subs listed on the league sign up sheet. Please remember it is your job to find a sub if you will not be able to play in any session of league play!

The Club Team tennis January session is scheduled to begin on January 6th and runs for 4 weeks. Mark has been working hard to fill in teams and he is still waiting for some responses but we should have 8 teams for the January session! If you are not on a team, please come out to the courts on Thursdays at 2pm to cheer on your tennis buddies. Good natured trash talk is encouraged so come on out and join in the fun and stay for the Thursday Tennis Club Happy Hour which starts at 4pm!

Save the date: The January Meeting/Social is Sunday January 23rd at 4pm in the San Tan Room. This is our famous Soup and Salad pot luck. Please stop by the bulletin boards (pavilion side - Social) and sign up to bring either a soup (in a crock pot) or salad. Then show up on January 23rd for an amazing array of wonderful foods. Please, make it easier on our volunteers, who work very hard to make each event very special, and sign up. I just can’t stress enough how important is for you to sign up.

The Palm Creek Tennis Club Cancer Awareness Tournament is scheduled for Wednesday February 2nd (Ladies Doubles) Thursday February 3rd (Men’s Doubles) and Friday, February 4th (Mixed Doubles). Please sign up on the sheets posted on the bulletin board (pavilion side – Upcoming Events). You don’t need to find a partner for Men’s or Ladies or Mixed Doubles as each player will be matched at random. This year Jean McConnell came up with the excellent idea to move the tennis tournament out of the weekend timeframe so that we don’t compete with the other club’s tournaments. Also, we will not be giving out shirts this year as we had problems over the year in getting the correct sizes. If you want a shirt you can participate in one of the cancer awareness events in the park that gives out shirts, or you can purchase a shirt at the Activities office. In addition, we will be having our own awards celebration on Friday after Friday’s matches for all those and their spouses, who participated in any of the Tennis Club Cancer Awareness tournament events. We can then all walk over to Palm Park to witness the lighting of the luminaries here at the park. The fee for participating is $25 per individual for one event and if you want to add on the mixed doubles event the total cost is only $5 more for a total of $30. All of our profits will be donated back to the Palm Creek Cancer Awareness Donation.

Speaking of shirts, our tennis club shirts are in and I will be picking them up tomorrow. If you ordered your shirt in the November order I will bring them to the tennis club happy hour this Thursday, so please make sure you stop by to pick up your shirt!

Gwen and Wayne Black and Gail and Hank Verhoeff have volunteered to co captain Couples Open on Sundays at 2pm. This is a great opportunity for couples to have a fun game of tennis with other couples in the park. Each couple draws from a deck of cards for the couple they will be competing against. They then play the best of 3 games with the winners moving up and the losers moving down. There is a sign up sheet (pet park side – Sign up sheets).

I am working hard tonight to get the tennis club roster fully updated to post on the bulletin board. I am going to fill in all of the people who are on my distribution list for these emails. You should be able to tell who has arrived in the park by the notation showing if they have paid their membership dues or not.

I can’t end without a “standing ovation” for our court maintenance team of Walt Krahl and Glenn Arnold. The new wind screens are installed and the old wind screens have been powerwashed, the courts have been blown off weekly and everything is in working order. Our courts look GREAAAAT…Hats off to a job well done!

It Has Begun!!!!

The 2016-2017 Seaon for the Palm Creek Tennis Club is underway!!! Bright and early this morning a great crew of hardy workers got started c...