Weekly Update - Monday 2/14/2011

Happy Valentines Day!!

We had a wonderful Sunday Brunch Social  and it just seems that for every tennis club social pot luck I go to the array of food just keeps getting better and better!!!  

I forgot to hand out flyers for a fundraising dinner the pickleball club is having at Chipotle Grill on Florence Blvd on Tuesday, February 15^th from 4pm – 7pm.  If you show them the flyer, 50% of the proceeds will benefit the Palm Creek Pickle Ball Association.  I think these proceeds will go to the charities they donate to like abused women, food bank, humane society and pickleball equipment for the children at Ironwood Elementary school.    If anyone is interested in getting a flyer, please let me know and I will figure out how to get it to you.  I will also bring the flyers to ladies league on Monday.

The Cancer Awareness Tournament is already a memory and we are now getting everything ready for the Annual Palm Creek Tennis Tournament.  We have a record number of teams already signed up and we have just about hit our limit in all categories:  Men’s, Ladies and Mixed.  The seeding event starts at 2pm on Tuesday, the 15^th.  If you are not playing in the tournament, please feel free to come out on Tuesday  to see the teams as they hit against the ball machine.  The tournament will start this coming Thursday, February 17^th and run through Sunday, February 20^th.  All courts will be used for the tennis tournament and organized play is cancelled from Thursday through Sunday!    For all of our “die hard” social tennis players that means you as well.  Sunday, February 20^th after the medal matches for Mixed doubles are complete, we will have our Awards celebration to hand out the awards and celebrate with free pizza for all of our players and members.  So, if you are a member, please come out at  11 AM to watch the mixed doubles medal matches and then stay for pizza and share in the celebration.

Schedule of Play for Tournament:

The evening prior to the matches the exact time and court for each match will be posted on www.PalmCreekTennisClub.blogspot.com.

 

In general, play will be as follows:

MIXED DOUBLES:

All mixed doubles teams will play on Thursday and Friday Mornings.

Mixed doubles teams playing for a Gold, Silver or Bronze will play mid-day on Sunday

MEN'S DOUBLES:

All men's doubles teams will play mid-day on Thursday and Friday (top seeds may have a bye on Thursday).

Men's doubles teams playing for a Gold, Silver or Bronze will play mid-day on Saturday.

WOMEN'S DOUBLES:

All women's doubles teams will play Thursday and Friday Afternoons (top seeds may have a bye on Thursday).

Women's doubles teams playing for a Gold, Silver or Bronze will play on Saturday morning.

Club Team Tennis will be starting up again on Thursday, March 4^th.  This is the last session of Club Team tennis for the season and it will go for 4 weeks ending on March 24^th.  Club Team tennis has proven to be a major step in enhancing court utilization.  We need your support for the continued success of this event.  This provides a chance for all of our members to get to know the other tennis club members.  And, it is has made a definite impression from all of the comments I have received from people outside of the tennis club!   

Cancer Awareness Tournament - February 2-4

The tennis club showed up in force to support the Tennis Club Cancer Awareness event.  The tennis club, after all expenses are paid will contribute over $1,500 to the cancer charities!!!

Everyone had a great time at the Awards Banquet, with the patio heaters adding the right amount of warmth. The delicious italian menu of lasagna, caesar salad, garlic bread with brownie bites and lemon cakes made for a great meal. 

Sitting around the tables with your tennis buddies sharing a nice glass of wine made it just perfect!







All of our players were winners!  However, Award Certificates were presented to the teams who won the most games:

Men's Division Winners with their certificates (from left to right)  Skip Nirenberg/Jack Hardy-1st Place, and Glenn Arnold /Ken Civiello - 2nd Place.

Ladies Division Winners with their certificates (from left to right) Charlotte Eicher/Leta Babb [not shown] (PM 2nd place), Betty Scofield/Carmen Allen (AM 2nd place), Bev Nirenberg/Penny Jacobsen (AM 1st place), and Patti Blessen/Susan Manganaro[not shown] PM 1st place.

Mixed Division Winners (from left to right)  Steve Allen (partnered with Kate Perrie) PM Division tied for 2nd , Hank Verhoeff (partnered with Susan Manganaro [not shown] PM Division 1st place, Kate Perrie, Pete McGannon/Helen Arnold, PM Division tied for 2nd place, Rhoda Zaph (partnered with Jim Weaver [not shown] AM Division 1st place, Rita Yates and Mark Costello AM Division 2nd place.



The highlight of the evening was the raffle drawing that added over $200 to the tennis clubs contribution to this worthy cause. 

Jean McConnell and Mike Kirsch thoroughly entertained the crowd with their quick wit and ad lib comments as they announced the winners from the drawing for each of the raffle prizes.





A special thanks to Jean McConnell and Mary Anderson who both did an exceptional job as co-chairs for this successful event.  They both agree that they could not pull this off without the help of their team:  Bob McConnell, Doug Anderson, Dick Stone, Carolyn Stone, Sieny Kouwenhoven, Mary Williams, Connie Emerson, Darlene Knowles, Marilyn Howisey, Nancy Restum, Mary Sullivan-Pondell, Barbara Stolz, Glenn Arnold, Walt Krahl, Rhoda Zaph, and Kate Perrie.  A heartfelt thank you goes to all of these volunteers for contributing their time to such a worthwhile cause!  Last, but not least, Pete McGannon deserves special recognition for creating the raffle idea with his donation of a new Wilson tennis racquet.

Weekly Update - Sunday 2/6/2011

First a huge thank you to all of our tennis club members who supported the Tennis Club’s Cancer Awareness Tournament. Despite the unseasonably cold weather we played every match scheduled! A huge thank you to all (players and volunteers) who faced some pretty cold wind chill factors and still came out to make this worthy event such an outstanding success. Our chairs, Jean McConnell and Mary Anderson outdid themselves putting on a first class event. With patio heaters taking off the chill our members enjoyed the Italian Themed Awards dinner of Lasagna, Caesar Salad and Garlic Bread (not to mention the Lemon Cakes and the Brownie Bites for dessert). It was a great site: the Tennis Pavilion filled with tables covered with Red and White Checked Table Cloths and all of our tennis buddies clinking wine glasses and enjoying the fun of a “raucous raffle” emceed by our own Mike Kirsch. The final tally is in and the Tennis Club has $1343 in net proceeds from the tournament (this is after $272 for food and $45 for balls), and $209 from the raffle for a total donation to Cancer Charities of $1,552! This far exceeds our donations in the past and, it is important to note, our past donations were then reduced for the costs of the park provided shirts and lunches.


Everyone who participated was a winner but those scoring the most game points included:

Women’s Doubles: AM: 1st: Bev Nirenberg and Penny Jacobsen, 2nd: Betty Scofield and Carmen Allen PM: 1st: Susan Manganaro and Patti Blessen, 2nd: Charlotte Eicher and Leta Babb

Men’s Doubles: 1st Skip Nirenberg and Jack Hardy, 2nd Ken Civiello and Glenn Arnold

Mixed Doubles: AM: 1st: Jim Weaver and Rhoda Zaph, 2nd: Mark Costello and Rita Yates PM 1st: Susan Manganaro and Hank Verhoeff, Tied for Second: Pete McGannon and Helen Arnold tied with Steve Allen and Kate Perrie

Photos are posted on our blog: www.palmcreektennisclub.blogspot.com. Just click on this link and it will take you right to the site. I hope you enjoy my impressions of the event. Sorry I did not get any photos on the courts but at least I remembered to bring my camera to the Awards Banquet!!!

Please remember you can get a full listing of the tennis club members on the roster posted on the blog site as well under the link on the right side titled Tennis Roster.

On a sad note, we have lost a dear member of the tennis club, Al Bovluger. Carol Bovluger has invited the members of the tennis club to a Celebration of Life event on Saturday, March 12th at 11 AM in the Ballroom. Carol is planning a lunch and in order to help her plan we will have a sign up sheet posted on the Social Bulletin Board. Please save the date, sign up and come out to show how the Tennis Club supports our own.

The Palm Creek Tennis Tournament, February 17 – 20th is getting close so don’t delay, find a partner and come participate in this great event. Currently we have 5 Men’s teams, 6 Women’s teams and 10 Mixed teams. Our goal is to have 16 teams in each category so we need your support. One of the things I hear from our members is that they want challenging play. Well, here is your chance. After your first match if you win, you will move up to compete against the other winners. If you lose your first match you progress to the consolation round and play against another team who also lost their first match. If you want help finding a partner, please give me a call or reply to this email. We would love to see all of our brackets filled with no byes so we need you to sign up by February 15th at 2pm (the date of the seeding event) and share in all the fun!

As the seeding event is on Tuesday, February 15th we will not have tennis lessons on that Tuesday. But, the tennis lessons will be held this Tuesday (2/8) at 2pm so come on out and join in. No matter what your level, it is great practice to hit lots of balls and also quite helpful to have an unbiased third party on hand to give you some insight on your play.

Next Sunday, February 13th at 11:30 AM in the San Tan Room is the February Brunch Social/Meeting. This is a lot of fun and always interesting array of delicious foods. We love homemade but store bought is always welcome. Bring a brunch item that feed 6-8 and join in the fun. Please sign up on the sign up sheet by Friday, February 11th and bring your Valentine out for an early Valentine’s Day Celebration Brunch.

Club Team Tennis will start up again on March 3rd - March 24th for our final 4 week session. Don’t miss out on the event that everyone is talking about. If you are interested in playing in the March session, regardless if you have played in the past sessions, we need you to call, send an email or just sign up on the sign up sheet posted on the bulletin board.

Weekly Update - Sunday Jan 30th

The Cancer Awareness shirts and visors that were ordered through the tennis club are in and I have them at our RV. Please call and stop by to pick up your order. If you have not yet paid for your order, please bring your payment as well. I received cash in an envelope in the mail. There was nothing on the front and nothing inside to identify who it came from. As I don’t have a CSI DNA identification kit I have to trust in the honesty of our club members. Please let me know if you sent the cash.


When Diane placed the January order she did order some additional shirts. Sadly, none of the extras match what is on the sheet of shirts to be ordered. The shirts on hand include:

Women’s – 2 Medium (White), 2 Large (Red) and 2 XXL (Red)

Men’s – 3 Large (White), 2 Large (Red) and 1 XXL (Red)

If anyone who has already placed an order would like to change the color ordered to get their shirt right away, let me know. If you have not ordered a shirt, but would be interested in one of the shirts on hand, let me know and I will get it from Diane. Otherwise Diane will hold them and will not invoice the tennis club for them unless we order them.

Club Team Tennis has finished the January Session. It was lots of fun and we got a lot of people who were around the tennis courts asking what was going on!! Our final week was quite the event – the Mica Lane Ladies, Kathy Jensen, Helen Arnold, Terry Bradley and Bonnie Morgan came out to the courts dressed in their “high tea” finery. Not only do we have the most fun, we have the best dressed spectators!!! Larry Marik serenaded us at happy hour with his sax and his flute – what a treat!! And, the Park Photographer was out on a tall ladder to capture all the Tennis Club activity!!!

With all the work we will have running the Palm Creek Tennis Tournament we have decided to start the last session of Club Team Tennis on March 3rd for 4 weeks ending on March 24th. Please let us know if you are interested in playing in the March session by February 24th. Club Team Tennis is a great way to get to know other members of the tennis club, helps make new friends, enhances court utilization for the tennis club and is great fun! Support our wonderful club and call Mark at 5459 or send him an email at ma.costello@yahoo.com to sign up for the March session.

The Cancer Awareness Tournament is just around the corner starting this Wednesday with Ladies Doubles!! Please, Please, Please remember to sign up by tomorrow (January 31st) to attend the Awards Banquet on Friday Afternoon, February 4th. For all those playing in the tournament this is a free meal for you and your spouse!! Remember to bring cash to the Awards Banquet as we re going to have lots of great prizes to raffle with all of the proceeds going to support Cancer Awareness. Its going to be a fun event, great food with a wonderful group of people. I hope to see you there!!!

The sign up sheets for the Palm Creek Tennis Tournament are posted on the Tennis Club Bulletin Board and attached to this email. Find yourself a partner and come out for some great tennis. We will have a consolation round so that if you lose your first round you will go into the consolation round. The seeding event is scheduled for Tuesday, February 15th starting at 2pm. If you cannot make the seeding event let us know and we can schedule you earlier. If you would like to play but don’t know who to ask to play with you, let me know and I will work on finding you a partner. This is one event you don’t want to miss.

SAVE THE DATE – February 13th is the next Tennis Club Social/Meeting 11:30 am-1:30 pm in the San Tan Room – This is our famous pot luck Sunday Brunch and it is loaded with some brunch favorites and some brunch creativity. The sign up sheet will be posted on the bulletin board on Monday afternoon. Please sign up, bring a brunch item that feeds approximately 6-8. We will have coffee and hot tea but bring your own beverage if you prefer something a little stronger!!! We love the great homemade specialities, but please know we understand how busy we get here at Palm Creek and if you want to bring in something store bought, that is okay as well!!!

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.

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.

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!