Monday, October 8, 2018 (Court Day #211)
Today was the club’s fall celebration. Play followed by food followed by an update on the workings of the club administration.
I arrived at Brommer Park at 8:45. I was worried about finding parking, but the lot was still half empty.
Terry Long explains the play format for the randomized team tournament.
We had 8 teams of 6 players, plus some players who came just to visit and hang out but not participate. There were around 60 people there today.
Each participant drew a number from a basket. I drew “4”, which put me on a team with Leslie, her husband Tim, Chris (tall tennis player), Melody, and MaryAnne who has been playing for about a month. They wanted me to be their captain. We needed to pick three pairs to play the three games in each round. Leslie and I were our #1 pair, Mel and Chris were our #2, and Tim and MaryAnne were our #3 pair.
There was a twist in that a losing team could randomly pick a numbered rock from a bag and swap whatever player on the other team who was assigned that number. Oleg and Kent ended up on other teams. Our team stayed intact, start to finish.
I have to admit, I was a bit worried while warming up first thing—coincidentally, with Leslie—when I was dink/dropping shots into the net. “And that’s why I’m not a 5.0!”, I told her. But once real play started later, it was like a switch was flipped. All—almost—of my shots were going where I wanted.
Leslie and I wiped out all of our opponents. 11-2, 11-4, 11-2, 11-5 were our game scores for the four rounds of the day. I was expecting more of a fight from Dave Cox and Bob (visiting from SoCal) but they never got any momentum. Leslie and I were leading Dave Witte and Craig 10-1, when they got the serve back. “All we have to do is score 10 points in a row!”, announced Dave. They did go on a run of 4 points, but then we finished them off 11-5.
Lunch!
After the funky tournament, we had a potluck lunch. I brought an assortment of chips. There was a lot of assorted yummy foods.
SCPC Meeting
After everyone was done eating, we all gathered on the grass for an update from the steering committee. We learned some things, such as:
- The City of Santa Cruz is considering adding new courts downtown somewhere near the county courthouse.
- There are 308 people signed up for club emails and are de facto members.
- The club is going to an annual paid membership ($20 to start/$30 for 2020) which will give special access to parts of the club website.
- The club is incorporated but is looking at 501(c)3 or 501(c)7 status. (Karen mentioned having to sign forms as an individual and incur risk doing so, maybe that was before they incorporated.)
- The club is in good financial shape, but the City/County are considering charging the club the full rate instead of the non-profit rate for our reserved hours. They are hoping not, but the club is prepping for it, just in case.
Alan (English accent) asked about an organized competition on the Brommer courts. I don’t think he used the word, but he was asking about a club “ladder.” Karen said that if we to run an organized thing at a set time at the courts, that the club would have to pay the county for reserving the courts for that time.
Club members spread out on the lawn during Karen’s portion of the presentation.
Afterward, I approached Karen and also voiced my support for a club ladder. She said in the past, we haven’t had enough players to do one, but we probably had enough 3.5 players now. She then asked, “Are you willing take it on?”
I said, “I’m not saying ‘no’. I’m pretty organized.”
She smiled and said, “I know you are.”
“Let me do some research.”
Tuesday, October 9, 2018 (No play)
Monday afternoon, I posted asking about ladders in the Pickleball Forum on Facebook. A woman, Susan Buchman shared her experiences with running a ladder and also included a link to ladder information on the USAPA website:
http://usapa.org/ladder-leagues/
Reading to do!
Number of days on a court: 211
Number of total hours: 580
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