Friday, October 8, 2021 (Court Day #418)

It’s been a very long time since I’ve played at Brommer on a Friday morning. Fortunately, we had enough staff at work to allow me to take the morning off and attend the Santa Cruz Pickleball’s Annual General Meeting (AGM) . . . after playing some pickleball first!

I was going to get there by no later than 9, but my daughter needed a ride to work, so I dropped her off and didn’t get to Brommer until about 10 minutes before 10 a.m. The courts were all full, including all the temporary net courts.

Lots of players waiting for their turns!

More the Merrier

There was about as much waiting as they was playing today. Carol (Shawnte’s mom) said she would normally be playing at Skypark but had come for the AGM. Normally, I’d be working, so, yes, there were a lot of extra people at Brommer today.

Games

My first game was Steve B. (who is on the SCPC board) and me against Dan Bliss (also on the board) and a woman who I’d seen before, but didn’t know well. In the middle of the game, I turned to Steve and said, “Have you been in a game that you just want to flush?” Yeah. I wasn’t playing the best. Sure, it was my first game, but . . . man. Steve and I did end up winning, but ick. I made far too many bad shots.

I played a game with Dave Cox—who had signed up in red/advanced—against Hemi and her friend Brendan. It was a very contested game. I think we lost, but regardless, it was close. I didn’t play my best in that game either. Today was one of those “down days” on the skill growth curve. I don’t consider any of us as 4.0+ players, we’re all more blue/intermediate players.

After me playing what I felt was poorly in that game, I signed up in an intermediate box. I won’t mention any names—they are players I barely know anyway—but I played lefty and slaughtered them. They weren’t true intermediates. That’s the challenge of a signup board . . . people invariably sign up in a skill level above what they are. No one wants to sign up as the bottom skill level. Shawnte and I were talking about it. He’s contention is that we should have four skill levels for signup since no one will ever use the bottom skill level! In the meantime, we have three levels and people sign up in two.

Migrating

It was funny, I’d barely seen Terry and Karen Long—maybe once in the last six months—and I asked Terry if he just got back . . . there was some snickering by someone next to Terry . . . no, they were just about to leave for Arizona! If I’d thought about it for a second, I would have realized that with the weather in each area, they are in Santa Cruz during the summer and in the hotter desert during winter!

Group Photo

At noon, Leslie immediately started taking down the club nets to prepare and signal the pending AGM. I helped take down a couple myself. Once that was done, Karen Long corralled the herd for a big group photo to use on the Santa Cruz Pickleball Club website for the next year or so:

The group. I’m in gray toward the right behind the guy in the light blue long-sleeve shirt.

The AGM

We gathered over in the picnic area right after all the club nets were removed from the courts at noon. Some players continued to play on the permanent courts, expressing no interest in club plans for the area, officer elections, etc. New SCPC officers were elected by acclamation as they all ran unopposed. John Pacholski took over from Dave Witte as Treasurer for a two year term, Mark Dettle took over as President from Karen Long who was leading this meeting. Tony S. took over as Secretary from Dave Allenbaugh.

Dave W. gave a report on the state of finances of the club which is good.

Rick A. was announced by Karen as the new site coordinator for Derby Park on Wednesday and I was announced as the Derby Sunday site coordinator. Since it wasn’t clear that I was resuming my role, I proclaimed, “I’m back!” to the group for the benefit of those people whom I didn’t know. Jim D. was announced as the site coordinator for Willowbrook.

The meeting concluded about 1 p.m. Two years ago, the AGM included a potluck, but with the pandemic limping along, they kept it simple this year.

My Play

It seems that this past week, I have been more frustrated and disappointed in my play than anything. My forearm is holding up but it’s still a touch sore. It really needs a break of about a week to heal up, I think. But I doubt it’ll give it that.


Number of days on a court: 418
Number of total hours: 2,089

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