Hello Don Mills Tennis Club members:
Good news to share -things are opening up as the City announced, so we can launch club programs. But courts will get tighter as you see programs taking precedence! It is a tennis club, so we’ve been spoilt a bit with unlimited booking time. Try to double up and share the prime time space.
First off, welcome back to our coaches! Maddeningly, coaching has not been permitted until now under City permit rules, so this impacted our lessons and junior programs, but more importantly our coaches’ livelihood. We’re all set to go now, so welcome back Pavel Lupych who many of us know. Full bio and rates on website here. And this year, we have a new lady coach addition – Stephanie Willerding – whom many of you know from winter tennis. Stephanie is a very talented and experienced coach, bringing lots of good energy to Don Mills. She will mainly teach mornings 7 a.m.-noon while Pavel will do evenings. Stephanie will focus on developing High Performance juniors, and will now be available to the many adults who want her time for privates and clinics. Stephanie has ranked as high as 13th in Canada and has taught in Australia and Thailand, now making her home in Toronto where she trained. Her full bio, rates and contact points can be found here.
Don Mills is happy to offer our members all variety of coaching levels to suit all tastes. So welcome to both our coaches. We’re ready for you both to hammer out all our silly bad points – the no uni-turn, the not using the knees, using the wrong grip… so teach and develop us to the next level. We’re counting on you.
Fyi, Court #1 is the teaching court, and sometimes #2 and Fridays 4-6 p.m. #4 is also blocked off for lessons. If our coaches need your assistance or cooperation with anything, please extend them that.
Kaffeeklatsch is a go – we start next Tuesday June 15 – please register on Court Reserve under Event bookings
We will start our popular Kaffeeklatsch programme [Tues and Friday mornings] as of June 15th. We have strategized how to run this safely for all participants, and the challenge remains that we cannot linger, cannot just drop in as in past years. So the rules are posted here. There are two Events created for every Tues and Friday, where a group of 16 participants can register from 9 -10:30 a.m, and another group of 16 participants can play from 10:30 a.m to 12 noon. Janet Blair will lead this program and a few volunteers have already committed their time. We can use more volunteers -talk to Janet. Please come 5 minutes only before your registered time. You will get to play with several partners and it will be fun! Please go register now on Court Reserve – it’s opened up.
House League
Our popular Wednesday night 7-9:30 pm House League program will also start next Wed. June 16. Info is coming this weekend -too much work to handle altogether! We’ve got your registrations and will be making the teams up by tonight. Today is the last day to register for House League. Tracy Lejnieks is the volunteer supercaptain of this program. [We could use one or two more captains please… because so far again, I’m IT]
InterCounty Competitive Tennis
Nigel McClean, our Leagues Director is running first assessments tomorrow. If you were interested, you should have contacted him by now at [email protected] to make some arrangements for the assessment.
We invested in a nice sail tarp for shade at our teaching area since we can’t have everyone scooching under one little umbrella. Let’s hope it holds up against the winds. Thanks to our Grounds Director Scott Harrald for his ingenuity and hard work. You can see your volunteer board at work.
Gentle reminders to continue taking care with hands/face hygiene, and enough distancing, masks onto court play and when exiting, and no unnecessary loitering please. Bring your own water bottles. And don’t forget the sunscreen!
Angela Kooij
Don Mills Tennis Club