Old: still no insurance coverage; club not opened
New: online booking tool for your safety; Courts get re-surfacing
Hello DMTC Members:
Another update. Thank you for the many people sending info on what other clubs are doing, and for your continued patience with Don Mills Tennis Club – your club.
The Board has met and discussed many matters, and has been working hard solving issues that keep coming up. I personally, seem to be spending 3-5 hours per day on club matters, whether on the phone with individual Board members, Zoom meetings or emails, researching with OTA or other club presidents. And this isn’t even my day job. This has become the new normal and it’s feeling tiresome.
We still have no good news on our insurance coverage which leaves the Board personally liable if sued. The City will not indemnify the clubs is the oral statement as of last friday. And anyone can sue, EVEN if there are all sorts of waiver clauses set up for Covid declaration or the impossibility of proving contraction via DMTC. All it takes is one suit, and the club’s funds and our personal funds can be wiped out. Yes, I see some clubs opening despite this, but this is a big RISK they’ve taken, and apparently their Board is willing to have their personal assets sued for the sake of offering their members community tennis. For Don Mills, this is not acceptable risk. So, until there is acceptable resolution, the club will not open. There are public courts open, and members can use these in the meantime.
(Fyi – the stats to date on how many clubs who have agreed to their permits without the insurance coverage is very low – only 15 out of 130+ clubs. The left hand of the City doesn’t know what the right hand is doing, as they keep emailing and calling me with ‘gentle reminders’ language that I have to sign back the permit before operating. Yes, duh!… Also, there are several Board members resigning their positions as they assess their risk to be too high in their efforts to offer community tennis.)
While we are in wait mode, we are using our time well. We have decided to invest in an online booking platform so members can pre-book their courts, arrive and play in safety, and we can meet the condition of gathering data easily for contact tracing if needed. We are currently developing this, and it will be in test mode shortly. Apart from the technicals, we also have to figure out what will be fair to members, how will things really roll out, and we will be needing your cooperation to share the courts fairly, not to electronically hog the bookings.
The Board in their previous planning had also ear marked late August 2020 for court resurfacing. It has been 10 years since the courts have been resurfaced. The August timeframe was originally chosen as we need reliable ‘dry’ days for court resurfacing to bond properly, the InterCounty season would have been finished by mid-August, so less impact for the teams, and it might have been quiet time with some away on holidays.
Quotes were obtained, monies set aside for the project, coach agreement obtained. With the Covid disruptions, all this is blown. Instead of sticking with that plan, stopping the season and club operations again a second time, we have decided as a Board, to bring up the resurfacing schedule to now since we’re held up anyway. We will look after our house and take the time required to open up properly. We will therefore get the resurfacing done in the next few weeks, while the club is still closed, and not have to re- stop the season again. You will have shiny new courts to play on!
That’s all for now. Thank you for your continued patience.
If it’s too much information, I apologize. My aim is to answer most of the queries I get this way and to promote understanding.
If you are out using the City’s public courts, that is a viable option, but please do take care.
Thank you,
Angela Kooij
President, DMTC