Wednesday night social tennis is returning on Wednesday 2 September, 7.30-9.30pm. Social tennis is open to all Peak and Intermediate members. Unfortunately, we will not be able to open the bar for Social members.

It is a fantastic opportunity to play a range of members and enjoy feeling part of the HWLTC family. Social tennis will have exclusive use of the courts every Wednesday from 7.30-9.30pm.

To start off with, we will operate as follows:

• a limit of 24 players.
• all participants must social distance off the court.
• the sessions will be run by a HWLTC committee member who will sign members in and out.
• no need to book in advance, but in the unlikely event of more than 24 people turning up, members will be turned away.
• those attending will be sorted into pairs and doubles matches to seven games will be played.
• New pairs will then be selected for the next set of games and so on.

A weekend social will also be organised in the near future.

It’s been great to see so many members at the club since we reopened in May and we know that lots of our members have really enjoyed participating in the summer tournament, for which we owe a big thank you to Darren Plank and Stuart McTiernan who organised a great event. More updates are as below.

Wednesday night social trial
We are now moving into the next phase of trying to return to normal and will soon be trialling a club mix-in on a Wednesday evening, starting on 2 September.

Clubhouse
We are still unable to open the bar as having reviewed the current LTA and government guidelines, the committee has agreed that the work required to make the bar Covid-19 secure far outweighs the benefits of opening it. The kitchen is also still closed.
 
Floodlights
We can now confirm that the floodlights can be used, but please clean the clubhouse door handles and sanitise your hands after entering and leaving. 
 
Court booking system
In addition, from 1 September, the court booking system will be changed to reflect our membership structure as follows:

• Peak and Intermediate: will be able to book courts anytime, 7 days in advance
• Off-Peak: will be able to book courts Monday to Friday before 5pm, 7 days in advance
• Coaching: will be able to book courts anytime, 1 day in advance
• Junior and Parent: will be able to book courts Monday to Friday before 5pm, and anytime at the weekend, 1 day in advance 

Presentation night
We're sorry to say that we have had to postpone our Presentation Night at the Apollonia on 10 October. It has been rescheduled for 23 October 2021, coinciding with the 120th Anniversary of the club, so we need to make sure that’s a good one!
 
Safety first
As always please continue to follow the LTA guidelines and make sure you don’t come to the club if you are suffering from any coronavirus symptoms, so that we can all carry on enjoying ourselves on court.
 
Please contact the committee if you have any questions.

Following the change in Government guidance and in line with LTA guidelines, we’re pleased to let you know that some play for members can start at the Club, but the Clubhouse remains closed until further notice.

Members can:

1. play singles with any other member.
2. play doubles where everyone is from the same household.

Playing members must comply with the following: 

• ensure you stay at a safe distance (2 metres) from anyone outside of your household, both on and off court.
• use your own balls (preferably personalised) - club balls cannot be used and are not available.
• book a court to ensure that we don’t have too many people at the club. The court booking system has been changed to only allow 1-hour booking slots so that as many people as possible have the opportunity to play.
• the clubhouse remains closed and must not be used for any reason, other than access to the First Aid Box (in the kitchen) in the event of an emergency. Please note that the CCTV is active and will be monitored for any transgressions.
• it is your personal responsibility to keep yourself safe and we therefore suggest that you take hand sanitiser and wipes with you to the Club, to clean your hands and also wipe down the handles and surfaces that you touch.
• we expect all players to have read and understood the LTA player guidelines before playing.

 
This situation will be kept under review in line with any published advice - any changes will be advised to our members.

Following Government and LTA advice, the clubhouse and courts are closed until further notice.

We hope to see you all again when restrictions are lifted. Stay healthy!

HWLTC Committee

In light of the Government’s advice regarding the current Coronavirus problem, we have decided to suspend all club organised events with immediate effect, this means that there will be no Social Play on a Tuesday or Thursday morning, Wednesday evening or Saturday afternoon and we will not be opening the bar at any time. 
 
All R&D group coaching sessions are also suspended with immediate effect, if you have any questions about this please call Darren (07960 071478).
 
The courts will remain open for you to play on, if you wish to, but you will need to bring your own tennis balls (to ensure no transfer of virus on the balls). Please continue to follow government advice whilst at the club by washing your hands and not shaking hands at the end of a match, as is our normal etiquette, elbow bumps or hands in prayer position are good alternatives.
 
We will continue to follow the government and LTA advice and will update you if things change, in the meantime stay healthy and safe.
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- HWLTC Committee

There are a few important dates that we wanted to make our members are aware of:

1. The AGM will be held on Wednesday 11/03/20 in the clubhouse at 8pm. All members are invited and it would be great to see you there so that we can share our updates with you. I'll be sending out all the relevant information prior to the meeting as usual.
2. Finals Day will be held on Saturday 18/07/20. Hopefully, the sun will shine and we'll all enjoy a good day watching our finalists fight it out!
3. Finally, and very excitingly, our Presentation Night will be held on Saturday 10/10/20  at the Apollonia in Stanmore.  The details and tickets will be available very soon.

We had a lot of fun celebrating Christmas on Wednesday 18 December, with cheese, bread, chocs, raffle and, of course, drinks at the bar. But it was made extra special with trophy presentations for the winners of our 2019 tournaments - see some of our pics below. Happy New Year all!

Julia Lamb and Margaret Boyer won a hard fought final 6-3 against Reena Cotsford-Dolden and Rosita Herath to take the trophy.

A very close and tense Men's Drawn Doubles competition saw the father and son combination of Stuart and Ryan McTiernan beat Mihai Hutanu and Krystian Ozynski 6-4 to take the trophy. 

On Sunday 7 July, we held a glorious Finals Day in which 10 champions were crowned kings and queens of the HWLTC courts on a super sunny day. There were three nail-biting three-setters in the ladies' singles, men's singles and mixed doubles, and, of course, countless glasses of pimm’s.
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Well done to all involved in the tennis, bar, food and organising! Take a look at some of our pics below, and view all photos and winners from the day on our Tournaments page.