Juniors update

The Onkaparinga Tennis Association has met and reviewed our team nominations for the upcoming season.  We are pleased to announce that we will have 4 teams participating this year, a team in Div 4, 5, 6 and 7.  This is a fantastic outcome for the club and it’s great to see all the new players on the courts this year.  Now that all clubs have nominated their teams, the draw for the 1^st game on Saturday the 13^th of October will be worked on and communicated to us by Wed the 10^th.

Due to the number of courts available across the association, The Div 7 games and possibly some of the Div 6 games will be starting at 10:00am, all other games commence at 8:30am.  The Div 7 team also play with a low compression balls and have other modified rules to assist in helping the new players learn how to play the game.  We will take you through these rules before the start of the season.

Parent Help

Parental help is what makes a club successful.  With this in mind we need to have a team manager for each of the 4 teams.  The role of the team managers is to act as a central contact person for all players in the team, open up the courts on Saturdays for home games, arrange the play on the day and complete and return the scoresheet to the coordinator’s. 

As coordinators, we are happy to manage the Div 5 and 4 sides, Greg Mc Master has volunteered to manage the Div 7 team and Sean Kenny the Div 6 team.  We would like to thank Greg and Sean for agreeing to help with this role.  If any other families are interested in helping out, please don’t hesitate to let us know as many hands make light work.

Teams

The rules of the association require us to play our players in order of playing ability.  Based on the trials we did a couple of weeks ago, we have put the following teams together to kick the season off.  We have to the best of our ability placed players in the teams that they are most suited to.  The playing order within each team is yet to be finalised.  We have the first 3 weeks to move players up or down a division if they are winning or losing convincingly and the association also reserves the right to move teams up or down a division after the first 5 rounds of play.  All of the above is designed so that the kids get a fair game and play against somebody of similar ability.

Div 4

Sophie Dale

Georgia Brooksby

Sunira Reardon

Nicole Hooper

Erin Wickstein

Div 5

Liam Hage

James Hooper

Elliott Hall

Tabitha Lawless

Rachel Lawless

Div 6

Max Kenny

Renee Lawless

Bryce Wickstein

Hugo Kenny

Div 7

Charlotte Cooper

Kiara Reardon

Olivia Hall

Sophie McMaster

Coaching and Training

We are fortunate enough to have professional coach and school teacher Dean Carter with us again this year.  Training will commence on Thursday the 11^th of October.  We have decided to run individual sessions for each of the teams and each session will include ½ hr with Dean and a ½ hr of general play.  The times will be as follows:

Div 7 Start time is 4:00pm finish time is 5:00pm

Div 6 Start time is 4:30pm finish time is 5:30pm

Div 5 Start time is 5:00pm finish time is 6:00pm

Div 4 Start time is 5:30pm finish time is 6:30pm

Parents are required to stay with their children during training or arrange for another parent to supervise on their behalf.  It’s not the coaches job to supervise our children or administer first aid in the event of an incident.  Parental assistance will be also be required in the “general play” sessions.

Fees

The Club has set the Junior players subs at $50 per person, this covers club costs, player registrations and insurance.  In addition, there is a fee of $60 for coaching, bringing the total cost to $110 per player.  The club has agreed to heavily subsidise the cost of coaching so we are very grateful for this support.  The fee for coaching does not cover us for finals.  If in the event a team/teams make the finals, an additional weekly fee will be required.  We will work through this at a later date.  Fees will be invoiced and due 30^th October.

Forms

You should all have registration forms for your children.  These forms need to be completed and returned to the coordinators or to your team manager prior to the first match.  If you need another form please let us know ASAP and we will email one to you.

Presentation Date

Please keep Sunday the 24^th of March 2013 free as this is the tentative date for our Junior presentations.  Format yet to be finalised.

Coordinators Contact info

If you have any feedback or questions, please don’t hesitate to give either of us a call or send us an email.  Our contact details are:

Marcus Hooper Ph 0415 377 603 Email. mjhooper.sa@gmail.com

Deb Brooksby Ph 0411 656 704 Email. debbrooksby@hotmail.com

We look forward to seeing you soon and watching your children enjoy and learn the game of tennis.

Marcus and Deb