2024-12-31-accounts

Reference and administration details ~~EE~~

Charity Name	Great Ayton Tennis Club
Other names charity is known by	GATC
Registered charity number	1170990
Charities principle address	16 The Dorkings, Great Broughton, Middlesbrough, TS9 7NA

Names of the charity trustees who manage GATC

	Trustee Name	Office (if any)	Date last (re)elected
1 Allan Dixon	1 Allan Dixon	Chair	Appointed during 2022 and ratified at AGM 2023
2 Denise Essex	2 Denise Essex	Secretary	Appointed during 2023 and ratified at AGM 2023
3 Barry Adamski	3 Barry Adamski	Treasurer	(non trustee)
4 Wayne Stephenson	4 Wayne Stephenson		AGM 2024
5 Sid Blackmore	5 Sid Blackmore		AGM 2024
6 David Joy	6 David Joy		Appointed during 2023 and ratified AGM 2023
7 Marian Matthews	7 Marian Matthews		Appointed during 2018
8 Sarah Dixon	8 Sarah Dixon		Appointed during 2022 and ratified at AGM 2023
9 Theresa Brentnall	9 Theresa Brentnall		Appointed during 2024 - seeking ratification at AGM 2025

Structure, governance and management

Type of governing document	Constitution adopted 5th January 2017 (amended 21st March 2024)
How the charity is constituted	Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO)
Governance	The club complies with Privacy (GDPR) legislation introduced in 2018. Furthermore the club is an LTA registered venue and has in place policies to include Safeguarding, Diversity & Inclusion and Whistleblowing. The club has a trained Welfare Officer who oversees safeguarding in the venue. The Club Rules and all policies are highlighted to new members; displayed on the club noticeboard as well as being available to all on the GATC website. All coaching staff including assistants undertake Criminal Records Bureau checks and are required to maintain relevant Emergency First Aid and Safeguarding Training in line with LTA accreditation.

Welcome

Great Ayton Tennis Club continued to plan and provide a range of activities throughout 2024 to promote the participation in tennis from both the local and broader community. We continue to offer not just opportunities to maintain fitness and provide access to healthy physical activities, but aim to support mental health wellbeing also, with our popular range of social activities.

By providing a programme of coaching for varying abilities, opportunities for social play as well as a chance to play competitively in League Tennis, the club provides for a broad spectrum of players and their needs. This rich and balanced membership is a strength of our club, and it is indebted to the commitment of the many volunteers who invest a significant amount of time, thought and energy to make this possible.

This has been a challenging year on a number of fronts, with our running costs continuing to increase as well as a need to address some significant maintenance activities with the courts and our grounds in general. On a positive, court performance is in a better place than the previous year and further work will continue in this regard. Also after a number of years with the club not having a formal lease in place, this has now been signed by all parties to provide some security for the next 10 years at least - this also brought a large legal bill which is itemised in our accounts summary at the end of this document.

Looking beyond ‘our borders’, an annual visit to Danby Tennis Club is now a much-anticipated event, as well as the well-established summer visit from Marwood Infants School.

And, finally, to conclude the year we issued a survey to understand what was important to members and their views on how the club should move forward. The trustees believe frequent communication with members is essential to ensure they remain informed about what is happening with the club.

Thanks to all the members for their continued support of Great Ayton Tennis Club.

Allan Dixon Chair of Trustees

Membership

For 2024, membership fees increased by around 10% for the various categories offered following an extended period with no increase. The club continued to offer free memberships for our infant category and our two categories of junior membership (under 16’s) were combined to a single price, which represented a slight cost increase for the original younger group and a cost reduction for the original older group.

Overall membership reduced slightly during 2024 although overall membership income remained static for the year. A breakdown of our membership numbers within each category are:-

	2024	2023
Adult	109	123
Family	62	63
Guardian	5	5
Infant	12	6
Junior	21	33
Student	9	7
Honorary	8	9
Total	226	246

Club Tennis and League Teams

From a tennis perspective, Great Ayton continues to offer a range of opportunities for members to take part in our own club social sessions and competitions as well as fielding a number of teams within the Cleveland League against local tennis clubs.

• The Club Championships took place with Finals Day held on a lovely sunny afternoon with Matty Loving and Kev Rowley providing excellent entertainment for the spectators. Kev Rowley taking the honours after a finely fought match. Due to difficulties with players’ prior commitments. The Mixed and Ladies finals were not played.

• The Jacqui Foster Tournament took place in September on a fine day and the Newhouse trophy followed.

• Tuesday and Friday evenings (and during the darker winter months, afternoons) continued to be designated for Club Tennis.

• Saturday morning social play continued, being especially well attended on the first Saturday of the month when Coffee and Croissants were served. Denise Essex also occasionally organised fun Whistle Stop tournaments on these days. We now also prioritise court 5 for juniors to play at this club session to encourage participation

• The well-established Thursday Morning Coffee Group remained popular with on court support from Denise Essex and a few ‘extra curricula’ trips were planned to include an outing to Whitby and further afield to the Edinburgh Fringe in August. The now regular morning at Tennis World at Christmas and a Meal out in December rounded off the year. Special thanks to Denise Essex who continued to inspire and encourage the Thursday Morning Coffee Group aka Rusty Rackets

In 2024 GATC fielded:

• 11 teams in the Cleveland Tennis League

• Men’s A also participated in the National Premier League

• Men’s A participated in the Cleveland Cup

Team	League	Captain	Division	Position
Ladies A	Cleveland League	Miriam Fawcett	Division 1	6
Ladies B		Louise Rayner	Division 1	8
Ladies C		Irene Reah	Division 3	6
Men’s A		Wayne Stephenson	Division 1	2
Men’s B		Kev Rowley	Division 1	6
Men’s C		Martin Press	Division 4	7
Men’s D		David Joy	Division 6	6
Mixed A	Mixed League	Richard Graham	Division 2	1
Mixed B		Craig Sheridan	Division 2	6
Vet’s A	Vets’ League	Jane Bourne	Division 1	split 2024/5
Vet’s B		Craig Sheridan	Division 2	split 2024/5

Particular thanks to all team captains for their selfless management of the squads and to all players who represented the club during the season.

Social Events and Fundraising

Once again the club ensured that our offering to members extends beyond purely providing courts for play. Members of our social committee yet again dedicated their time to plan and manage a number of events providing important opportunities for social interaction for members and friends.

• Quiz nights (February and November) at The Royal Oak continued to be extremely popular with tickets soon selling out and also boosting club funds.

• A Family Day in May brought in a good crowd enjoying a cardio session with Nic Weschenfelder, which proved very popular and a fabulous selection of cakes were donated rounding off the afternoon.

• Strawberries and cream were on the calendar in July which was the perfect companion to the red-hot day!

• The annual BBQ was held in September. Although a little later than usual, it was very well attended.

• Easyfundraising continues to provide welcome extra income throughout the year. In 2024, £232 was raised through this initiative.

Coaching

GATC coaches Mark Barras and Nic Weschenfelder continued to offer sessions for both groups and individuals. Adults

• Take up for Group Adult sessions (beginner and intermediate) remained strong with coaching on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday evenings, floodlights enabling the groups to continue all year round.

• The well attended, popular Saturday morning Cardio group helped to improve fitness and have fun at the same time. Cardio session, mainly to improve fitness, continued on Saturday mornings.

• Coaches also provided 1:1 coaching for Adults & Juniors.

Juniors

• Coaching for junior groups was well supported with several groups each week throughout the year .

• Junior coaching continued on evenings along with Tennis Camps held in the school holidays.

Maintenance

The maintenance team headed up by Sid Blackmore were very busy throughout the year. After focusing on the Club Hut in 2023, the majority of the maintenance in 2024 related to the grounds and courts. An enormous thank you to Sid for the many hours dedicated to the club.

• Deep cleaning of Courts 1,2 and 3 early in the year was successful and improved the ongoing drainage problems. Whereas during the previous year these courts were unplayable from October for a number of months, other than during periods of significant rain 1, 2 & 3 have been used throughout the year. Courts 4 & 5 also benefited from a deep clean to significantly reduce moss caused by overhanging trees and remained more safely playable all year round. A cleaning programme will be carried out annually to all courts to continue to provide improved performance and availability going forward.

• The laurel hedges were significantly cut back to a manageable height and width to enable Eric (the gardener) to maintain them. This was a significant piece of work that should not be required to repeat for many years.

• ● Local Authority permission was obtained for and a particularly problematic sycamore was cut back from overhanging court 5.

• A number of rotten trees have had to be removed as have others which had been blown down in the gales.

• The thermostatic controlled anti frost heating solution has removed the threat of frozen pipes etc.

• By request, additional solar lighting has been installed from the car park to the club house.

Community Links

Great Ayton continues to link with the wider community.

• The annual visit from Marwood infants school took place in the summer organised by Sara Papworth.

• An away day to Danby Tennis Club in September. This included social play followed by breakfast in The Fox and Hounds. Thanks to Denise and Barbara for helping.

Treasurers Accounts Summary & Report

Treasurer’s Report for 2024

The Club started the year with over £35,000 which, as in the previous year, was an increase of the order of £7,000.

The main source of income continues to come from subscriptions which after paying ClubSpark fees amounted to £15,126.64.

Income from the lights and from coaching was lower than in 2023 which may have been due to bad weather limiting evening coaching.

The social committee and members continued to work hard and raised £1,693.17. A significant contribution to Club funds.

During the year there were “one off” expenses such as buying the ball machine, heaters for the hut and solicitor’s fees for the lease.

There were also payments which will re-occur every few years and need to be saved for. Such payments include hedge cutting, tree trimming and deep cleaning of the courts, which this year came to over £9,000.

Because of these payments we ended the year with expenditure exceeding income by £1,012.23, although this was reduced to £665.56 when the savings account interest of £346.67 is taken into consideration.

The Club ended the year with a total of £34,579.73.

Barry Adamski (Treasurer)