Social Events

2011 Christmas Dinner

The 2011 Christmas Dinner for Tennis Seniors ACT was held on Friday 9 December at University House.   57 members, partners and friends attended. It was good to see the mixture of our older and younger members enjoying the company, food and drink. A special thank you to Julie Howe for her organisation of the dinner.

After a delightful main meal, our President, Pat Moloney ran though the year's events and achievements.  He thanked Ian Warden for his contributions to Vetset as well as its editor, John Greenup.  He highlighted the successes with the ACT winning the Australian Teams Trophy for the first time at the Australian Teams Championships in Newcastle in January as the highlight of the year.  Pat made special mention of the selection of Ros Balodis and Narelle Raftery in the Australian teams for the 2012 World Senior Championships in San Diego and Colin Holgate as a reserve.  He took the opportunity to present Ros and Narelle with cheques to assist with their expenses (picture left). Narelle and Tim Harris were also recognised in the Tennis ACT 2012 awards.

Pat outlined the reasons for the early withdrawal of Canberra as the venue for the 2013 Australian Teams Championships and thanked John Stark, as tournament director and the others who had already put their names forward to assist.  Unfortunately the delayed reconstruction of the Lyneham Tennis Centre would not be completed in time. 

Pat made mention of the new ladies ACT uniform which will be first seen in Perth.  He then thanked all the members of the Tennis Seniors committee over the past year.  Unfortunately one of the newer members, Peter Boyle, has recently moved to Western Australia and so relinquished his position on the committee but we have been fortunate enough to have Leonie Ainsworth take up that committee position. 

Pat then announced the winners of the 2011 Frank Thornton Player of the Year and the 2011 George Henshilwood Award.  Congratulations to Narelle Raftery and Mary Gormly respectively - click here for more on that story.

There were also several door prizes drawn.  The winners were Frank Marris (took a while to decide on a wine - picture left), Juris Balodis  and Janice Marris (not to be out done by their spouses), Gail Jones, John Greenup and Graham Smith (showing there is no bias towards the committee), Shirley Thornton (one up on Bob again), Jan Joyner and Rochelle Hogan.

80th Birthday/Christmas in July Lunch

A small group of 18 people came together on Sunday 3 July at the Southern Cross Club Wests to celebrate Neil Hendy's 80th birthday as well as Christmas in July.  Neil does not turn 80 til October but this did not deter the group from wishing him well before Marion and Neil headed to Queensland for the winter that afternoon..  Chris Norwood outlined Neil's tennis achievements both on and off the court beginning as a social player at the Ainslie Tennis Club in 1976.  He also became involved with the Umpires Branch.  Neil felt he had to respond to put the right spin on things.  After the cake was cut the group remained chatting til well into the afternoon.  For more pictures of the dinner,  click here.