"*Cinco de Mayou Tournament* Our Cinco de Mayo tournament is almost filled. This is a mixed doubles mixer on Friday, May 4th from 6:00-8:00 with warm-up at 5:30. You do not need to sign up with a partner. Just go on-line and register under “event” at www.gilroytennisclub.com. Cost is just $10. There is a no-host dinner/karaoke event at Old City Hall right afterwards. Sign up today. *Facility update* Due to an on-going issue occurring after 11:00 PM, the tennis courts will be locked up starting May 1st. They will be opened at 7:30 AM and locked at 11:00 PM. Signs will be posted by the park staff saying whom to call if by chance the courts are still locked when you arrive in the morning. The locking of the courts will continue until November 1st. We know it is not an ideal situation, but we felt we had to do something to stop this behavior because it is a hygiene issue and we take the protecting of all tennis players seriously. Also, please feel free to contact any board member if there is ever anything going on around the courts that make you feel uncomfortable. We have been in touch with the City of Gilroy over a group of young men who have been hanging around the tennis table and bleachers smoking pot, drinking and heckling the players. Smoking of any substance in a public place is illegal according to state law, so the police can ticket the offenders. We don’t intend to go out of our way to call the police on everyone who is smoking in the park. However, if a group decides to start going out of their way to intimidate us, this behavior will not sit well with visiting USTA teams. We have worked very hard to try and make Las Animas a pleasant place to be. Let’s fight to keep it that way!!! *New teams* Registration for “55 and over” and “mixed 18 and over” is happening right now. A big welcome to Paul Nguyen who has registered a mixed 7.0 team. I really want to encourage many of you to think of captaining a team and playing out of the park. The more people we have playing and practicing there, the less chance of other groups moving in. I would love to see a mixed 6.0 and 8.0 team and some 55+ teams at different levels playing for the club at Las Animas. *Another tournament* USTA is going to be running a tournament on Sunday, June 24th from 9:00-1:00 at Las Animas. This is open to 2.5s-4.0s. I am going to send you the link and a flier advertising it, once our Cinco de Mayo tournament is done so no one gets confused. *Tennis Instructor* Parks and Rec have agreed to run tennis lessons for adults in the fall on Saturday mornings if we can get an instructor. Anyone interested or if you know of someone, please let me know. *Drop-in tennis anyone???* The Board is proposing drop-in tennis beginning in June or July for Sunday mornings. We want to start building our membership in the hopes of having more teams or just more people enjoying the game of tennis. If you have any thoughts or ideas about how to increase membership and teams, e-mail us.

"Hello, Everyone! Yes, I know this is April but this letter reflects what was discussed at the March Board meeting. Another newsletter will come out towards the end of April reflecting this month’s discussion. *Cinco de Mayo Tournament* We will be hosting our Cinco de Mayo tournament on Friday, May 4th at Las Animas Park. Cost is $10 per person and you do not need a partner. It will be followed by a “no host” dinner at Old City Hall. We will be seated in the patio area so we can partake in their karaoke while we dine. A flier will be coming out this week with all of the details. Based on last year’s numbers, we only reserved 35 seats for Old City Hall so please e-mail me if you are interested in joining us. *December Club Banquet* For your planning pleasure, please reserve December 8th on your calendars for our Gilroy/Morgan Hill tennis club banquet. Morgan Hill will be sending out the details as we get closer. *Try Team Tennis* At the beginning of March, we had a very successful tennis drill and competition amongst the 2.5 and 3.0 players from the area. Twelve men and women received a lesson from Marcus Hughes and then enjoyed putting what they learned to work. Great job by India Hoffman, USTA rep, who put this all together. India has suggested putting on a club tournament in June for everyone. I gave her two dates that none of our teams had matches being played. More information to follow. *Facility update* We do take seriously all of your suggestions that you give us for court improvements. It just takes a lot of time waiting for city approval since they are the owners of the courts (as they so kindly remind me every now and then.) If there is anyone out there who would like to assist us in getting some of these projects off the ground, please let me know. We welcome the help. *Soccer player update* Ernie Olivares stepped forward to help us deal with the young men who play soccer on our two back courts. We are in the process of trying to find if there is a contact person amongst them who the city could contact about a possible lit soccer field they could use. However, whenever we go out there, they are not present. I have high hopes that with nighttime matches starting, we will run into them and hopefully get this problem solved. *Locking of facility* Unfortunately, we have had to ask that our courts be locked up at night because of some problems that have been occurring. The city’s security team will lock them at night and the city will unlock them in the morning. The courts are supposed to be open by 7:30. Only five gates will now be open instead of the eight that we currently have. The locking of the courts will continue until November 1st. We are not happy about this new procedure because we know that this may become an inconvenience to you if you arrive on a weekend and find that the city has not opened the gates in time. To solve this problem if it should occur, two of the gates will have lock boxes so you can open those two gates to gain access to the courts. A more detailed message will be sent out once the gates have begun being locked. Please feel free to e-mail me your thoughts once this new system is put in place. *Captain membership and team fees* Some of you have asked if captains can automatically receive a free club membership due to all of the work that goes with captaining. We agree that captaining is not an easy job. However, if we were to do that, what incentive would the captain have to get his team players to join the club? Some of you have requested that team fees be suspended because they are so hard to collect or to have the Board collect them for you. After a discussion, the Board voted unanimously that the captain’s award will stay in place and the captain will continue to pay the team fee upfront and be reimbursed by the team. It is your dues and team fees that allow us to make the court improvements that we do. The Board also unanimously agreed to keep dues at $50 per person. (Pretty sweet deal considering what some of you are paying elsewhere.) That’s it for now. Good luck with your “18 and over” season. -Carol Marquest, Club President

"The “18 and over” registration is closing on March 5th. There is still time for you to get a group of people together and form a team out of Las Animas Park. So far we have Judy McBrearty’s 3.5 ladies, Lisa Cabassa’s 4.0 ladies, John Carroll’s 3.5 men’s and Nick Cabassa’s 4.0 men’s. There is plenty of room on our courts to accommodate more captains. We are sponsoring another Try Team Tennis for 2.5s and 3.0s on March 10th from 9:00-12:00. India Hoffman from USTA puts together a fun morning with Marcus Hughes teaching a brief lesson followed by a fun tournament with trophies. Snacks and lunch are provided. All of this for a mere $10. Click on the following link if you are interested in participating: REGISTER AT: http://www..ustanorcal.com/register ENTER KEY WORD: 1318 CLICK: Search now A couple of weeks ago, I (Carol) met with Girum Awoke who is the Public Works director in Gilroy. We walked around the courts looking at the fence. He and I both agreed that we do not need a brand new fence but it does need some repairs. He seemed to think that the City could straighten the south side of the fence (which was damaged from last winter’s storms), replace the gate panel on the north side of court one, fix the space at the bottom of the fence between courts 2-4 to prevent balls from rolling out (so we can remove our make shift fix of using garden hose) and new vented windscreens where needed. We also discussed locking our courts at night because of problems with the homeless and hygiene. If and when that happens, I will give you the particulars on how that will work. Lastly, Gabe Gonzalez, the City Manager of Gilroy, attended our last Board Meeting and has asked us to come up with a list of tennis/park improvements that we would like in a master plan. If you have any ideas, please e-mail me (Carol) back so I can add them to our list.

"Happy New Year to all!!!! Save all of your captains a lot of trouble and renew your membership online or mail it in to GTC, PO Box 2741, Gilroy, 95020. I have heard from many of you that you are experiencing problems logging in to renew. Please contact Edward Taylor (address on our home page) and get it fixed because we are moving more and more towards having everything done on-line. *Credit card renewal* Many of you have said you could not use a credit card to renew. Yes, you can. When you get to the renewal page, you will see Paypal front and center but right below it are the different types of credit cards you can use. Click on the credit card you want and another screen will come up for you to make your payment. If you are still experiencing problems, Edward is the man to contact. We have just started 40+ and 55 mixed and guess what-- 18 and over registration begins February 5th and ends March 5th with the season starting on April 2nd. Start contacting people to form a team. Team fee is $150 for the five courts. We look forward to hosting many teams this season at our courts. *Play-off bound* Congratulations to the following combo teams who are playing in the second round of play-offs: Laura Hill (playing Friday night the 19th at Los Nogales at 6:30), Carol Marques (playing at Ramsay at 2:00 on the 20th) and Kevin Turner (playing on the 21st at Las Animas at noon). The winners of these matches will proceed to Districts. Paula Dennery’s mixed 40’s team will be playing at Imperial at the end of the month in her first round of play—offs. Good luck to all. *Upcoming projects at Las Animas* This year we will be resurfacing all of the courts in August and replacing damaged windscreens after the new fence is installed. Our board has been working hard to improve court conditions at Las Animas and it is finally paying off. If you should ever encounter a problem on the courts, please do not hesitate to email me. *Dates to put on the calendar* At the last Board meeting, we planned this year’s events. Please mark these dates down: May 4th, Cinco de Mayo tournament and dinner October 26th Halloween tennis tournament Sometime in August or September, we are bringing back the chili cook-off at Sarah’s Vineyard and we would like to plan some sort of wine tasting event. Details will be forthcoming over the next few months as plans get finalized. Everyone seemed pleased over the joint banquet so our host this year will be Morgan Hill. As soon as they get a date, I will let you know.

"**Officers for 2018** President: Carol Marques Vice president: Kim Weber Secretary: Paula Dennery Treasurer: Tim Wrye Membership: Debbie Baker Webmaster: Edward Taylor Court Scheduler: Ruth Irving Website Designer: Ashlee Brinan Directors: Mike Hansen and Paul Wheeler Please feel free to contact any one of us if you have a question or concern. **Gilroy/Morgan Hill Banquet** What a wonderful event if I do say so myself!!! One hundred people were in attendance and by the noise level in the room, I would say everyone was having a great time. Old City Hall outdid themselves with the food, service and happy hour drinks. Chaz, the DJ, was able to fill the dance floor with dancers which some of our DJs have not been able to do. It was very nice having members from both clubs come together for an evening. People kept saying that this was the only way to go. A big thank you to Ruth who organized the silent auction and raffle. She spent a lot of time organizing it and all her efforts paid off by the amount we made. We were stunned by the number of silent auction items and raffle items people donated that night. The proceeds from these two money makers were split between the two clubs after all bills were paid. For Gilroy, it meant we ended our year in the black. Always a good thing!!! **Gilroy Tennis Club banner** You will soon see our new tennis club banner, designed by Ruth, right next to the USTA banners that we recently hung facing the parking lot at Las Animas Park. Hopefully, this banner will spark new interest in our club and we will see new faces on the courts. **New League** There is a brand new USTA league starting in January and running through March. It is for 18-39 year olds (ahhh to be that young again) and consists of three lines: one men’s doubles, one women’s doubles and one mixed doubles. The teams can either be 5.5, 7.5 or 9.5. Paul Nguyen is captaining the 7.5 team out of Las Animas, so if you know of anyone that would like to play that fits the age category either contact Paul or me and I will pass the info on. **Court update** On Friday, November 17th, the City maintenance supervisor, electrician and Marco Renello will be re-positioning the tennis lights because we have had some concerns about shadows on the courts. Hopefully, this solves the problem. I would like to give a big thank you to Jim and Wendy Spohr and my husband who fixed all the fences so the balls will not be rolling out any longer. If you see an area that needs adjusting, please let me know. I hope you have noticed cleaner courts because we have been in constant contact with the City to keep telling Brightview to pick up the garbage around the courts and bleacher areas. We can also do our part by making sure when we leave that all of our garbage, balls, cans and lids are picked up. If you notice any court concerns, please drop me an email. We have joined with Gilroy Little League to help make Gilroy parks safer for families and participants at all the local parks. We will be meeting in a couple of weeks with the drug task force sergeant to discuss what can be done. It might seem like things are moving slowly but we do listen to your concerns. At our January meeting, we will be planning out our events for 2018. If there is a certain event you would like us to pursue, please let us know. Morgan Hill will be hosting next year’s banquet so we can put our feet up and enjoy the ride.

"It Is time for our Annual Banquet. We are shaking things up this year by combining the GTC and MHTC banquets into one Big Gala.

The Banquet will be held on Saturday, November 11, 2017 at the Old City Hall On Monterey Street in Gilroy. The party will run from 6:00-10:00. The cost for this event is a mere $30.00 per person, and for that you will receive:

• Appetizers
• Your choice of four different meals
• A DJ for your listening and dancing pleasure
• A “no host” bar with Happy Hour prices

"**Winetoberfest** What a great success!!! A beautiful evening, great music, food and plenty of wine. Eighty-two people came together to mingle and dance. **Gilroy/Morgan Hill Banquet** Looking forward to our next event which will be on Saturday, November 11th at Old City Hall from 6:00-10:00. You will have appetizers, a choice of four different meals, and a DJ—all for the extremely low price of $30. There is a “no host” bar upstairs at “Happy Hour” prices for your drinking pleasure. A flier will come out the first week of October giving all the details. **Silent Auction and Raffle prizes** At the banquet, we would like to have a silent auction and raffle with the proceeds being split equally between the two clubs after all of the bills have been paid. Please contact Carol Marques if you are willing to donate a service or item to this by return e-mail. Please include a phone number so Carol knows how to contact you. **Try Team Tennis** We are hosting another “Try Team Tennis” due to our great successes with these events on Saturday, November 4th from 8:30-noon. Here is the link if you are interested in participating: https://www.ustanorcal.com/register/views/product.asp?id=1282 This event is for 2.5 and 3.0 players. **Facility Update** Court 3 has been repaired and Saviano did a very nice job. When we re-finish all of the courts next August, it will look uniform like all of the others. Lights—For all of you who have used the courts recently, everyone seems pleased with the new lights. However (and there always seems to be one of those), the company wired the courts incorrectly. If you want court 2 to be lit, you need to push court 1’s button and visa-versa. The city has been contacted to have this corrected so the ball is in their court. (Figuratively speaking, that is.) **Opening on Tennis Board** There is a vacancy on the tennis board for a vice-president. You can learn more about the duties assigned to this job. Although they might seem daunting, you would have help. The biggest thing would be to attend the monthly meetings. This past year, there was only one tournament and next year we would like to try for two so you really don’t have that much to do. If anyone is interested in taking a more active role in our club, please contact Carol Marques.