At this year's finals day two special awards were made to members. Len May, the current club president, was presented with the Ace Service Award for outstanding service to the club over many years. Dudley Patience was voted the most improved junior player of the year by the club coaches. Chairman Peter Colton congratulated both members on their achievements.

The weather held fine on September 19th for an excellent finals day with many good matches for the watching crowd to savour. Along with the tennis and sunshine spectators were also able to enjoy good refreshments prepared by tournament organiser Susan Bates. Full results as follows:

At this year’s AGM Joan May , on the left in the photograph, stepped down from the management committee after more than 30 years and, in recognition of her great contribution to the club, she was presented with a bouquet by club secretary Jennie Colton, who has served on the committee for 25 years herself. For the past seven years Joan has been club treasurer and before that at different times has held the position of ladies captain, club secretary and membership secretary.

Fortunately for the club her enthusiasm for the game is undimmed and she continues to play league, county veterans and social tennis as much as ever.

Professional tennis coaches from Cheddar Tennis Club visited Axbridge First School recently and, according to Head Teacher Gillian Briggs, the pupils were inspired by what they saw.  The two coaches put on a demonstration of tennis skills in the school hall in front of the whole school and then invited youngsters to join in.  Afterwards the children were given the opportunity to enrol in coaching sessions at the tennis club where the coaches run courses throughout the year for everyone from four years upwards.

The men celebrated in raucous style at the White Hart in Cheddar. An excellent three course meal was followed by karaoke and, almost inevitably, first up to the mike was Tim Shaban singing the Hendrix classic Hey Joe. He was followed by men's captain Arthur Brown, performing A Hard Day's night Peter Sellars style. The real star though was the landlady's daughter, eleven year old Haley, who performed a number of songs with great feeling and was later joined by her mum Tracey.

The ladies' Christmas do was altogether more civilised, though probably just as noisy. They chose The Rodney Stoke in ... Rodney Stoke, as last year, where the food is first class and the prices a little higher.

Cheddar Tennis Club has become the first tennis club in the West Country to be awarded Clubmark accreditation. The scheme was introduced by Sport England in 2002 and adopted by the LTA in 2007.

It is a national, quality accreditation for clubs across all sports and its aim is to demonstrate to anyone thinking of joining a club, or looking for a club for their children, that the club is well run and has best practices in place for recruiting volunteers, child protection, junior coaching programmes and health and safety.

“I congratulate Cheddar on this award,” said Roger Draper, chief executive of the LTA.
“Tennis Clubmark is the LTA's sign of a quality tennis club.”

After a delicious supper some of the more musical members provided excellent entertainment, followed by a disco for the rest of the evening. A good time was had by all.