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Important President’s Message regarding
Fall Combo League and Fall Mixed Doubles League Seasons
To All Potential League Captains
Thank you for your strong support of the USTA League program in Montgomery County. Without you, we would not realize the tremendous successes of a 100-team Adult league; 40-team Senior league; 88-team Fall combo and Mixed leagues; 17-team Super Senior leagues; and 19-team Ladies Day league. With such success comes new challenges—meeting the increasing demand for court time and managing the year-round affairs of a small non-profit organization striving to meet its mission: introducing tennis to new and diverse audiences while servicing existing player needs.
To better serve both aspects of the MCTA mission, the Board of Directors has long espoused the view that our organization needs to transition to professional, paid staff in addition to the outstanding volunteer contributions of time and talent from which we benefit. Recently, the Board took an important step in this direction, contracting with Dave Pullen to serve as the first MCTA Executive Director on a full-time basis. We believe that the hiring of full time Executive Director is an important step toward ensuring the high level of customer service and tennis opportunities that we have come to expect in Montgomery County. Of course, it requires a sustained financial commitment from the Board.
At the same time we celebrate this transition to professional staff , we face a daunting challenge in scheduling our Fall season leagues: Wheaton Indoor Tennis Facility closed June 24 for a complete renovation and will not re-open until at least November 8 (and possibly later). Wheaton Indoor has been our mainstay for scheduling indoor matches during our Fall and Winter seasons for many years now. We do not have a firm date when Wheaton will reopen.
Facing this reality, the MCTA Board if Directors has approved a plan to:
(1) reduce Fall season league match time from 2 hours to 90 minutes (to allow for more matches in fixed time slots. This will also open us new time slots because some local clubs can off er us hour and a half time slots beginning at 9:30pm, where they could not give us courts us two hour time slots beginning at 9pm)
(2) to charge court time at the rate of $13 per player per match ($2 less than last Fall’s 2 hour rate)
(3) to play some matches at West Winds in New Market – but only on weekend primetimes (Sat and Sunday-9:30-3:30) and only until Wheaton Indoor re-opens
Many players already know that league programs in Northern Virginia have used the 90-minute match schedule for years with great success. Only a relatively small percentage of matches fail to finish in the allotted time when combined with the “best of two sets with a match tiebreak” format and importantly, where teams respect the 10-minute warm-up limitation.
We are only using West Winds because the number of courts available for matches in Montgomery County has been diminished so dramatically by the closing of Wheaton Indoor. Matches at West Winds will only be scheduled between 9:30-3:30 Saturdays and Sundays. We will make every effort to spread the inconvenience of playing at West Winds evenly across the leagues. Hopefully, each team will only play once at West Winds.
The day that Wheaton reopens, all of West Winds matches will be transferred over to Wheaton.
In fairness to all captains and players organizing or joining a team during our Fall 2007 season, I wanted to give you as much advance notice of these important changes as possible. The Board will re-visit these changes in advance of the Winter season, when our venue options, and associated rental fees, will be clearer.
Sincerely,
Frank C. Hatten
President
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Montgomery County Recognizes MCTA Contributions to Quality of Life
(L-R: Dave Pullen, Executive Director, and Frank Hatten, President, Montgomery County Tennis Association; County Councilmember Phil Andrews; Gabriel Albornoz, Director of Montgomery County Department of Recreation; and Charles Carter, President, Montgomery County Tennis and Education Foundation.)
Montgomery County Tennis Association was honored to receive a formal Proclamation issued jointly by the Montgomery County Council and County Executive Isiah Leggett lauding the Association’s contributions to improved recreational opportunities for county residents. This recognition comes on the heels of MCTA’s selection as national “Community Tennis Association of the Year” as determined by the United States Tennis Association, the national governing body of the sport; and similar recognition by RSI magazine, the official publication of the racquet sports industry.
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More Players....
More Leagues….
More Playing Opportunities...
More Community Action Projects!
How does MCTA do it with no full time staff or office space?Over the last three years, the Montgomery County Tennis Association (MCTA) has doubled the number of USTA league players in Montgomery County, Maryland. In 2004 MCTA added Fall Mixed Doubles to complement its Winter Mixed Doubles program. In 2005, MCTA added Fall and Winter Combo Men’s and Womens’ Doubles leagues for its players. We now provide year round Junior Tennis League Play. MCTA now services over 5000 league players each year. In 2006, MCTA established the Montgomery County Tennis and Education Foundation to provide tennis and education opportunities for youth living in underserved segments of our county. In January 2007, MCTA will introduce a new Ladies Day League that will run during the morning and early afternoon hours from January 1st through March 31st.
How does MCTA service all of these league players and new programs with no full time staff or office space?
Good question!!
Historically MCTA has previously been volunteer run organization and in most ways still is. Over the past two years, we have begun paying stipends to a few individuals who have significant responsibility for the day to day management of MCTA. We have recently contracted with Dave Pullen, the former executive director of USTA/MAS to work for MCTA on a part time basis; this has been a tremendous help. But MCTA is stretched. There are daily issues that need to be dealt with by MCTA that are overloading our present managerial system. There are issues and challenges that arise hourly and require immediate attention and these demands are only increasing as MCTA continues to grow. It is one of my goals as president of MCTA to have the requisite staffing for MCTA players to continue to receive the very best customer service and support in view of the expanding MCTA tennis opportunities!!
It takes many employee hours to advance our new programs, manage Community Tennis projects, and properly follow up, document and promote our projects. The bottom line is that MCTA has become a vital and evolving organization as well as a role model for other CTA’s and a national example of tennis’ phenomenal potential.
In order for MCTA to continue to grow as it has these past three years, MCTA must consider professional staff as other large tennis associations utilize. The Montgomery County players deserve the best service and that is what I, as your President, the Officers, and the Board of Directors intend to provide.
I shall continue to keep you all posted as we move toward these and other exciting goals.
Sincerely;
Frank C. Hatten
President, Montgomery County Tennis Association
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See the 4 minute video presented at the National CTA Conference as MCTA accepted the National CTA of the Year by clicking here
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