STONEHOUSE TENNIS CLUB: Summer Fête 2015

A MESSAGE FROM OUR CHAIRMAN

" Sometimes The Gods can be kind.

Had the date of our summer fete slipped by just twenty-four hours, the whole event would have been a drizzly, windy wash-out. As it was, your club with those stunning views at the end of the road basked in warm sunshine and a light breeze. Thanks to a lot of generous people, we bettered the day to the tune of twelve hundred pounds profit after expenses. Which, as the man said, ain’t hay.

None of which, of course, happened by accident. Though the sunshine helped, our annual summer fete was eased on its way by dozens of willing volunteers : stalls littered both lawns, pergolas do whatever it is pergolas do, and long trestle tables creaked and groaned beneath an unusual weight of pizzas and pasties [thanks Carol and Royston], cream teas and sticky cakes, strawberries and cream: at least one overweight seagull had trouble taking off. Serves it right.

The seagulls remain but the cakes and the stalls are gone now. What is left is a kaleidoscopic memory of happy faces and friendly strangers; of small children on big toys, of stalls run for nothing but giving plenty; of frenzied, tipsy-turvy horse-racing that left everyone a winner, of friendship and laughter and short tennis and long tennis and raffles and story-tents and tombola and bric-a-brac and things paid for and change declined and...well... a lot of the good things that make Stonehouse such a special place to live. So time perhaps, to call the roll and thank some of those who made our summer fete 2015 such a success. And helped put that £ 1,200 in club coffers.

Our thanks to:-

Yo Wood and St. Paul’s church for the generous loan of tables; Pierre’s and River Cottage at RWY – for generous prize donations; Roo and Flo Bell and Dr.Olivia Mantoura for their swift and gentle support of our three small road traffic casualties when their mother’s car came to an involuntary halt outside the club; Maggs’ Angels: Maggs Bell - Celia, Amanda, L, Amanda P-J, Eila Godhahn, Wendy Rees and Rose Harman: For teas and cakes and endless washing up and smiling all the while; Jean Woolridge: For nifty cut-price footwork; Paul and Amanda Lettington for generous help and loan of a gazebo; Sue Harley and Rose Smale for Tombola help; Hilarie Medler, who spun stories of magic on the lower lawn; Roo Bell for the Pirates’ Treasure Hunt - and lots of sweeties. Arrrrgh ! Harry V for the prize-winning (for some !) Tombola; Richard Crocker for wall-to-wall hilarity and tumbling odds on the steeplechase; Maggs Bell (again!) and Sue Chaney, our bake-off judges; ( Sue also baked 100 scones ! ) Chicken-chucker Nicholas Dvorznikovski and and Barry Edmunds, Ron Smith, Mark O’Loughlin, John Harman and finally – to you ! For reading this far.

Thanks everyone including a special thank you to Margy for putting up with me and doing more than her share on the bric-a-brac !"

Tom Keene Chairman, SLTC