It is great to be able to report that we have 90 players for the 2014 spring season. There are 5 new players and after a break of around 10 years Chis ANDREWS has come back to give it another go. There will be 60 players competing on Wednesday nights and 30 on the Thursday night. Unfortunately we could not split the players more evenly between the two nights due to the fact that not counting the 14 highest and lowest ranked players 30 out of the 32 remaining positions are filled by people who could only play on Wednesday nights.
With 60 players on Wednesday nights things are going to be very busy so teams will need to be organised and have the players for the next game on a table ready to go and keep the warm ups between games to the 2 minute limit. With 11 games to be played on some tables if teams take 5 minutes between matches this could add an extra 50 minutes to the night. Division 1 and 3 will consist of 3 person teams and they will be allocated 1 table each. Division 4 will have 4 person teams who will each have 1 table and have the exclusive use of the 2 spare tables. With division 4 they have a total of 9 games to be played on each of their 5 tables so hopefully they will be able to finish early enough to allow the other divisions to use those tables at the end of the night.
Thursday nights with 30 players has the 5 person team set up so we suggest that teams use 3 tables for the first round of singles and they should then be able to slow things down and stick to using 2 tables for a finish around 10pm.
We again ask teams to consider the circumstances of their junior players and organise for them to be amongst the first players finished for the night.
The division coordinators will be
Division 1 & 3 Marcel STORKEN Ph 0417 870 181
Division 4 John MUNRO Ph 0403048272
Division 2 Alvan WHITE Ph 8326 1214
Please make sure you record the details for your division coordinator and let them know when you are not available. If anybody from division 3 would like to be the coordinator for that division please let me know asap.
With the number of new players and the fact that we are unsure of just how good some of them are we will be reviewing the teams after 2 weeks and may make some minor changes if that is necessary to keep the strength of the teams balanced.
Remember fees are due in the first week of competition and if you have not paid by the second round a $5 per week fee will apply. If you decide to pay online please forward a receipt of payment via email to stta2@southerntabletennis.org.au.
The banking details are - BSB: 805022, A/c No: 02204430, A/c Name: Southern Table Tennis Association Inc.
We hope you all have a fun and successful Spring Season.
Marcel STORKEN
On behalf of the Competition Committee.