President - Larry Barclay

• The meeting was called to order at 1:38 with all present at Peacock Plaza except for Amy who joined on zoom. Cookies and zucchini brownies by Terry got raves. Noted per club bylaws 3 of the 9 directors rotate off the Board each year after their 3 year term expires.

Vice President - Al Peters

• No report

Secretary - Barbara Landberg  

minutes from Dec.2021 were written by Joyce and accepted.

• No report

Treasurer - Ken Steiner

• Ken reported that the year ended with $8169 in the club's checking account. There was more revenue from dues and fewer  expenses in 2021. For  2022, we currently have received approximately $7500 from membership dues, $2100 from ball machine memberships and $5400 from regular memberships.

Tournaments - Chris Slee

• Chris reported that The Wildcard Tournament will be Feb. 5th and all other tournaments will be on the website and posted in the directory.

Social - David Hickey

• Due to Covid the Valentine's Party is on hold. We have to wait for GRF to make decisions on reopening facilities currently closed through Jan. 31, 2022. When we have the party, we will need volunteers.

Membership - Terry Quinlan

• We have 188 paid members and 62 are ball machine users. There are 10 new members. 40 past members have not responded.  260 people signed up to play tennis in early January which is about 42 per day.

Publicity - Amy Bollinger

• Diablo Magazine may be doing an article on Tennis and Pickleball in the East Bay and they want to include an article on tennis at Rossmoor.

• No Report

Old Business

•  Approved job descriptions ready for website posting.
•  Approved revised annual dues & club membership forms ready for printing & posting on website.
• New sign-in signs in place at Buckeye. Important to remind people to sign in.
• Some felt there were too many signs and/or that they needed to be moved so people would notice them. 

New Business

Dave Blanchard, chair of the CPBTC filed the following committee report:

Activities of the Committee for the Preservation of the Buckeye Tennis Courts 20 December 2021

At the 15 November 2021 General Membership Meeting a discussion ensued regarding the decision of the GRF Planning Committee to keep the option turning two Buckeye tennis courts into Pickleball courts on its list of options.

In December 2020 the GRF Board of Directors seemed to eliminate that court conversion by funding an option to use only the Creekside location for Pickleball.

Due to Creekside cost overrun projections the GRF planning committee funded a contractor to study possible Pickleball locations once again. One of the options that the contractor produced was the conversion of two Buckeye courts. So clearly the Buckeye Courts were again in jeopardy.

During the Tennis Club’s meeting Pam Maloney told membership that she had prepared a Petition paper that could be signed by tennis players to show their opposition to court conversion. The board asked Pam to distribute the Petition to members and to put a copy at the tennis kiosk to collect signatures, which she has done.

It was also proposed at the meeting, and approved, that a committee be formed to develop a comprehensive plan for the preservation of the Buckeye tennis courts. Club President Larry Barclay asked club members Carol Pilsbury, Linda Hague, Pam Maloney, Dave Blanchard and Bob Benz to serve on the committee.

The RTC Board feels the committee might consider a two pronged approach:

Continue to look for and propose or re-propose sites for a stand alone pickleball facility. This also may require GRF to definitively state why a site is not acceptable. It might also renew interest in a site that had previously been rejected.
Develop a planned program for the defense of converting tennis courts to pickleball.

The committee held its first meeting on 30 November augmented by volunteers Bill Leary and Bernie Wolfe. Many strategies and options were discussed. It was decided that near-term focus should be on the 7 December 2021 GRF Planning Committee meeting where we could each present three minute arguments during the Resident’s Forum at the beginning of the meeting. It was recalled that that strategy greatly influenced the Planning Committee and the GRF Board.

A novel concept, proposed by Bob Benz, suggested that if a final decision proposing Buckeye Conversion came about, we should request that it be done on a several month trial basis. The trial would probably show the bad results of having Tennis and Pickleball together at the Buckeye location.

Since the CPBTC club members again presented our arguments at the 7 December Planning committee and the next GRF Board meeting. At these meetings the boards were discussed a new option that seemed to be favored: adding one additional court at Creekside and scheduling more Pickleball in the Tice Creek Fitness center. The Rossmoor News also indicated that that option might be selected.

Having received that news the CPBTC chairman, Blanchard, has not called another meeting. The committee will monitor the discussions of the January GRF Planning Committee and be prepared to address the January GRF Board meeting if discussions seem to be keeping Conversion alive.

In the meanwhile Pam Maloney is continuing to collect signature at the Buckeye courts Kiosk. Currently we have about 80 signatures opposing conversion roughly half of whom are also Pickleball club members.

The CPBTC welcomes ideas and direction from the Tennis Club board of directors and club members.

Meeting adjourned at 2:38 PM.