We are continuing with our plans to reopen the club on Monday 18th May.

Per the Tennis Ireland guidelines, we have repurposed our facilities sub-committee to be our Covid committee and we agreed their recommendations at a specially convened committee meeting last evening. They have developed a poster which will be prominently displayed in the club and is attached below.

As we said in our last communication, the precautions we are taking for all our safety can be grouped under three headings. Today we want to give you more detail about each.

1. Social Distancing

The major provisions we are making are as follows:

A) Only singles can be played unless 4 players from the same house wish to play doubles. We are staggering start times on the top 3 and bottom 3 courts. Games on the bottom 3 courts will start on the hour, and games on the top three courts will start on the half hour.

B) Games will last 55 minutes – allowing 5 minutes for change over. Please carefully monitor your time and please stop playing at 55 minutes – in order to facilitate a timely changeover. Members are asked to stay in their cars or at least 2 meters away from other members until courts are clear – when courts are clear incoming players can go on court maintaining a two meter distance with other players.

C) Arrows will be places near nets to remind players to swap on opposite sides of the court during changeovers – and no handshaking, etc., at the end of games

D) We have been reminded by Tennis Ireland to re-enforce the message that members outside of a 5 Km radius must stay away for now.

2. Good Hand Hygiene

A) Hand sanitizers are being installed at the entrance to the court area. Near gates between courts 1&2, Court 3, beside steps to court 4 and by entrance to court 6. Hand sanitizers will also be on either side of the entrance to the club house

B) Please use hand sanitizer before and after each game – and please remember to bring your own hand sanitizer

C) Each player must bring their own clearly marked tennis balls and serve with those balls. The club will be selling Tennis balls – please email us for details

D) The clubhouse will be closed for any and all purposes. Bins and seats will be taped off – and no water will be available – please bring your own.

PLEASE NOTE: We are working with The Clonakilty Distillery company who are providing us with sanitizer! Product information sheet will be available to anyone that needs to see them prior to using.

3. Contact Tracing

A) Everyone using the club facilities during this period must be a member of the club. For those who have not paid subscriptions as yet, please do so asap. We have not sent out reminders to date given that many may have undergone a change in employment status. If, as a result, any member has difficulties in paying subscriptions, please let a member of the committee know in full confidence – and we will assist in whatever way we can.

B) We must be able to maintain an accurate account of all members that have used the courts. Should there be any member that has to self-isolate, we need to be able to support that member in helping trace who in the club will have played with or near them.

C) We are working with Club 365 in order to ensure that all players names need to be entered before a court can be booked. Again, please have some form of contact detail (preferably phone and email) on your court manager profile. The specific requirements we have for Club 365 are not as yet ready – hence we have been unable to open bookings. We apologise sincerely for this – but with varying requirements from each club that use the system Club Manager are working around the clock to get our system optimized.

We will be blocking off certain times for more vulnerable members – we will advise on what those hours will be. But please remember if you do not have a court booked – please do not show up to the club.

We are working with club manager to insert the necessary changes to our instance of the court booking system – and will release the courts when the system is ready.

Our junior committee is developing some additional communication for families and junior members, so please keep an eye out for those.

We want to thank Vladimir, Danguole and Mick who have been working to help prepare the club. (Pictures taken at the club today are attached) Special thanks to Pat and Colette for the work that is being undertaken to help us to get compliant with Tennis Ireland guidelines and finally thanks to ‘Chelly who has been manning the office remotely – and for working with Club 365 and various members of the committee to help communicate these messages to you.

Again, we are hugely looking forward to welcoming everyone back. Please bear with us as we bed in these changes. They are for the benefit and safety of us all

DLTC