Lichfield Squash Club News - Plans for 2025

Dear Members and Friends

As we approach the end of 2024, we can reflect on a fantastic further year of growth at the Club.

Rather than provide the usual summary of the Club’s latest news stories in this edition of the newsletter, I thought it would be more useful to look ahead to 2025. We have a lot planned to further grow the club and develop squash in the Lichfield area, so I have set out those plans below.

If you want to see the latest news stories though, you can easily do this by accessing the news page on our website, which contains links to all the latest stories posted to our Facebook page. See here: https://www.lichfieldsquashclub.co.uk/news/

Here are our exciting plans for 2025:

Junior Squash Programmes

Having successfully delivered 2 Squash Stars programmes over the past year, we will once again offer a further 6 week programme for primary school age children, starting Saturday 1st March 2024. We have set up the sessions on the England Squash Clubspark platform, where parents/carers can now book spaces. Here is the link to our next Squash Stars Programme: https://www.squashstars.co.uk/Play/LichfieldSquashClub/Course/2eb799b0-2c3a-4608-9634-b016ab897eb6

In addition, we have now set up a thriving Junior Squash Academy on Saturday mornings for secondary school age children, and this is set to continue, resuming on Saturday 18th January at 10:00am.

Adult Squash Opportunities

Our successful Club Nights for Beginner/Improvers will continue every Tuesday, from 7.00pm to 8.50pm. These have proved an ideal way of introducing new members to the Club and first attendance is always provided free of charge. Members can book their places using the Events section of MyCourts.

In addition, we plan to offer a ‘Skills and Drills’ session on a Thursday, from 7pm to 7.55pm, suitable for players of all levels. These will offer some structured coaching, followed by group game play. Further details will be announced in the New Year.

We are also planning to hold a further free to attend Open Evening to attract new players to the club. This will offer introductions to both Squash and Racketball (see more about Racketball below) and will take place on Thursday 23rd January from 7.00pm to 8.50pm.

We will also be looking to organise our first ever Club Closed Championships , probably around June time. This will offer categories suitable for all standards of play. We will then look to source and install a Club Honours Board at the courts. Look out for your opportunity to potentially have your name inscribed on this Honours Board!

Of course, our popular Club Leagues will continue and will hopefully grow further. If you are interested in joining the Leagues, please get in touch.

Coaching Development

We have steadily built the Coaching Team within the Club and now benefit from 1 England Squash Level 2 Coach and 4 Level 1 Coaches. This has been fundamental to being able to offer all of the opportunities mentioned above. We are still keen to further develop the coaching capacity within the Club, so if you are interested in trying your hand at coaching, get in touch and we can discuss the pathways available, which could include the Club funding the costs involved.

Racketball/Squash57

We are keen to promote Racketball , also known as Squash57 , at the Club. This uses shorter rackets with a larger face and a larger, bouncier ball (57mm, hence the alternative name). Racketball is a great variant of squash, as it a bit easier to pick up for beginners and is less strenuous on the body due to the bouncier ball. It also offers longer rallies than squash as a result.

As mentioned above, we will be offering a free introductory session at the next Open Evening on Thursday 23rd January. We will look to potentially setting up a Racketball League for those who want to play more regularly.

Courts and Facilities

We are continuing to engage with the school about improving the courts and general facilities . The school has recently reinstated 4 of the shower heads in the male changing rooms and is looking at options to repair the showers in the female changing rooms. We are also hoping to offer extended opening hours with the addition of an earlier 4.15pm court in the daytime and perhaps Sunday opening at some stage in the future.

Using the Right Ball Campaign

Squash balls are available in various shapes and sizes, with larger and bouncier balls available for beginners/improvers, through to the standard yellow dot and double yellow dot balls. We are keen to see players using the ‘ right ball ’ appropriate to their playing level and the court conditions. We will therefore soon be launching an information campaign early in the New Year to raise awareness of the different ball types an to encourage the use of the most appropriate ball. Look out for this on our website, social media and on posters around the club. We will also undertake a consultation exercise.

Staffordshire County Squash Development

We plan to work with the Staffordshire County Association to help expand the opportunities on offer.

At present, there is a County Teams League , which we enter in partnership with our friends at Burntwood, but if would be nice to return to entering a Lichfield team in our own right. Please get in touch if you are interested in Team Squash.

There is also an annual County Junior Closed competition and we hope some of our Juniors may enter the 2025 competition.

In addition, we are hoping to encourage the County Association to organise some further competitions for the adults, such as a County Closed competition and Graded Open . Hopefully, these things will happen during 2025.

That brings you fully up to speed with the Club’s exciting plans for 2025 and we hope that there is something amongst these plans that interests you. 2025 is set to be another busy year, which will hopefully further grow and develop the game in Lichfield.

It just remains for me to wish you a very Happy Christmas and New Year.

Don’t forget that the Sports Centre closes from Saturday 21st December, reopening on Monday 6th January.

Cheers

James Roberts

Club Chairman