Westend Community Tennis Inc is the brainchild of Ian Purdon. PHOTO/FILE
YOU dig tennis but the household budget is a tad tight to allow anyone to join a club?
Well, don't fret.
Hawke's Bay tennis stalwart Ian Purdon is on a renaissance of sorts with the Westend Community Tennis Inc at Ebbett Park, Hastings, where families can play at a cost of "next to nothing".
"I'm hoping it's so cheap that people will register," says Purdon with the launching of the $30 a year a family initiative today at 1.30pm on the all-weather three-court facility.
Ideally, he is hoping at least one member of the family will catch the bug enough to register at $70 a year as an adult or $40 as a child although that also will entitle the rest of the family to play.
"We don't want the cost to be a barrier to the family playing on the courts," he says, believing the $200 a year an adult or $350 a family membership at Bay tennis clubs is a deterrent.
"We want adults to play, too, so they can be healthy in Hawke's Bay's fantastic weather where we can play all year round."
It's the brainchild of Purdon, in its infancy in 2008 but becoming more defined last year when he approached veteran Westend member Shirley Wilson, of Hastings, who he initially met briefly six years ago. Wilson became the go-between with Westend club affiliates and that got the ball rolling.
The concept of juniors and seniors also goes against the grain of the Westend philosophy.
"Greendale club has regional junior/senior sections that never merge.
"We have no segregation so we should have better quality players and, in that way, the passion is not killed," says the former Greendale member, finding merit in rural New Zealand where fewer numbers mean children have to mingle with adults and, consequently, evolve into better players.
"We have about 100,000 people in the New Zealand countryside playing tennis but don't belong to clubs but that's hard to do in the cities."
With a "simple wooden building" and asphalt courts, Westend has lower overhead costs.
With no electricity at the clubrooms, he approached the nearby Choices Gym at Stortford Lodge for the use of its facilities for meetings.
"They were so enthusiastic it wasn't funny because they have the same attitude as us to lower costs," he said of the Ngati Kahungunu-run gym that also is geeing up support to entice people off sofas and bean bags.
"We want to extend that relationship with them as we're on the same wavelength."
The former Hastings and Hawera (Taranaki) clubs president, who has been "agitating for tennis for seven years", stresses Westend is affiliated to Tennis Waikato Bays and Tennis New Zealand despite a failed experiment to push Hawke's Bay under the umbrella of the former to avoid extinction.
Westend has made a conscious effort to omit using the word "club" because of its "exclusivist connotations".
Purdon will offer free beginners coaching lessons to juniors and adults mid-week but also an organised practice on Sunday mornings.
"I'll be holding a Sponge Bob Tournament with a 21-point game like volleyball probably before Christmas and after," he says, revealing oversized 90mm diameter balls will be used because they travel slower than regulation ones.
"Sponge balls are used in the United States but, for some reason, I don't know why they haven't caught on in Europe, Australia or New Zealand."
Purdon, who was a committee member on the Taranaki board for a term in the 1980s and advocates learning from that province's growth, says tennis is ironically a team sport because an individual needs another to play against.
"That'll force people to bring along others because I won't sit there to throw balls to people but expect them to hit balls to each other."
With limited resources, Westend is employing the free sportsground.co.nz website to manage registrations and fee payments via its integrated Sport$Pay facility.
The PaynPlay hardware will enable the community to access a code on the door to enter with ease without the cost of someone manning the venue.
Volunteers will supervise every so often but Purdon will rely on goodwill of "fair usage" to ensure those on court vacate it within 20 minutes when a queue starts forming. It helps that Westend has signed up with Tennis NZ's New Zealand Post-sponsored HotShots programme that will cement its rapport with primary schools.
Purdon says they will approach Bay business to fund self-help material (signs) that will place the onus of learning on to players.
"We already have permission from a US teaching pro to use their materials in such a way," he says, emphasising Westend already has an excellent practice wall.
With the courts on a Hastings District Council green space, he says Westend hopes to work with the government body to improve parking and toilet facilities at the Ebbett Park venue.
With no lights at night, Purdon says they deliberately timed the opening today because daylight saving time was kicking in.