It scarcely seems possible that it is eight months since I wrote my previous Chairman’s Message; and they told me that time would slow down when one retired!

The November Festival of Squash was again, courtesy of the RAC Woodcote Park, a great success with lots of enjoyable and competitive matches played. It is great that this has, by popular demand, now become a regular feature of the season.

I am pleased to report that your Committee has made progress in a number of the areas that I mentioned last year as opportunities to revive and extend the appeal of our club.

Thanks to the work of David Smith, assisted by Jon Gransden, we have revived some old friendlies and added new ones including a new match with Surrey Sports Park shortly. We hope, by the end of 2015 to have a good number of additional fixtures. Please contact David or any Committee member if you want to add your home club to our fixture list, especially if you would also be a match manager!

We have also been pursuing two major areas that will allow us to spread both the game and the involvement of our club in its further growth. Initially, we have concentrated on overseas tours and the expansion of the doubles game.

All being well, we will host a team of veterans from Canada at the end of May and the beginning of June. This has been planned so as not to interfere with the end of the domestic season, Masters’ activities or the British Open. Closer to home, we had another great trip to York and, as you can read about elsewhere, our President organised a very successful weekend in Jersey.

On the doubles front, Nigel Belle and I have had very constructive discussions with England Squash recently about using the auspices of the GB Vets Club to expand and popularise this underplayed version of our great game. With the support of the new Chief Executive, Keir Worth and the Director of Participation, Mark Williams, we will be bringing forward a programme for the 2015-16 season. Keir has now joined our Committee as an ex-officio member as per our constitution. We have also invited Mark to come to our Finals Weekend at BROXBOURNE on the weekend of April 18-19, where he will say a few words at our AGM.

Finally, let me congratulate, on behalf of all the GB Vets, all the members of the club who have continued to provide us with reflected glory through their achievements in the 2014 World Masters in Hong Kong, and the 2014-15 English Masters’ events.

I look forward to seeing as many of our members at the Finals Weekend and our AGM. Please come either to play or support others and help us celebrate the past, present and future of our club.

Tom Hendry

P.S. If you want to help our club, then please get in touch with any member of the Committee.