A note from the Squash Chairperson - Carli Van Zyl

Thanks for coming to our Annual Club Champs and End of Year Prize Giving… I truly hope you have enjoyed this season of squash, and also this last comp – our club Champs.  Well done to everyone tonight and over the last couple of weeks!  Even if you didn’t claim the top spot – you showed up, you fought hard and you felt pain, so – you deserve to feel proud of your efforts.

First, I will do a really quick a recap of 2025 season... which has probably been our busiest year for squash in quite some time.  ,I am not going to delve into everything too deeply, as I just released my annual Chair report for the AGM, which is on Monday, and copies are around for you all to read / take home. Attend the AGM on Monday if you want to hear it from me and for a great renovation update.  I will just mention some of the highlights:

-       We hosted a major national competition and 4 large regional tournaments this year.  We also hosted 2 Werder Junior tournaments, and one W900 Ladies tournaments.  Together, these events raised over 25K for the club this year so we can be very proud of what we put in!!  I will make special mention about The Cousins Shield and Mitchell’s Cup – which was our first major tournament of this size.  I am very proud of our achievements & extremely grateful everyone who helped to pull that one off.  Not only did we raise good money, It was the party of the year and we rated very highly in everyone’s feedback, and we raised our profile nationally so we can get more of these events. To pull it off we did a whole bunch of renos, including painting Courts and the Court 1 room, we conquered a new online system, streamed matches and scores online and kept the club standing by the end of the night (thanks to all you vicious bouncers).  We all deserve a large pat on the back, and if you were here, helping that weekend – Thank you so much!  Please know – You made a difference.

-       We also ran the following internal events:

o    3 rounds of interclub –  This year we entered a total of 10 ladies teams and 17 men’s teams across the autumn, winter and spring interclub seasons.  Congratulations to the Autumn & Winter Men’s Div 6 Team for winning both rounds and bringing home the pennants.  We also had the following teams get a close second place:  Men’s Div 4 (Autumn),  Men’s Div 1& Div 9  (Winter) and Men’s Div 6 and 7 (Spring), Ladies Div 6 (Winter) and Ladies Div 1 (Spring).

o    2 of our teams headed to Superchamps – Well done E & F for making the first breakthrough to nationals since 2022.

o    We introduced a brand new ladder league this year.  Thank you Luke for building a very cool system for this.   100s of games played over the 6 months it was active.  Adam, Greg and Brooky, were all knocked down from the top spots due to inactivity penalties, and that meant that our biggest climber of the season, with 26 Spots climbed, all the way to the top, was Hayden Williams.   Well Don Hayden!  On the ladies side – Diane Moss landed at the top as the winner this year – Congrats Diane!  Honorable mentions to Steve Lawrence, with most wins at 15 and to Marty for a 10 win streak.

o    2 Club night series – the first was the team round in April May, and the MVP round in August, which raised a decent amount of money for the club.  Final came down to Chris Metcalfe vs Jayden Turton.  But, no handicap is a match for Jayden who toyed with all his opponents throughout.  Well done Jayden and hope the funds are being applied to new bub, and not a new pub.

o    We had 1 business house round, with another to follow in November – You have been told - get in quick.

o    Unfortunately, this year, we lost to Leamington in the toilet seat challenge. Cambridge hosted this year after winning previous 2 rounds.  Great event, but probably less players available than in the past – Lets focus on this one next year please and get the seat back in its place.

o    Everyone had to adopt and get used to the new MySquash system – so on top of our busiest season, it was also technologically challenging for us all.  Thank you everyone for you patience as we flipped from iSquash to my squash and from one iPad system to another.  There is 1 more switch on the cards - We are waiting for squash NZ to finish development of the iPad system that links directly to my squash so games are automatically imported, which will mean we use 1 system only in the future.

Writing my report and talking about all these activities and events really makes me feel deep gratitude.  We pulled off a wacky amount of things this year, all because of a wonderful group of people - I know when you show up to play a round of squash, in a tournament, or club night, it feels easy and quick, but in reality, there are hours of work behind the scenes to make it all work.  This year, I feel we had one of the best committee groups that we have had in a long time. Because of this, we were able to break down the work into different jobs so that each of us had some things to do, but none of us were doing it all.   Please join me in giving a huge thank you, and hand of applause to Rachel, Ange, Shar, Shelly, Luke, Brooky and the amazing Suzie.   I also want to say a massive thank you to everyone else this year for hours of volunteering that went into making these events happen.  This really must be a team effort, and the club relies on volunteers, so please help and spread the load so we can keep having the best time. On Monday – we have the opportunity for new members to join our committee – if you want to know what’s involved – have a chat with me tonight & get nominations in before Monday.

So lets kick this off -  our special awards this year go to:

Higgie Cup - Personality of the Year -  Shar Wehipeihana

Shar joined the committee this year, and (in Suzie’s words) -  she is just a general good bitch..  Shar’s bubbly personality and her constant smile makes lights up the club..  Shar also joined the committee this year, and has taken on the ladies nights, club nights, Bar kitchen duties and even has a prize giving under her belt showing her generosity to the club and her true team spirit. During the Cousin’s Shield – Shar was here ALL weekend helping out everywhere, she got dragged into Superchamps and kept going even though she couldn’t play with a broken shoulder.  Shar’s warmth and kindness makes everyone feel welcome and her lust for fun means every event is exciting.  Shar even lost a shoulder to the game this year, and the green whistle really made her connect with the club in even funner ways.  Now, she is bound to the place forever & is happily back on court!  Shar – it has been wonderful having you on board – thanks for all you do and for connecting everyone.  Please send our thanks to your kids, who have also needed to become furniture.  We love having all of you here!!

Sam Crawford Cup - Club Player of the Year – Ange Scott

This year the committee has selected a player based on the following 3 criteria – Amount of competitive and non-competitive games played in the season, their increase in grading level over the season and this players overall contribution to the club.  There were a few contender for the top spot, but only this player held the perfect trifecta.  This player has a win ratio of 44% and a grading improvement of 33% (163 points).  She played an impressive 69 competitive games in tournament and interclub, she played Waikato doubles and many of our club night and internal events.  She is always willing to help and has served formally and informally on committee for 5 years. Above all, this player showed remarkable generosity, competitive grit, positivity and respect to all her opponents, event organizers and peers.  She is always willing to give back to the game she loves.  Thanks for all you do, and the example you set - Well done to Ange Scott.

1.       Dylan – 78

2.       Jordyn 49

3.       Jayden 48.

4.       James 41

 Smith Family - Most improved Men’s - Fabian Clarke 

This player has played 28 matches this year, after only starting to play squash in Mar this year.  He then injured himself playing in the Calcutta in August. He made an impressive leap from E1 to D1 in that 5-month timeframe with a massive 149 points increase. The most improved men’s player of the season, is Fabian Clark -   

Congrats Fabian and good luck for recovery – please go see a Dr about your knee!!  We look forward to seeing what you can do next year.

Special mentions to:

1.   Mike Young – 36.5%

2.   Gavin Brewster – 26.4%

3.   Marty – 24.5%

4.   Luke 23.1%

T Oxenham - Most improved Women – Ange Scott 

This award this year is also taken out by our Top performer, who has already been recognized, but deserves another mention.  Ange – well done again – you are also our most improved female player with your incredible 33% gain in grading level.

Special mention to other stars:

 1.   Rachel Conway– 25.3%

2.   Britta Jensen – 30%

3.   Jo Wilton – 11.25%

Junior Prizegiving:

Suzie completed the Junior’s prizegiving last night, but I will mention the key winners here:

The ALSYNITE NZ Cup – Girl Junior club member of year – Tahlia Eady – 25 Games, Interclub and Superchamps.

The Williams Cups - Most committed Junior Player – Milan Yadav – 67 Games, Interclub and Superchamps.

Empson Cup  - Boys Champion – Adriaan Visagie – Adriaan also deserves special mention as a very dedicated player – Adriaan played 59 competitive games this year (3rd most in the club)  and has improved 59%.  He is No 2 in the Waikato and achieved a New Zealand ranking of 13 for his Under 15s age group.   Adriaan is also a well-mannered and conscientious junior-  which, as we all know – can be hard to find.

The Joelle King Cup- Girls Champion – Peyton Hopson– A surprise this year from younger sister Peyton, knocking Chloe off her top spot.  Peyton has had a wonderful year playing over 10 Competitive games, junior interclub, many internal games and gaining 35% in grading.

Graded Club Champs

This year we had 52 seniors and 11 Juniors entries for our club champs this year, which is on par with previous years and a good turnout.   

Winners are:

Junior Boy - Empson Cup- Adriaan Visagie

Junior Girl - The Joelle King Cup - Peyton Hopson

F Grade 

DCS Limited Cup -Chris Metcalfe

Carmen & Aiden Page Cup - Sandra Hurst

E Grade 

Hopkins Family Cup-Matthew Trott

E Grade Ladies- Britta Jensen

D Grade

Falcon & Charlotte Fitzpatrick Cup - Adriaan Visagie

Waveny Parker Cup- Jamie Hopson

C Grade 

My Mortgage Cup - James Moss

C Grade Ladies -  Farley Stent

Champions for 2022

Boyd Cup for Men's Champion - Scotty Calder

Pay2Play Womens Club Champion - Jordan Herewini

Looking forward to the rest of the year and start of next year:

-       Our AGM is on Monday night – 20 Oct at 6pm  – please come along for some positive updates on the renovation project. 

-       We will continue to have informal club nights between now and the start of Nov when the next round of Business House will commence.  That will be a 4-5 week competition, info to come out next week.

-       We have a fundraiser doubles tournament for our 2 Junior stars Addy and Adriaan – Please come and play and support them in their journey to becoming Pro’s.

-       We also have a casual Christmas tournament coming up on 28/29 November.

-       We close activities by December and come back for Cricket in early Feb.   We start our next season with our Summer Sizzler, a fun no points Singles and Doubles tournament, in late Feb to get the blood flowing again. 

I stand here, representing the Squash Committee, and it is our goal to make your squash lives super fun each year.  I will also be circulating a survey in the next few weeks, asking for feedback on this year and what activities you like, don’t like, want to see more of, or feel is not serving you.  Please look out for that so that it may give guidance to the committee on programs next year.  And please – if you can – stand for committee.  This year was proof that many hand make lighter work and we cannot rely on just a few people doing all of this.  If you like the game, like the club, help us out – That is what community is all about.