Charity Tournament – Sunday 8 March 2020

On Sunday 8 March we will be holding the fifth Charity Tournament. It will take the form of a mixed doubles round robin handicap tournament. There will be no need to find a partner to enter, and if the genders are not equal we will improvise.

I hope we continue to hold it each year around the end of February.

We raised funds for the Refugee Council in 2016, Smile Train in 2017, Street Child in 2018, and War Child last year.  The plan is that we vary the cause every year, even though we have come back to Street Child this year. There will doubtless be debate about this, but I would prefer to stick with third world charities if only because money goes so much further there. Other tournaments will continue to be held throughout the year to raise much needed money for the club.

The actual entry fee will be £3 to cover balls and tea. I would ask for a minimum donation of £7, i.e. a total of £10, and hope that many members will give more. The donation should be covered by Gift Aid, which means higher rate tax payers can, if they remember and can be bothered when doing tax returns, claim back about 18% of the donation. I will have forms available for signature There will be registration at 1.30pm and we will start bang on (in theory) at 2.00pm.

If anyone would like to do any further fund raising on the day it would be greatly appreciated. Please let me know richardcolbey@hotmail.com

On a personal note, part of my reason for doing it is that my Mum died in February 2012, and it is the sort of thing she would have liked- even more so if the donations went to a cats’ home, but that’s not going to happen. Of course lots of other members will have lost parents and, except for me, this is not in any sense a tournament about her.