Problem Statement: Court Access at the BTC

1. INTRODUCTION

Over the past several months, beginning shortly after the 2011-12 playing season started in earnest, members of the BTC board of directors have been hearing comments and receiving direct complaints about access to playing time on the courts.

By now, we have heard not only general complaints, but also about specific patterns of court usage by individuals and groups, who are perceived as constituting or contributing to the problem in various ways. Along with complaints have come suggestions for action by the board. This topic has become an item on the agenda of every board meeting, and these frequent discussions have led us to undertake a more formal analysis of the problem and potential solutions.

We believe that while the perceived problem is relatively simple (“I can never get a court when I want one.”), the perception is a result of a number of causes and contributing factors. Some of these factors seem to have arisen recently, whereas others have been in place for some time. It appears to us that these recent and not-so-recent trends in combination have brought things to a head.

This treatise is meant to provide a basis for considering changes to the club rules, and perhaps even more importantly, changes in the culture by which members use the club and interact with each other. The board hopes many members will read this statement, think about what’s in it, and participate in a process of generating ideas and reaching conclusions about what we do and do not want to change.

2. CAUSES AND CONTRIBUTING FACTORS

For the past few years, there have been times when getting a court has been problematic. The exact timing has varied, but at some point between November and January things have gotten tight, and then eased up. From the board’s perspective, by the time we started hearing major concern from the members, the situation seemed to be improving and big changes did not seem necessary.

This year has been different. Starting in October and going straight through to March, club members were steadily unhappy about court availability. We have been hearing about and discussing a number of factors believed to be causing problems. We think the next step in addressing them is to make a list of what they are and then determine which ones are most important and what to do about them.

Here are some of the more longstanding issues that affect court availability.

1. Playing limits: For a number of years the limit has been six times a week, no more than twice a day, and once a day during “prime time” (3:00-7:30 p.m.) and on weekends. This year the prime time limit was decreased to three times a week. The limits could be decreased as a way to open up the courts.

2. Lessons: There is essentially no club policy with respect to lessons. The club does not restrict people from offering lessons. There are no prerequisites for becoming an instructor, and there is no payment to the club. Also, there is no limit to court time as an instructor, which was enacted as a way to encourage people to give lessons. The idea of regulating instruction raises questions about how it would be done, whether there are legal or logistical issues for the club, and whether it would adversely affect members’ ability to improve their games.

3. Rule enforcement: The rules provide penalties for violations in areas related to court access, but we have not had specific mechanisms to track rule violations and apply punishments. Also, in contrast to some other tennis clubs, we do not have a culture in which people commonly address other members directly about perceived infractions.

4. Payment mechanisms: Once you have paid your dues, all use of the courts is free, so there is no financial reason for members to restrict their court usage. Most tennis clubs have court fees, which then provide potential mechanisms for modulating patterns of court usage.

5. Usage patterns: At present, all use of the courts counts the same. If a person is using the ball machine (one player on the court), taking a lesson (one player and one instructor), playing singles (two players), playing doubles (four players), or in a clinic (six players plus an instructor), it all counts the same in terms of our playing limit of six times per week. The effect on court access for others, however, is quite different for these different levels of usage.

Here are some things that seemed to change this year, and have increased the demand for court time.

1. Membership turnover: Several shares changed hands this year, including shares that had been lightly used, and which now are being held by people who bought them in order to play tennis. Go figure.

2. Enthusiastic young players: There is a committed group of high school players who are serious about their games, and who are working hard to improve. This takes a lot of court time and a fair number of lessons, which do not provide for very intensive use of the courts. And a lot of this activity takes place during prime time.

3. Enthusiastic older players: That’s right, some of us old fogies are taking lessons and using the ball machine.

4. More instructors: We have seen an increase in the number of people who provide coaching and teaching, and more choices seem to lead to more teaching. And because instructors are not charged with a playing time when giving a lesson, they may be seen on the courts more frequently than six times per week, which some people perceive as unfair.

5. Without any specific data, it has felt like the competition for making a reservation at precisely 7:00 a.m. has been more fierce than in previous years. With increased pressure to make reservations immediately, there also seemed to be an increase in cancellations later on, often resulting in empty courts.

3. ACTIONS TAKEN THUS FAR: For the most part, the current board is cautious in making changes to the club’s rules. As we’ve done in previous cases, our initial approach was to publicize the problem, remind people how their actions influence other members, and ask for observance of both the spirit and the letter of the law. Sometimes we notify people of rule transgressions, without assessing any penalty.

This approach worked well last year in decreasing the frequency of players failing to sign in before playing. This time around it did not seem to have a significant effect, at least with regard to improving court access. There may have been some improvement in the late cancellation problem, but mostly we succeeded in making people feel guilty about cancelling courts, as evidenced by an influx of apologetic and explanatory emails.

When it became apparent that our efforts were falling short, the board did finally change the rule about prime time play, making it only three times a week instead of once a day. While this did have some impact, it did not do enough for people to feel there was overall improvement. Also, by the time we made this change, some people told us they had stopped even trying to make reservations.

This brings us to the present, in terms of actions taken by the board. We have discussed a number of other possibilities, but we have stopped short of making additional changes for several reasons: the pressure is finally easing up as the weather gets warmer and as the high school players have practice at school every day; we haven’t done a thorough enough analysis of the options and their advantages and disadvantages; and we think the membership as a whole needs to be brought into the discussion on an issue of this magnitude, which is why we’re sending this to you.

4. PROPOSED CHANGES: At the brainstorming level, there have been numerous ideas regarding changes in the rules and bylaws that might improve things. These have ranged from simple to complex, and a complete discussion of every nuance is probably too long to attempt in this format. So here is a list of things we’ve discussed (or at least mentioned) with comments to guide the narrative along.

Ideas for how to make courts more available at the BTC:

1. Strengthen our enforcement of the existing rules. There would be several components of such an effort.

a. Anyone who has not signed in would be treated as a no-show.

b. No shows would be assessed financial penalties as stipulated in the rules, and repeat offenders would lose reservation privileges.

c. Late cancellations would incur penalties of some sort. Our investigations have shown that cancellations have to be made 48 or more hours in advance in order to reliably permit vacant courts to be filled.

d. Numbers of playing times would be closely monitored, and penalties enforced.

e. Guest appearances and payments would be closely monitored, and penalties enforced.

f. Comments: This would take a lot of work. Most likely it would become a paid position at the club, and it’s still not clear who would want to do it. As a possible alternative, all club members could become enforcers of the rules, which is different from how we currently operate and would change to some extent what it’s like to play at our club.

2. Decrease the number of permitted playing times from six to five (or fewer) times per week. Comment: This suggestion invariably encounters resistance from families with multiple players, who feel they would be disproportionately affected.

3. Limit the number of advance reservations a membership can make. This would give first crack at a new day’s slots to people who do not already have reservations made for the upcoming days. Comment: This could be program-med into the Website and would make the reservation process more easily available to a wider cross-section of club members.

4. Change the rules regarding lessons.

a. Limit the times available for lessons and/or the number of instructors.

b. Charging instructors a fee to give lessons would likely increase the price and thereby decrease the number of lessons given.

c. Encourage group lessons over individual lessons, which would increase court usage beyond just one instructor and one student.

d. Limit the number of times an instructor can teach. At present, lesson times do not count as a court usage for the instructor, as long as the student reserves the court.

e. Comment: Some of these would make it more difficult or expensive for people to try to improve their games. Is that what we want to do?

5. Pay more to play more.

a. Make people pay for reservations and/or court usage. People would think twice before making a reservation, and it would be more fair if those who play often pay more than those who play less often. The overall dues could be lower if we charged court fees. Collecting the fees would be potentially burdensome, although an electronic sign-in and payment mechanism might be devised.

b. People could sign up for different numbers of reservations per week at the beginning of the year, and would correspondingly pay higher or lower dues. Members could tailor their cost to how often they want to play. The dues would have to be adjusted each year, both individually and overall in order to raise enough money to pay the bills.

6. Assess more time periods when fewer people are using the courts.

a. At present, all use of the courts is counted as one playing period. Four people playing doubles are each charged one period of play, the same as two people playing singles or one person using the ball machine. If people playing doubles were each charged one session of play, people playing singles were charged one and a half sessions, and people using the ball machine or taking an individual lesson were charged for two playing sessions, it would encourage people to make more intensive use of the courts by including more players. You could still hit with the ball machine, but you would pay a higher price in terms of using up your playing times per week.

7. There are probably more ideas, but I can’t come up with them right now.

5. NEXT STEPS: The board would now like to turn this discussion over to you, the members. We propose to accomplish this is a few ways:

1. Provide this summary to all members.

2. Encourage ongoing face-to-face discussion of these ideas by the membership.

3. Create an online discussion forum with access for all members. This will take place at blogger.com, a Website designed specifically for such purposes.

4. Allow time for discussion at the annual meeting of the shareholders on May 15.

5. Encourage members to attend board meetings and participate in the discussion there.

It is our intent that after the annual meeting, the newly elected board will begin consideration of what changes might be made for the new club year starting in September. We would like to have this process completed by the time our playing season begins in earnest in October.

Members who are interested in participating beyond simply engaging in the discussion outlined above are encouraged to consider running for the board. Nominations for board membership are open and may be made by any member, including a prospective board member him- or herself.

Thank you for your attention to this rather long document. The board hopes you will join in with your fellow BTC members to address what has become an important set of issues for the club. We greatly appreciate the interest our members have already shown in addressing issues we face, which provides further evidence of our love for tennis and for the terrific club where we get to play. Please contact any board member with your thoughts as we move forward.

On behalf of the BTC Board of Directors,

Franz Reichsman

BTC president