Dear Members, Welcome to our fourth season at our courts in Marstons Mills. Summer hours (8:00-12:00) began on May 5th. Out of respect for our neighbors near the courts, please refrain from playing before 8:00 am. We would like to begin signups for the 2025 court monitors that will begin on Memorial Day weekend, Saturday, May 24th, and continue through September. There will be a calendar posted on the fence for you to sign up for a day to function as the court monitor. Duties typically begin at 8:30 and end at 11:30. You do not have to set up any temporary nets on the tennis courts, and there are always several people to spot and inform you when a court is open. We hope you will consider taking a turn as a monitor, as it relieves the pressure of having a handful of members constantly doing this job. Your name will be entered into a raffle as many times as you are a monitor each month. This year, we will be giving out two $50 gift cards each month. We’re going to start out having three boards to sign up on for play: 1)Advanced, 2)Advanced/Intermediate, and 3)Intermediate. The Novice/Beginner board that was up last year was little used, so we thought a name change might be more useful. We’ll see how it goes. Also, we will post three signs near the boards: (2.0, 2.5-3.0, and 3.5-5.0) that give you an indication of your playing level. Please review them and try and play at your appropriate level. Remember, if you play at the Advanced level, be prepared for a “hard” game. Additionally, when all 16 Pickleball courts are full, and there are at least 25 players waiting to play, games will be played to 9, win by one. The Ladies league is well underway. A special thanks to Judy Eide and Gail Hughes for organizing the leagues. As you know, we’ve had two Socials all ready this year and another one coming in June. Many thanks to Michaela Herlihy for organizing these events. MaryAnn Gillooly is beginning to work on our Summer Beach Party taking place sometime in August. We are planning a Members Fun Tournament in the late Spring. Information will be out shortly for the format and sign ups. We are looking for volunteers to help out during the tournament. If you are interested in helping, please reply back to me. We would like to again recycle your old, stinky, sweaty and worn out sneakers. We have a container to drop them off near the front fence. They will be sent to a company called Gotsneakers. They recycle the shoes by grinding them up and the recycled material is used to make other new products. Any sneaks that are in relatively good shape will be cleaned and donated for reuse. Thanks to Ronny and Paul Cove for setting up this program. We would also like to recycle empty plastic water bottles and broken pickleballs. We will have two containers for you to deposit them in. As you probably know, we have some court damage where the two concrete pads meet in the center of the walkway. Several courts are affected near where the damage occurred. As a result, the company that constructed the courts, will be back sometime in June to repair the damage. So, some courts may be closed for a few days while the concrete cures. We’ll let you know when this occurs. Looking forward to a fun, but busy summer season, Barnstable Pickleball Club comm.