The Duke of Edinburgh Graces T&RA’s Benefactors Drinks Event
This year’s Benefactors gathering featured a special appearance by His Royal Highness, Prince Edward, Duke of Edinburgh.
The T&RA’s Annual Benefactors Event, which took place the evening of Wednesday 10th of April, featured a special appearance by our long-time Patron, His Royal Highness The Duke of Edinburgh.
Prince Edward met guests at the event at The Queen’s Club, where he reaffirmed his support for the Association as our Patron, and enjoyed some top class Tennis as part of the FLM Super League.
The T&RA Benefactor Scheme was established in 2013 and since that time more than 100 T&RA members have agreed to become Benefactors and make additional contributions in excess of the normal Annual Subscription to help us enhance and develop our games for future generations. As a thank you to these generous members, the T&RA hosts an Annual Benefactors Drinks Event.
During this year’s gathering, kindly sponsored by FLM Wealth Management and supported by Pol Roger, T&RA’s chairman, Fred Satow, gave a speech highlighting the many wonderful ways in which Benefactor funds are currently helping Real Tennis and Rackets.
The first is the Tennis Investing in Professionals programme (which was started by Satow’s predecessor, David Watson, with the help of John Whiting and many others, as well as the support of the Real Champions Club. The IiP has been a major success in recruiting, training and retaining apprentice professionals, who are the lifeblood of our games. The first two tranches of apprentices have completed their training and found roles at a variety of clubs, while the current focus of the programme has evolved to improving the existing cadre of professionals.
The second way in which Benefactor funds are currently being put to good use is through the development of the upcoming Investing in Rackets Professionals, which is arguably more difficult than the Tennis IiP but equally needed. As Satow shared, we are progressing development of training manuals for apprentices, largely down to excellent work by Ryan Tulley at Wellington College and Rob Horn, now at Marlborough College.
And finally, the third area of focus for Benefactor funds is court protection and development, where there are some successes to celebrate, such as at Eton College, where work is underway to refurbish and develop the galleries and Rackets court complex to make it one of the finest such facilities in the world.
As you can see, becoming a T&RA Benefactor is a wonderful way to contribute to the future prosperity of our games that have given us so much pleasure over the years, and doing so gives you the opportunity to not only help our games, but to also enjoy exclusive benefits such as our Annual Benefactors Drinks Event. We encourage you to learn more about our very special Benefactor scheme by clicking here.
