Professionals Serendipity 
Henry Rich, the President of the Tamborine Mountain Tennis Club, tells all on the organization— as well as a few compelling reasons why you should take up the racquet.
by Kyle Hitchmough
How long have you been working with the tennis club?
I’ve been president for eight years. I moved to the Mountain and became a member about ten years ago. I’ve always played tennis, so when I moved here, I was just looking for somewhere to play and joined the club. It was relatively new back then. Prior to that they’d just been renting local courts. The vacancy for president came up in about 2012 and I took over.
What facilities do you offer here?
We hire out our tennis courts and we also have racquet and ball rental. We’ve basically got two courts as well as the clubhouse. There are floodlights which we upgraded this year to reduce the electricity consumption. We do a lot of junior coaching, as there are a lot of families up here with kids, so that’s quite a big market for us.
Are you an exclusive club for members only, or are you more open to anyone?
We’re not exclusive, no. Membership for a person is $25 per year so it’s hardly exclusive! The public can use our facilities as the courts are available for public hire. Members do get to hire the courts for less, they get a reduction on the prices, but we like to think it’s a facility for the town. We’re built on council land so we look at it more as a resource for everyone, rather than some exclusive club.
What other benefits do you offer members?
You fill out an application form and that’s that, really! Apart from cheap court hire, we do various social sessions which people can come to, just turn up to and play, so it saves you the trouble of having to find someone to play with. We do the occasional social thing like a Christmas party, open days or trivia nights. We don’t do them all that often, though. The membership is fairly low, the main benefit being the use of the courts and the ability to turn up and play with other people on the social nights. We offer a fitness routine on Tuesday nights called FitIt, which is like a mixture of tennis drills and fitness. We do fixtures and organized matches, there’s a championship we run every year with winners in various categories – men’s, women’s, doubles, mixed doubles, juniors.
Serious athletes?
It’s more a casual thing. There’s not many people who play very seriously. I think the demographic up here tends to be older people, so you get retirees who play and juniors. It tends to be the families with the kids, and also older people who tend to play socially. They either play in their own group and hire the court every week, or they come to our social sessions. We do get a few young guns who play at a high level but not many, they tend to go and play on the coast.
What do you most about this?
It gives me an opportunity to play, which I like, and it means there’s a pool of people I can play with. I enjoy running it, I enjoy meeting other people, it’s very rewarding. Tennis is a fun thing, and I enjoy it as a game. It’s good exercise, because not only are you exercising, but you’re having fun as well. If your exercise is just running or gym or something like that, it’s essentially quite hard work that’s boring. Tennis can be fun, you can play for hours and enjoy yourself, and get exercise as well. I believe research has shown it’s one of the best sports in terms of leading a long life, adds about an extra ten years on your lifespan. A lot of that is because of the social aspect as opposed to running, which is healthy, but because you’re doing it in isolation, you’re not getting the massive benefits of social interaction, and that makes tennis the perfect sport in terms of exercise. I think that’s a really strong reason for doing it.
What’s your opinion on the Tamborine Mountain area as a community?
On the whole it’s pretty good because it’s on a mountain, in a way it’s like being on an island. It’s a place by itself, it gives you a sense of really knowing everybody else. It feels like you’re quite close, that there’s a strong sense of community that you wouldn’t get in other places and certainly not in a metropolitan area where you don’t even know your neighbours.
What do you think the tennis club really provides to the area?
It work as a social hub. We probably have about a hundred and twenty members. Being part of that brings you into contact with other people who play other sports, other clubs. I think it leads to people forging bonds with other members of the community. I hope our members feel the same way, that we’re not just somewhere to play tennis. It’s a place where they can get to know other people who they might not get to know for any other reason.
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Or email the writer at kyle.hitchmough@hotmail.com, and follow me on Twitter @realcasualrvws.
