Spring 2025 - Newsletter

Greetings from our President Elaine Paige OBE

Hello everyone! 

I hope you are all enjoying this lovely Spring weather and getting out and about, especially onto the tennis court.

I’m touched to see mention in the newsletter of my 60 years in showbusiness milestone – what an amazing 60 years it has been! One of the most rewarding parts of my long career has been the impact I can make through my charity work – I love to support a variety of Charities and can you believe I have been President of the Dan Maskell Tennis Trust for 15 years this year!

I’m delighted to see that Sue Rodwell is joining us as a Fundraising Consultant and look forward to joining her at the upcoming fundraiser at the East India Club. This happens to be the day after our annual Golf Day so I will certainly be busy talking all things tennis, but this certainly isn’t a burden for me, and will get me right in the mood for Wimbledon.

It’s very exciting to see the various disability tennis activities that the Trust is involved in over the next few months, with the Recreational Wheelchair doubles event and the coaching camps set to be well attended. I was also pleased to hear that Liz was kept very busy at the start of the year with a record number of grant applications for the first round. It is wonderful that we can help so many individuals and groups to play more tennis.

I join with everyone at the Trust in thanking Whitstable and Fernhurst Tennis Club’s for running fundraisers for us and would be delighted to hear of more tennis clubs taking up this challenge!

For now, enjoy the start of summer and I look forward to updating you all in our next newsletter after our busy summer period.

With love,

Elaine's website

Sue Rodwell joins DMTT as Fundraising Consultant

We are delighted to welcome Sue Rodwell to the team to help with fundraising for DMTT.  Sue has a wealth of experience in charity fundraising and will be a great asset to us.  Some of you will have already met her at the Golf Day and she will be assisting with this and other fundraising events during the year.  Her contact details are:

SueR@dmtt.org.uk and mobile 07544 824633 

Dan Maskell Tennis Trust chosen as charity partner by East India Club Tennis Section 

We are delighted to share that, through a collaboration between the East India Club Tennis Section and King’s College London, DMTT has been selected as the charity partner for a fundraising dinner at the East India Club this June.  Our President Elaine Paige will appear as a special guest and Vice-President Marcus Buckland will be Master of Ceremonies. In addition to the fundraising part of the evening, Marcus will chat to Elaine about her amazing career celebrating 60 years in showbusiness and 15 years as DMTT President. They will be joined by another special guest, Barry Cowan, former British player and now a tennis pundit and commentator who will be giving some insight and his
views on the upcoming Wimbledon Championships.

Golf Day 2025 – Celebrating 25 years

We have already reached our minimum requirement of 18 teams for the annual Golf Day at the RAC Club near Epsom on 26^th June! There may be spaces for more teams so if you are interested, please contact Gilly as soon as possible.  Or, if you would like to make a donation or provide a prize for the auction or raffle please also get in touch.

Recreational doubles event 

This years event will take place on Saturday 10th & Sunday 11th May 2025 at Oxstalls Sports Park Gloucester and will be run in memory of Keith Thom. This is a social doubles event for recreational players who enter as individuals (partners to be allocated). This event is ideal for players who are a bit nervous to enter a tournament as it is social and doubles only. We currently have 23 players entered so can only fit one more, please email liz@dmtt.org.uk  if you would like to attend.

John James Disability Award

We were delighted to launch the John James Disability Inclusion Award recently. This award, created in partnership with Middlesex Tennis recognises projects that are already making a difference in providing innovative and pioneering tennis opportunities for disabled people to support growing inclusivity. We created this award with Middlesex Tennis in memory of our great supporter and Vice President John James, who passed away last year.

The inaugural award was presented at the Middlesex Tennis awards dinner attended by our Trustee Noel. Special consideration was given to initiatives that support individuals from diverse backgrounds, including women, LGBTQ+ communities, low socio-economic groups, and ethnically diverse groups. Three grants of £1500 were awarded to Rally Together at Mayfield, SEND Tennis at Shaftesbury School and Parks Sports Inclusive Project in Regents Park.

Elaine celebration

On the 25^th April Radio 2 hosted an event at the London Palladium to celebrate our wonderful President. Elaine reaches the amazing milestone of an extraordinary 60 years in showbusiness this year!!! This sold out show was a world exclusive concert with performances from artists from the world of musical theatre, together with the BBC Concert Orchestra conducted by Richard Balcombe.

I’m sure you all join with us to congratulate Elaine on this achievement! Pictured is our Trustee Lesley Cundy and our Executive Director Gilly English joining Elaine on the night, they had a brilliant time.

Spotlight on our Trustee - Lesley Cundy

Today we learn more about our Trustee Lesley who has tennis coursing through her veins!! Lesley started playing tennis for her County when she was just 10 years old and even today she's still playing seniors County tennis for Berkshire. In 1985 Lesley moved to Berkshire and got involved straight away in schools’ tennis, as her background was as a teacher. She soon became the Chair of the Berkshire Schools Tennis Association, and she still remains the schools team tennis competition organiser which she has run since 1985!

It was during this time that Lesley met Cathie Sabine who went on to be a very well loved LTA President. At the time, Cathie convinced Lesley to join the County Committee and take on the role of Chair of Participation. She then went on to be the Chair of the county for 9 years and just recently stood down. Lesley was elected as the LTA Counsellor for Berkshire in 2015 and joined the board of the LTA from 2020 until 2024 – serving the designated 9yrs. During this time, Lesley was Chair of the LTA County Cup & Competitions committee and supported both the Education and Coaches working parties. As a qualified Level 4 coach she was well placed to assist with the Coach Development Centres (CDC). In 2017 Cathie suggested she might like to get involved with the Dan Maskell Tennis Trust and shortly after, Lesley joined us as a Trustee and has remained so ever since. She is still involved heavily with her County as the EDI Lead (Equality, Diversity and Inclusion) and the Open Court Lead, as this enables her to continue her work as a huge advocate for disability tennis.  Lesley has recently won the prestigious LTA Meritorious Service Awards which recognises individuals who have made outstanding contributions to tennis in Britain. We are certainly honoured to have Lesley and her mountains of tennis knowledge as one of our Trustees!

Fundraising

We want to give a big thank you and shout out to Whitstable Tennis Club and Fernhurst Tennis Club who have both recently held Trivia nights with proceeds being donated to the DMTT. Even small donations make a big difference so we encourage you all to help out. We also have a QR code to scan for quick donations, so please contact us if you would like to use this – or, you could scan it right now and make a donation if you like!!

Disability Coaching Camps

We are once again working with the LTA to deliver a range of disability specific coaching camps this year. We have already hosted a Blind and a Visually Impaired camp and have our upcoming Para standing, Wheelchair and Learning Disability camps listed on the new ‘Events’ section of our website. Check it out for more information!

Quicker email and website extension!

Some of you will be happy to know that we have recently been able to acquire www.dmtt.org.uk as our website and email. If you need to refer someone to us, this is much quicker! The full version of www.danmaskelltennistrust.org.uk and emails in the form of liz@danmaskelltennistrust.org.uk still work but the short version will also lead to us.