RESULTS OF FEBRUARY 2009 TOURNAMENT
FAIRY DUSTERS	BLAZING STARS	GHOST FLOWERS
WINNER Penny Pralle - Jef Johnson	WINNER Ed Ghiorso - Peg Lieb	WINNER Sandi Kean - Gary McNamara (subbed for Gerry Thibault)
RUNNER-UP Joanne Cohen - Al Lieb	RUNNER-UP Kris Bellows - Denny Bean	RUNNER-UP Harriet Lisak - Harold Plett
Roz Smyth - Gary Edwards Jan McNamara - Doug Baker Barb Williams - Mike Shoemaker Peg Lieb - Sheldon Baker Susan Dow - Pete Azar Bonnie Wilson - Val Schultz	Sally Beiderbecke - Lee Lisak Carol Stadelbacher - Duke Dukarski Marilyn Bean - Ron Romeo Sandi Kean - Sam Marlatt	Marla Anderson - Borden Granger Kersti Garthwaite - Don Wilson Marilyn Bean - Gary McNamara Barbara Ash - Dave Chrivia Concha Rivera - Orlando Ortiz Mary Marchese - Harold Larson

Jef is very busy at work and is stretched to the limit in doing the draw and newsletter, and so is looking for some help. Ron Romeo suggested someone volunteer to be the club statistician. Between tournaments, this person would gather the following information of each player in the club for the prior 6 or so tournaments:

1. result (winner, finalist, semi-finalist, or other)
2. partner
3. divisions played in (upper, middle, lower)
4. least favorite partners (if player has such preferences -- for example "I don't want to play with my wife", or "my game doesn't work with player x", or "i'm feuding with player y") these requests are made confidentially, but are fairly rare in our club

The statistician would maintain the rating list to be placed on the club's website (currently under the GROUPINGS link) and keep track of their preferred division (upper, middle, lower), and how they rate themselves (for example 3.0, 3.5-, 3.5+, 4.0, etc.)

During the draw, the statistician could help in team selection, or have someone work off information he provides. He would try to:

1. prevent players from having the same partner as in a recent tournament
2. prevent players from teaming up who have won in any of their last 6 tournaments
3. prevent too-strong or too-weak pairings
4. prevent incompatible pairings -- husband/wife in some situations, in the event players have communicated this to the statistician

Helpers on the newsletter could write a column and/or do any section of the newsletter, like the tournament results for example. Anybody could contribute such a column at any time.

Ron Romeo has also suggested some interesting ideas for future tournaments. Jef also has some ideas, and has modified Ron's suggestions:

1. A "Challenge" round, played at 5pm on Saturday. One example is: where if some team is dissatisfied playing in a lower division, and is undefeated by the end of Saturday, the team can challenge any team still in contention in the losers bracket of a higher division and exchange places if the lower division team wins the match.
2. Automatically go to a round-robin format with multiple partners for either low attendence or a very unbalanced situation in mixed doubles (difference between numbers of men and women more than 2, for example). The reason being to prevent too many players playing too much when they play with 2 partners in the normal formats.
3. Increase tournament fees (by about $10 per player) to hire a pro to do the draws and run the tournament
4. Phoenix teams in the normal double elimination format: a pool of players who have been eliminated can re-connect with a different partner (with some restrictions decided by the statistician), also in the loser pool, either do the 5pm Saturday challenge or add another round where the phantom team can re-enter the tournament. This should either be a challenge to the team still in the losers bracket that has played the least or the undefeated team. As this is double elimination, if the phantom team plays the undefeated team and wins, it must win a tie-breaker to stay and eliminate the other team.

Editorial: Jef is hoping the board of the tennis club changes the current fee structure. Many members are paying full dues, but for various reasons are showing up very little or not at all. Most of these members can not afford to continue this, and have been or will leave the club unless this changes. A fairer fee structure would be to have a much lower membership fee (or maybe none at all) -- maybe the equivalent of the fee for a single tournament, and a larger tournament fee. Non-playing members should pay less per tournament, as they are not using the courts -- maybe $5. Also if a non-player makes a brief visit up to a few hours, they shouldn't be required to pay at all. Assuming tournaments average 40 players and 15 non-players, it may be possible to pay expenses if the tournament fee is $20 for players and $5 for non-players, each tournament would generate $875. Everyone would have to join the club on their 2nd appearance, but since the membership fee is so low, they wouldn't so easily be dissuaded from joining. If 60 payed the $20 membership fee, this amounts to about $1075 per tournament, which about pays the rent. Other income, such as the $5 saturday lunch could cover the difference in expenses, which are probably (currently) in the vicinity of $1200/tournament. I don't know the actual expenses, but these numbers probably aren't that far off. By reducing the membership fees, we can retain members longer. Club income might actually increase with such a new system. Some old members would probably return!