Assembly Project

And now for something a little different, a bit of satire that builds on a point I made in an earlier post.

Anne, the new treasurer, is presenting her first budget to the club board. “…For too long, Sandford Tennis Club has been let down by a leaky roof. During their long rule, the Tennis Feepayers’ Party’s response to it was to do absolutely nothing.” There were a few boos from the other end, which were met with a few cheers. “We shall therefore allocate two pounds. And with that two pounds, we will buy a bucket that will catch the water from the leak! It will be the biggest and boldest action any club board has taken on the leaking roof.” It will be.

That leak has been going on for years, making a regular puddle next to Indoor Court 3. While they were in power, the Tennis Feepayers’ Party promised to fix it but U-turned on raising the club fees to fund it and kicked it into the long grass. Now the Tennis Social Democrats are in power, they have also promised to fix it, but this clashes with their promise to not charge more for ordinary members and plug the longtime hole in the club’s finances. Technically, they’ve already broken the first promise by raising the costs of hiring courts. But it doesn’t matter because most club members can’t remember what they were promised in the first place.

Anne glances down at the budget papers and resumes. “In addition, we shall increase the Refreshments Rebate by 25p for members who are exempt from the Long Membership Discount and receiving the Balls Allowance.” That probably means no-one. “This budget will implement the agenda for change that the club members voted for when they brought the Tennis Social Democrats to power, and put us on course to growing the club and balancing its finances after many years of mismanagement by the Tennis Feepayers’ Party.”

Adam, the new leader of the Tennis Feepayers’ Party, had been slowly reddening as he listened. He now stands up. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, gesturing grandiosely. “During the last board election, we WARNED that the Tennis Social Democrats would RUIN our club with their anti-business ideas! And now, you—” He points at Anne. “You have proven us RIGHT! By pursuing a policy of BIG TENNIS CLUB, of charge and spend, you are DRIVING hard-working families away, especially those who pay MASSIVE sums for premium membership. We’ll be LANGUISHING in poverty. Instead of tennis, we will be playing PUB SKITTLES!”

“Remember Nigel’s rebate!” shouts Anne in response. A few board members laugh.

“If elected next time,” adds Adam, “We will SELL the bucket and give the proceeds to cut the membership fee. We agree that the leaky roof exists, but it should not be solved with an agenda of big-spending TENNIS SOCIALISM.”

Anne was referring to Nigel’s brief tenure as club president. His plan for the club had been to achieve rapid growth by introducing something the club couldn’t afford, a rebate to those who pay for the premium membership. The result was panic and backlash from club members over the prospect of the club going bankrupt. Even the Tennis Feepayer’s Party’s strongest supporters joined in and Nigel was soon forced out.

His successor, Rich Dave, fared better, though that’s not saying much. Rich Dave even acknowledged the problem in one speech that the club board was too short-termist. Yet he too struggled, only managing to hide the problems with the club’s finances and ageing facilities. Even in that same speech complaining about short-termism, he cancelled plans to resurface the decrepit Outdoor Court 2. You could tell that the Tennis Feepayers’ Party were on their last legs when they started promising to get tough on the recent arrival of some badminton players and stirring up arguments over transgender tennis players. (We don’t even have any.) Rich Dave was distracted by the club’s rowdiest members. One of them is Big John, who owns one of the club newsletters. The other is Fascist Dave. We call him that as a joke. He’s not really a fascist, but he does believe some weird things.

The next part of the meeting is taken up by Chris, who is giving a lengthy speech praising the budget and paying tribute to his predecessor. We suspect that Chris probably doesn’t mean it. You can always tell.

How do I feel about the new administration? On the one hand, I’ll agree that their heart is in the right place on most counts, and some things have genuinely improved. They did get the second toilet repaired and the rusty shutters on the serving hatch replaced. Big John and Fascist Dave aren’t quite as powerful. But they’re louder and ruder than ever at meetings and still have sway over the agenda. The Tennis Social Democrats are now inclined to appease them by passing tougher laws against badminton players.

I met Lynne over a coffee last week. We talked about how to sort the club out. One idea had been to offer free taster sessions to attract new members, something like that has worked for other clubs. “I heard that Anne likes the idea,” said Lynne, “But it costs money to run them. She’ll just be talked out of it by her assistant.” That happens to any treasurer who proposes something that won’t bring short-term results.

Another would be to increase the fee for premium membership. “It’s a no brainer, right?” said Lynne. But they are wary of drawing the ire of Clive, who owns the club’s other newsletter, and Martin, a longtime donor to the Tennis Feepayer’s Party before he switched sides a few years ago. So instead, they’ve tried to cut spending on things like the milk supply, umpire training and the Long Membership Discount, the latter of which had not been mentioned in their manifesto.

Despite the criticism, the budget passed easily, since the Tennis Social Democrats have 5 of the 9 seats on the club board. No-one dares vote against their party’s budget no matter how good or bad it is. And apart from what Anne discussed, most of them didn’t even know what was in it. It’s the same any time the club board makes a decision. That’s just how it’s always been.

Now there’s a new figure on the scene, Bob, the first board member elected for Sandford Tennis Club First. He’s been stirring up fears claiming the club has been infiltrated by a conspiracy of badminton players and people from Buford Abbey. And he’s promising to bring in 200 new members, halve the club fees, withdraw from Sandfordshire Tennis Association and install a prison gate to keep anyone from Buford Abbey out, all on his first day as club president. Though Bob has no plan to fix the leaking roof, because he denies it exists. Bob already has some enthusiastic support from Big John, Fascist Dave and even Alan. I’ve heard the mutterings among club members, and while most of them wouldn’t want it, and even less agree with him, I think he’d win the club presidency if the board was elected today.

“Surely he can’t win?“ Lynne said. “We’re better than this. Almost none of us are angry about badminton players. Even Fascist Dave’s wife plays badminton. Bob doesn’t represent us at all.”

“Trouble is,” I said with a sigh, “Neither do the others.”

“What about Gary?” asked Lynne, almost pleading for some good news. “Do you think he’s might have the answer?” Gary, the leader of the Tennis Progressive Party, also won his party’s first seat on the board, though the newsletters took far less interest.

“Maybe…” I replied. “Maybe he’ll have a valuable role to play. But I think we need to find a better way to run the tennis club.”