The start times (Revised on July 20) for each of the brackets in the Mid-Summer Slam tournament are now available and can be found here.

As a result of monitoring court demand and usage over the past month as well as fielding member suggestions, a new weekly play schedule comes into effect on Monday, July 26, 2021.  The major changes are:

• all sessions back to being 2 hours in duration
• mentoring in Monday sessions only

In late April the City of Surrey launched a survey of pickleball and tennis players to find out what their priorities are and where the attitudes are the same or different.  You can see our blog post in this news section.  Thanks to the broader pickleball community for responding.

The results of that survey are in.  The City presented the results to its Outdoor Sports Advisory Committee (OSAC) of which the Surrey Pickleball Club's president is a member.  While some of the similarities are interesting, the differences - and why pickleball has to be treated different than tennis - is notable.  OSAC has is now forming a Pickleball and Tennis Strategy review committee.

The summary of the survey can be found here.

Effective Monday July 5, we will move all of our weekly play sessions to the new, dedicated pickleball courts. Yay!!!  See you on the (new) courts. In the meantime, feel free to give them a try.

…and as a result of some excellent feedback from our members, we have a new weekly playing schedule that is effective Monday, June 28. Registrations for the Monday sessions start on Tuesday, June 22.

Registration for the Surrey Pickleball Club's inaugural Mid-Summer Slam tournament is about to open. Club members get the benefit of being able to register early. Members also get the benefit of being able to purchase tournament t-shirts at a discounted price. Shirts can be purchased now, and will be delivered at the tournament check-in desk. You don't have to be a member to purchase a shirt, but you do to get the discount (log in to get the discounted price). And, you can purchase a shirt without having to register for the tournament.

Great looking shirts, eh!?  The shirts can be purchased through the club store on the club's website here:

For the details of the tournament and to register (and purchase shirts at the non-member price when you register), do so at pickleballbrakets.com here.

So this year the club abandoned the traditional Ratings Committee method of doing club rating assessments and moved to a Play Performance method where your performance on court drives what your club rating is. Depending on whether you win or lose against players of a certain level (and by how much) will determine whether you move up or down in your club rating.  You rise or fall until you find equilibrium playing amongst players of a certain skill level.

We're happy to announce that John Baloun (pictured) is the first club member to move up in skill rating arising from his outcomes in our Rated sessions. John has moved from a 3.5 skill rating to a 4.0 skill level...after 3 days of Rated play.  Congratulations John! 

The good news is Steve Deakin continues to do well on the professional pickleball tour.  The bad news is he will not be able to make it back to Vancouver and clear quarantine in time for our scheduled clinics with him in mid July.  So, unfortunately, we will have to cancel our clinics with him this season. 

The clinics with Mark Renneson (recently rescheduled for August 18-20) are still on.

Good luck on the circuit Steve!

We are having a refereeing clinic on Sunday June 27th at the South Surrey Athletic Park pickleball courts from 9:30-12:30. It will be a 3 hour clinic including instruction and on court practice games. We are extremely fortunate to have a highly qualified USAP Certified Referee who will be there to lead the clinic along with the club's Susan Livesey.

The first hour we will be going over some of the most pertinent rules and how to ref a game, using the score sheet, what a ref's responsibility is etc. Once you have done the clinic it is our intention to pair you with a mentor who can help you to ref some of our Round Robin games. This will help you to feel comfortable when your time comes to ref some tournament games. It can be very rewarding and enjoyable.

All you really need is a desire to learn, the ability to concentrate on the game you are reffing, a loud voice and a good attitude.

We promise it will be a fun day!!!! Please sign up WE NEED YOU FOR OUR TOURNAMENTS!!!!!!

To register for the clinic, you must do so through the Calendar event on the club's website. Surrey Pickleball Club members will get early registration.

The club's 2021 outdoor season kicked off this morning at the pickleball courts at South Surrey Athletic Park.  First up was a 2.0/2.5 Rated session and a 2.0/2.5 Social (mentored).  See the Calendar for the schedule and to signup for sessions. Pictured is the hardy group that showed up to kick off 2021!