Just Do It! (and we did)

 

The 2nd of our five 2025 tournaments was held on Saturday, April 12, 2025, with a capacity crowd of 142 women competing in 175 matches in the 4th Annual ROYAL LePAGE  Spring Fling Women’s Doubles Tournament. Supported by 30 volunteers and 16 referees, the tournament ran from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m.  This was our largest women’s tournament to date and ran without a hitch.

 

Sponsor

 

A big thank you to Darcy Sochan, ROYAL LePAGE Realty for continuing to sponsor our one day Men’s, Women’s, and Mixed tournaments.  Over $4200 was raised for the VPA.

 

Just Do It!

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The tournament is for the players, but the tournament couldn’t and wouldn’t happen without our incredible volunteers.  Players are in awe and so appreciative of the hospitality and efficiency of our support team, who looked sharp in their VPA Tournament Volunteer shirts. I was proud to have two out-of-town tournament directors, who were playing in our tournament, ask how we do it.  I introduced them to some of our crew and they were able to get behind the scene and see some of the inner workings of our continually evolving and improving system.  We even put one of them to work for a while!

 

While some volunteer positions are crucial to the success of the tournament and our volunteers have developed a high skill set in those positions, all the roles are important.  Some roles are high profile, some are very much behind the scenes, some are pleasant, others not so much. If you want to know the quality of an organization find the least enviable jobs and check out the skill with which they are done and the attitude of those doing them. The Facility Maintenance Role and the End of Tournament Clean Up would fit that criterion.  I would like to recognize our ‘Mc’ Maintenance team - Karen McKinnon (morning) and Mark McLaughlin (afternoon).  Whether it was mop in hand cleaning up spills, emptying recycle bins, replacing garbage bags, checking on washrooms - they were on it and kept the place spotless throughout the day.  They required very little direction, showed initiative, and did an A1 job that many people would shun.  They set their own standard, and it was exemplary.

 

Similarly, Tournament Take-Down and having the place ready to go for our members Sunday morning is an out of the spotlight task.  The crowds and players have gone and benches, and shoe trays and racks need to be in place, recycling out, garbage cans cleaned, chairs away, vacuuming, sweeping and on.  Jill Benz and Derek Payne took on those tasks and did them gracefully, diligently, and thoroughly.  I think we have a quality organization.

 

Finally, as far as volunteers go while the age of the players ranged from 25 to 80, our volunteers outdid that going from 12 to 90!!!  12 year old Simon Chambers (full disclosure - my grandson) was ‘The Runner’ taking medal results from the score desk to the announcer, to the medal photographer and podium area and then back to the score desk.  This is his fourth tournament as a volunteer.  At the other end of the spectrum is 90 year-old Peter Jones, photographer.  Peter is one of, if not, the oldest player in the club.  He did a 5 hour shift, taking action shots of players, and all the afternoon medal photos staying to the final presentation at 7pm.  That says it all about pickleball with 12 year old Simon handing off the medal results to 90 year old Peter.

 

Thanks goes to our volunteer leaders, Winston Seto, Anne Longley, and Earnan Block for creating this team.