Membership Renewal

Thanks to everyone who has been renewing their memberships, since many expire on Jan. 1, 2023. If you have any questions about membership renewal, see this post. If you suddenly find you can’t register for events on Court Reserve, that’s a good sign your membership has expired. Also, even if you don’t need to renew your membership at this time, we still need you to sign a 2023 LPRD Waiver and return it before you play in 2023.

Tournament Sponsors

A big thank you to two local companies who recently signed up to be premier-level sponsors for our 2023 tournament. St. Charles Health System is a returning sponsor this year, and Jim Yourdon (aka club member Michal Yourdon’s husband) of Lone Pine Transport is a brand new sponsor! Thank you for your support of our club and our community!

Miscellaneous updates

• Check out the recently updated LPPC bulletin board in the gym at LPRD for lots of good info and some fun photos from the last year! The board is on the wall on the right as you walk into the gym, above where we usually put a bin of balls during playtime.

• Indoor play reminder: Please remember to wait for play to stop on a given court before walking behind it to get to another court. For additional indoor court guidelines, please see this earlier post.

• For newer members interested in reading past member updates, feel free to scroll back through the blog. Here are some quick links to September, October, November, and December.

• Some newer members have asked about ratings. Currently, our club allows self-rating based on the USA Pickleball Self-Rating guide. If your rating in Court Reserve needs to be updated, please email us.

• Our club has lots of new members, including many folks who are brand new to pickleball. For our more experienced players, When you know you are playing against a beginner during open play, please don't hit hard, fast balls at them. Instead, let's make sure we set everyone up for success! This can be a great time to work on your control game, placement, drop shots, etc.

• Drills and lessons: Jen Toso is working on some changes to the drills/clinics she leads on Tuesdays and Thursdays. We’ll send out more information soon and update Court Reserve to reflect the changes, but keep an eye out for that if one of your New Year’s Resolutions is to improve your game!

Pickleball Rule Changes 2023

Every year, pickleball rule changes are considered and a select few implemented for the next year. Recent changes have included playing serves that touch the net, legality of spin serves and drop serves, as well as when you can challenge the score.

Jim Price, one of our local players and a Certified Referee, has offered to prepare a document with some of the most important Pickleball rule changes beginning January 1st, 2023. Jim has reffed in many tournaments throughout the country and had the honor of being the lead referee for the Pro Men's Doubles Gold Medal Match at Nationals this year. Jim is also currently the Pacific Northwest's Certified Referee Coordinator, helping lower level referees achieve their certification.

Jim created the attached document, which lists the most consequential changes. I’ll go ahead and call out one of the changes in particular here since it reverses one of the changes that was implemented in 2022 and that I just called out in last month’s update (sigh…).

Wrong Score Called (4.K) 

If the wrong score is called, the referee or any player may stop play before the return of serve to correct the score. It is a fault to stop play after the return of serve to identify or ask for a score correction. It is a fault to stop play to identify or ask for a score correction when the score was correctly called.

Jim’s Take- This reverts us back to the rule prior to last year. We found that not having the option to stop play at all, created some angst among players. This will allow you to stop the play to fix it if you do it before the return of serve. If you are wrong however, a fault will occur.

Please see this document for more details on other rule changes. Thanks to Jim for sharing it with us!

Pickleball Basics Instructor Needed

We are looking for a 3.5-4.0 level member who is interested in instructing a pickleball basics session once each week. Cathy's session is full each week with eight players on two courts. This additional instructor could use the third court during the same day and time as Cathy, or take a different day and time for up to eight players on two courts. Please contact Cathy Hundley (541-420-2221) if you are interested!

Captains

Captains are responsible for opening and closing the courts during open play and events, and they keep our courts and storage facilities clean, safe, and secure. Captains are also the onsite contact for new guests and members. For more information, or if you’re interested in applying, please contact us or speak to Cheryl Patzer directly.

During the winter, one of the main jobs of a captain is to open and close the LPRD building when our play times are outside of business hours for the building (M-Th, 9 am - 2 pm). If a captain isn’t signed up to play or available to open/close the building, no one will get to play during those times. So, one of the main benefits of being a captain is that you will never be unable to play simply because other captains aren’t present. The more captains we have, the better for everyone in the club!

New Members

Welcome to all the new members who joined us in December: David Thompson, Donna Pagel, Peter Pagel, Marion Goodman-Seay, Brian Goins, Shelly Sears, Robin Marsh, Mary Towner, Beth Evanson, Greg Evanson, Mike Seay, Marilyn Quadrel, Ruby Price, David Davalos, and Malcom Ash.

Wider World of Pickleball

While sometimes I wish I could be the laid back folks in this video, I know that I’m always going to be one of the try-hards in the green shirts.

This video made me sooooo glad we don’t play pickleball in a glass case (especially not a glass case of emotion for all you Anchorman fans out there).