New La Pine Pickleball Club Board Installed

Ahead of the Cinco de Mayo fundraiser and dinner at LPRD, we had a transition meeting from the previous board to the new one. Mike Patzer is staying on in his role on the board, while all the other roles have changed hands. Here is your new board:

Not pictured (yet!): Roger Allen, Treasurer

All of our prior board members are still around, and we will continue to call on them when needed to smooth the handover. Thank you to Jim Price, Kristie Burdett, Karen O’Cull, and Mark O’Brian for their many years of service to this club!

Court Reserve

As you may have heard, we are going to be transitioning from Sign Up Genius to Court Reserve in the next couple of weeks as the tool our club uses to sign up for play time and events. We are looking to make some other exciting changes at the time of this switchover (Reservable courts! Extended opening hours! Weekly Paddle Battles! Advanced Play courts!) so stay tuned for further communication on this in the near future.

Captains’ Corner (from Cheryl Patzer)

On behalf of the La Pine Pickleball Club I would like to thank Karen O'Cull for her outstanding work on the board, including SignUpGenius, and the management of our captains. Her efforts resulted in 34 club members becoming captains, and allowed for many hours of play.

Please note that there are updated forms in the small office shed including club applications, captain applications, and insurance waivers. In addition, there are pens, pencils, and a notepad. LPRD staff requires that a new waiver must be filled out each year by everyone because they expire on December 31st. For example, if a drop in filled out the form two years ago they need to fill out a new one. All of the forms may be left in the shed and I will collect and take them to the correct personnel at LPRD.

Going forward, one goal of our club is to offer more days and times for playing pickleball. This means we need all of the captains to occasionally sign up for a time to be responsible at the courts. Please consider what you can do as a captain to help support this, and we will discuss this as well as some other topics in more detail at a Captains Meeting on Thursday, June 2, 2022 at the Finley Butte Courts at 2 pm. Mark your calendar!

If you would like to become a captain please contact me at cpatzer@aol.com or 858-414-0533. I will give you the application and explain the process. Also, if you no longer want to be a captain please let me know.

I look forward to seeing all of you at the meeting on June 2.

-Cheryl

Central Oregon Pickleball Players League

New this year, the COPP League is getting started with 6 women’s teams in central Oregon, including teams from Sisters, Redmond, Bend, and La Pine areas. The teams are made up of women rated 3.5 and 4.0. Team practice started this week and unfortunately ended a bit early due to snow (in mid-May ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ). Our club’s team — the Dinking Divas — will have home matches on June 15, June 29, July 6, July 13, and August 10 from 12 pm - 2 pm. Come out and cheer them on!

Margaret, Ruth, Cheryl, and Jen are all smiles in spite of the snow

Court Rules

Depending on the number of players and location, our club has some general rules guiding court play. While many of these have been communicated verbally, we thought it would be nice to write them down here.

Outdoor courts:

Reservable courts: on Court Reserve, there will be 2 courts set aside for reservations. Any member can reserve these courts in a 2-hour block and play uninterrupted with their group for that time.
Open Play courts:
- If all 4 players came onto the court together, at the end of the game the winners of the game stay. The losers leave and 2 new players come on assuming others are waiting (indicated by paddles in the holders outside the court).
- After that, anyone who has played 2 games on that court rotates off, whether they win or lose, assuming others are waiting.
- Any player can only have 1 paddle in the paddle holders at a time; i.e. you cannot bring 4 paddles and try to get “next on” on 4 different courts.
Advanced Play courts:
- On Court Reserve, 2 courts will be set aside for Advanced Play. These courts are for players rated 4.0 and above.
If at any time, the Advanced Play courts and reservable courts are not being used for those purposes, they may be used for Open Play if there are enough players.

Indoor courts: with only 3 courts, we currently have no options for “reserving” a court for a particular group of players. In general, all players have to rotate on and off the courts at the guidance of the captain of the day. If there are a lot of people waiting, the captain will have everyone rotate off the court at the end of each game. With a smaller number of players, the general “2 games then rotate off” approach described for Open Play outdoors may be used.

Upcoming Tournaments

Summer time means pickleball tournament time in Central Oregon! There are quite a few in our area, and while some registrations are already full, many still have open spots:

La Pine Frontier Days, June 22-26

Redmond, July 8-10

Klamath Falls, July 15-17

Bend, July 27-31

There are also lots more in the Willamette Valley and Ashland/Medford areas, so check those out on Pickleball Tournaments if interested.