Dear Tabletenniser’s,

  In our final competition for the year we had a Holiday Season lively group of 77 players.

Sally Sue wins Division One with a 4-1 match record; Kung Wu wins Division Two with a 4-0 solid performance

.

James Kenney Recreation Hall (GYM) will be closed from December 21 to January 14 . A new gym floor will be installed.

The most probable date therefore for the BTTC to continue our round robins will be JAN. 18^th, I will update all of you as the time approaches.

 

Another very important issue is…

The City Of Berkeley is reviewing our status and that could affect the use of the gym overall and possibly the prices we charge.

We need to prove to the city that we are an educationally based organization to maintain our current status (in which case we should be able to stay here at this venue and may not need to raise our prices) If you have an interest in helping save our current location and status please E-Mail me a letter urging the city of Berkeley to keep us and that we provide a community service and an educationally based benefit to the community. When I make a presentation to the city these letters could be helpful! A few good letters could tip the balance of the city of Berkeley’s perspective and affect their decision.(see at the bottom of the page  some letters I have already received)

This Weeks Top Performers

Jacky Labins +99

Dan Bruno +98

Matt Lim +90

Andrew Sterner +88

Alex Weissman +79

Uwe Jacobs +64

Daniel Tang +54

Vivian Sun +53

Vincent Corbett +52

Dylan Lopez +50

Jason Fuh Re-adjusted rating - 758

CONGRATS!       To view the RR results go to www.berkeleytabletennis.org 

Please report any errors or omissions ASAP.I cannot change the posted result but will make the rating adjustments

Regards Mike Labins

Hi Mike

 

Just a followup on our conversation last night.

Please keep my email and call on me if you think it will help.  I do have connections in the city.  I work as morning news anchor at KGO Radio and have some visibility in the community.

 

I have served on the board at Walnut Creek Youth Athletic and am aware of the way the process works.

 

THE IMPORTANT POINTS ARE...AT A TIME WHEN WE WORRY ABOUT KIDS HEALTH AND ACTIVITIES, THIS IS A PROGRAM THAT SHOULD NOT BE TAKEN AWAY. IT ALSO SERVES THE ADULT COMMUNITY IN A LEARNING ENVIRONMENT.

 

My estimate is that half the participants are under 18.  Every time out is a learning experience.  All you have to do is look at how the kids ratings improve.

This is something the city of Berkeley should be proud of.  It is doing a major service to the area.

 

You do great work...thank you..

 

Ed Baxter

 

Dear City of Berkeley,

 

I understand that the city of Berkeley is in the process of re-negotiating  with the Berkeley Table Tennis Club the use of the space at the James Kenney Recreation Center.  As a Berkeley resident, I see the club as a resource that the city is lucky to have, rather than just a source of rental income for the city.

 

My son, now 13, has belonged to the club since he was 11.  The  wonderful thing about this club is that players are matched by skill level, not age.

 As a result, my son regularly plays against people of all ages, and on a typical night may play with a retiree in his 60's as well as a girl several years younger than he is.  The club's atmosphere is unique in that members are of all ages and nationalities.  One sees people from Sweden, Russia, India, etc.  The winner of a recent tournament was a French-speaking black man, and a runner-up was a woman.  There are always a number of children and teens who come with older family members, each at a table based on skill level.  In China, table-tennis is treated seriously, as a discipline rather than a past-time, and the significant Chinese presence is a great boon to the club.  In the past, my son also attended the juniors section (in order to polish his skills for the regular Friday night sessions), but had to quite because Thursday is a homework night.  We are hoping that the new contract will allow use of the upstairs space for juniors on Saturday nights as well.

 

Affordability is important to the club.  One of the reasons the club is so diverse is because entry fees are low and pay-as-you-go rather than requiring a high, pre-paid membership fee, which only the die-hard could commit to. And it would be a tragedy if the club had to leave Berkeley.

We simply would not be able to attend if I had to drive a long distance since I have a younger child to attend to. I hope that the city will come to appreciate the table tennis club (as well as the juniors section) as another of the city's unique resources.

 

          Sincerely,

 

                         Xanthippe Phillips

 

Dear Bunny:

I wanted to express my support for your efforts, and those of the Berkeley Table Tennis Club (BTTC), to reach a commercially reasonable arrangement with the City of Berkeley that will allow the BTTC to continue to operate and indeed to grow and provide even greater opportunities to the large community of avid table tennis players that lives in the East Bay.

The BTTC provides a crucial service to a large group of individuals of all ages and backgrounds -- but in particular to young kids and  adolescents -- who are passionate about the sport of table tennis (which, I believe, is the world's second most popular sport after soccer). Indeed, as far as I know, there is no other venue in the East Bay where these kids can meet on a regular basis to train and improve their table tennis skills. For many of these kids, the BTTC is the main venue through which they learn how to play the sport of table tennis. The competitive round robin evenings that the BTTC organizes are, of course, essential in enabling these kids to develop their table tennis skills and improve their ratings.  

I know that being an active member of the BTTC is a big part of these kids' lives. Many of these kids -- who come from a multitude of diverse cultural backgrounds, including the Far East, India and Eastern Europe  --  are wonderful athletes for whom table tennis is a significant part of their cultural heritage and as important a part of their lives as is baseball, football and basketball for other young people in our community. It would be truly unfortunate, and a blow to the cultural diversity of the East Bay, if the BTTC were no longer able to operate due to financial constraints. 

Please let me know if there is anything I can do to support the BTTC.

Best regards,
Ivan