Blog

The 2009 Holiday Awards Banquet was an amazing success! With roughly 100 GLTF members looking fantastic in non-tennis outfits, we all got to see familiar faces in a different light. Our tux wearing, Master of Ceremonies for the evening and event coordinator, Social Director, David LaTulippe, raised the bar to a whole new level this year. Click here to view pictures >

The First Universalist Unitarian Church was a fantastic venue for our party. We had a huge room, with high ceilings, elegant decorations, and intimate tables. The whole room looked fantastic, decorated with beautiful flowers from Steven Brown, free gift mugs full of little surprises, and perfectly executed table decor from our favorite caterer, Alex Scotta. We had a free bar run by former board members, John Keliher and Carla McKay, next to our own jazz trio. We had a slide show of rotating pictures from a year of events and a center table full of delectable treats.

We started off the evening with drinks in hand and sampling the amazing hors d'oeuvres traveling throughout the room. Board members took turns opening sealed envelopes for the member voted awards, see the list of winners below. We also presented Alex Lin with the 2009 Volunteer or the Year Award, for superb spirit, running several 2009 events including a big portion of the USGO and being an all around outstanding volunteer. We followed with an amazing dinner service perfectly executed by Alex's superb staff. While everyone enjoyed their meals, we presented the event specific awards.

As everyone finished up, GLTF President, Ember Harker, presented the 2009 President's Award Winner to Cecilia Garcia for her years of reaching out to new members and promoting a spirit of pride and volunteerism throughout the club. The entire room gave Cecilia a standing ovation while she accepted her award and then gave a short speech.

Then, Vice-President Martha Ehrenfeld, delivered a awe-stiriking, multi-media presentation for the 2009 Hall of Fame Award Winner, Loren Nordlund's, years of unfailing service to the club. Loren accepted his award with grace and the delivered an inspiring speech about how far we've come, the implications of our club in the bigger picture of gay rights and the world. Many people were moved by Loren's ability to put this moment in perspective.

We then switched it up for a lighter note. USGO Director, Dave Campbell led the entire room in a trivia contest. Of course, we had to take a break when the delectable desserts arrived. We wrapped up the trivia which segued into The 15th Street Courts Project, an effort to have these courts renovated and made a historical location in the history of the gay sports.

GLTF President, Ember Harker then returned to present the GLTF's achievements for 2009. These included the largest number and most diverse USTA teams ever, the largest USGO ever, the biggest USTA grant ever, our new website, our new handbooks, and long-term effort for our official 501c4 non-profit status.

For the rest of the evening, we laughed, we listened as our MC sang holiday songs, we finished the wine and caught up with old friends. It was a magical evening in which for one moment in time we all came together, regardless of where we live, gender, teams we play on, tennis level, etc and we were one AMAZING club paving the way for gay sports world-wide.

I hope you'll join us next year. We've already reserved the same location and with a little luck, we'll have Alex back to cater another fantastic evening. The date is December 4, 2010. Thank you to everyone who made this one of the best holiday banquet's ever!

MEMBER VOTED AWARDS:
Male Player of the Year:  Chris Nichols
Female Player of the Year: Joyce Ching
Most Improved Player - Male: Yohannes Mochtar
Most Improved Player - Female: Winnie Fink
Rookie of the Year - Male: Josh Smith
Rookie of the Year - Female: Alanna Coopersmith

BOARD NOMINATED AWARDS:
2009 Hall of Fame Winner: Loren Nordlund
2009 President's Award Winner: Cecilia Garcia
2009 Volunteer of the Year: Alex Lin
Captain of the Year - Male: Thomas Pelliccioni
Captain of the Year - Female: Tracey Rose
Captain of the Year, Honorable Mention: Danielle McGuire

 
  Please wait...

Next year is the 30th Annual United States Gay Open tennis tournament!  And we’ve come a long way.  To celebrate this landmark, the GLTF is lobbing for the sky:

• Inviting tennis celebrities and pros to attend
• Designating the birthplace of the GLTF—the 15th Street tennis courts in San Francisco—as a historical site on the National Register of Historic Places 
• Staging the biggest USGO tournament party ever
  

Of course, it will take a gay village to make these things happen.  

We are looking for stories about the GLTF’s origins, its history, events that led up to the formation of the GLTF, and events that have happened over the last 30 years that help us tell our story.

We would love hear about the obstacles and challenges you and other LGBT tennis players have overcome during the last 30 years.  Your story might be purely uplifting or perhaps it’s a tale of triumph over adversity from which we might draw inspiration. Collectively we have a compelling story to tell.  The GLTF is one important, but untold story in the larger gay sports movement and fight for equality.  Your accounts will help us remember where we’ve come, fuel other players’ excitement about this year’s USGO, and encourage our progress in overcoming hate and discrimination—all while having a gay old time.

(Plus, your remembrances will also help us make the case for including the 15th Street tennis courts in the National Historic Registry.)

To tell your story here or email your story to usgo@gltf.org. If you have any questions about this request, contact Dave Campbell, USGO Tournament Director.

 Things to do on
 the new GLTF Website!

Maybe you've seen some of the changes around here? GLTF.org has not only had a facelift but we've also added all sorts of new content for our members.  You can still sign up for your favorite events, including Woods & White and Ohana — they’re now available for registrations. Plus there are some new things you can do to, including:


1. Search for Members
This might seem simple, but it's something we haven't had for quite some time and our new tool is really robust. You can do a basic search, for instance, to get the email for that guy who you played 2 months ago named Jeremy. Or you can do an advanced search to find USTA-rated 3.5 women that live in the East Bay. It's pretty cool, so try it out. Start searching >


2. Update your Profile
This function helps you and it helps us. I mean, you want to come up when someone searches for players of your rank and demographic right? So go to your profile to make sure all the info is correct, including your current USTA and GLTA rank. While you’re at it, post a picture. You can add notes for your directory listing, for example: "Available to hit Thursday afternoons at Delores." You can also update your email address and control who can see what info on your profile. You have complete control over your membership listing. Update your profile now >


3. Participate in a Discussion Forum
We've got new discussion forms that will eventually replace our yahoo groups. We have all the existing yahoo group subject categories as well as some new things, like Where to Play, GLTF Chat, Tennis Related...So if you are launching your new CD, want to know about courts in the South Bay, or want to gripe about Serena's new outfit, we've got a place for it. Start discussing >


4. Check out the new GLTF Store
Yeah, we have a store now! It's got all sorts of cool schwag including fully customizable shirts, totes, cards, and even doggy outfits. We've got the following lines available: GLTF Basics, "Out," "Get Served," Woods & White, and Ohana. Be the first one to have a set of rainbow-colored tennis balls on a long-sleeve T! Plus, the GLTF gets a percentage of every purchase. View our store >
Note: if you give anyone the URL, please use a star at the end: http://www.zazzle.com/gltf415*


5. Robust Members-Only Section
Log in to the site to view the members-only section, which is constantly expanding. We now have materials for members, Flickr feeds, instructor bios, event results, discounts, and more in an all-in-one convenient section. Log in to the members only area >


We're doing our best to keep the site updated and are continuing to improve and expand. We hope you'll make a point of checking out the site regularly to see what's new. We've often heard members say they get too many emails, so we're trying to reduce that with this new site, but it'll only work if you come and check it out from time to time. So take a minute to log in, see what's here, and send us any suggestions, constructive feedback, or requests for assistance.

With our new website, the GLTF Board got to thinking about the new age of communications and we figured it was a pretty good thing. So to get us out there and increase the community aspect of our club, we’re looking for someone (maybe you) who really knows how to use Web 2.0 and Facebook and blogs and social media and YouTube and all sorts of good stuff like that — to tell the world about our club and all the cool stuff we do.

We would like to fill an open board position for a savvy online networker/webmaster who will make sure our members return to and are kept updated by our website (in creative multi-media ways) and, of course, tell people about what we do and create a virtual clubhouse.

You don’t have to be super web technical—and definitely you don’t need a Computer Science degree or know HTML, C++, or even how to code.  You just have to get comfortable with our website, updating and adding events.  Good writing skills are a plus.  On average, your time commitment is at least an hour a week.

HERE'S WHAT YOU'LL BE DOING:

• Attend monthly board meetings and hear what’s happening throughout our club.
• Manage our website’s online content; keeping events current; and adding new information on timely basis.
• Utilize website and other new media to keep members interested.
• Track website usage and traffic.
• Identify new media opportunities and ways to create virtual clubhouse.
• Work with board members and volunteers on publicizing events.

Other duties may include:

• Writing and maintaining weekly blogs, photo diaries, Twitter, Facebook, video updates and ongoing media interviews.

WHO WE'RE LOOKING FOR:

You must be a current member of GLTF and should be a good communicator, imaginative and inquisitive. It would be great if you had marketing and public relations experience as well as know how to use Web 2.0 tools including social networking sites, photo-sharing sites, blogs, etc. You should be passionate about tennis. In addition, you’re a “people person” who can work well with volunteers and board members.

Contact our President if you are interested in this position.

After almost 8 months of discussions, meetings, end-user research, and comparison analysis...The GLTF Board is proud to announce our new website. We're very excited about the new solution we've chosen and believe that this version will improve our club, improve our communications, and will have the flexibility to grow with us so that we don't have to change again for a long, long time.

From a board stand-point, the new site offers a very easy to use interface and advanced member management tools. This will enable us to spend more time putting together fun events and less time doing data entry and paper work. :)

The new site offers:

• an advanced member search tool
• the ability to edit your own info and control what's shown to other members
• a revolving image gallery and member feature area on the homepage
• an easy to use interface and simpler way to sign up for events
• discussion forums that you can subscribe to
• an easier way for Event Directors to manage their event

You will soon receive an email from our Membership Director with a new password so you can log on to the site and check out all the new features, new content, the members only area, and upload a small photo for your profile.

We hope you'll find this new site a valuable asset to our club and welcome your feedback.