PTN Article - Serious Business

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IT’S SERIOUS BUSINESS
By Charles E. Vasoll

Trustee David Childs (L) and Treasurer Jo Rogers (R)
listen intently to he discussion at the meeting on November 28, 2007.

President Rich Lombard (L) and Trustee Howard Patterson (R)
at the meeting at the Fox Meadow Tennis Club in Scarsdale, New York

Note: Trustee Tim McAvoy was in attendance by telecommunication. Trustee Charlie Updike was excused and Secretary Chuck Vasoll was present but not in the photos because he was the photographer.

The Board of Trustees of the Platform Tennis Museum and Hall of Fame Foundation was all business when they met in late November to review a preliminary agreement document with the Episcopal Academy of Newtown Square, Pennsylvania to locate a building for its mission and courts on its new campus. After two failed attempts to add to the clubhouse at the Fox Meadow Tennis Club in Scarsdale, this new site has shown promise. Although there are many details to be completed and a substantial fund raising campaign to be successfully conducted by the Foundation, this new “partnership” appears to be moving along very well.

The most recent attempt to develop a “bricks and mortar” location to recognize those who have been awarded the American Platform Tennis Association’s highest honor and to include a museum with artifacts and displays of the sport have been in process since May 2002. The first meeting of the Board of Trustees was not held, however, until January 8, 2004.

In July 2004 the Foundation received approval from the Internal Revenue Service to have tax-exempt status under Section 501 (c) (3). Negotiations with the Fox Meadow Tennis Club to build an addition to their clubhouse for the museum and Hall of Fame were underway. By March 2005, however, those conversations broke down and the plan to locate at Fox Meadow Tennis Club was abandoned.

The Foundation began seeking other locations. Among them was Brite Avenue Park, a public space in Scarsdale, which had both tennis and platform tennis courts. Several meetings and discussions were held with Village of Scarsdale officials in 2006 but progress was slow and some provisions, such as the inability to agree on lighting for the courts, eventually doomed that location. Several other private clubs and two other public parks were given consideration but none moved ahead.

Chairman Bob Brown conducted the meeting of the Board of Trustees of the Platform Tennis Museum and Hall of Fame Foundation.

A renewal of interest by some members of the Fox Meadow Tennis Club surfaced in June 2007. Some initial conversations with the Club Board of Directors, with new provisions for the ownership of the building by the Club, gave renewed hope of a return to the “Home of Platform Tennis” as the site. This optimism was quickly dashed by August 2007 when the Board of the Club abruptly discontinued the discussions.

Trustee Tim McAvoy initially presented a case to the Foundation’s Board for the Episcopal Academy in June 2007. Chairman Bob Brown and President Rich Lombard visited the proposed location with Trustee McAvoy and reported favorably. Draft terms of the agreement have been exchanged between the parties in September and November. Discussions are continuing as this article is published.

From the most recent conversations, it appears that, if an agreement with the Episcopal Academy can be reached, the fund raising by the Foundation is successful and no unforeseen difficulties arise, a target date of winter 2010 for completion of the courts and museum building with warming hut might be feasible.

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