FORMER Maleny Tennis Club players and their families feel aggrieved to have learned the club’s honour boards have been removed from the club, however the club said the decision not to replace them was due to their deteriorating condition.
Current club president Neil Stenhouse explained that both of the club’s honour boards were removed last year to allow the club to be repainted as part of ongoing maintenance. Upon removal, one of the boards was showing significant signs of wear and when the time came to retrieve it from storage, the damage was beyond repair.
“Unfortunately, the board which dates back to the 1940s had significant damage and was not able to be restored,” he said. The remaining honour board is currently at local historian and writer Jack Wilcox AM’s home, Neil explained. Jack has a strong association with the history of the club and in 2018 released his fourth book ‘Maleny Memories: Thru the Lens of Tennis’.
Former club member, 81-year-old Daphne Hawkins, said she was disappointed that memorabilia had been dumped and not relocated. “The honour board had a number of names on it who played a big part in establishing the Tennis Club in the first place,” she said. Daphne’s daughter Janelle shared that many felt the decision to discard the board was insensitive, as the names form a part of the history of the Maleny. “Yes they were old,” she said, “but they had history”.
Neil advised GC&M News that the Maleny Tennis Club management committee will review the issue at their next meeting later this month.