Congratulations to Suresh Kanekar for his selection to receive the San Diego Table Tennis Association’s Hall Of Fame award.  The SDTTA Board of Directors recognizes and appreciates his many contributions to the club and the sport of Table Tennis.

Learn more about Suresh Kanekar, in his own words, click here.

June 11, 2018

Meeting called to order by Chairperson  at 7:02 p.m.

Members present: Behnam Kazemi, Steve McGrew, Perry Schwartzberg   Bob Koch, Jaxon Faris, and Phil Van De Wiele.

Dennis Seisun absent

Motion made to approve last minutes, motion carried.

Steve: Need to talk about old news.

1) The tournament  made for the club approximately $3000. The details were sent to Atilla Malek. Steve will forward to the board.

2) Steve and Phil went to the BPAC meeting and mentioned the issues that we had at our tournament, including closing early on Saturday which caused quite a problem. Apparently, the paper work was started but due to the change of the dates, new paper work was not submitted. This is something to pay attention to in the future.

3) For events like this, it is important that the board members know what their duties are so that these things are taken care of.

Behnam : The tournament was still run poorly even though there were fewer players and extra tournament staff.

Bob: One of the events didn’t finish due to the early closing on Saturday night and we needed another first place trophy due to a mandatory split. One of the players could not make it on Sunday. Bob did take care of this.

Steve: Six months prior to the next tournament, we need to start the paperwork.

Phil: Maybe run a small tournament to see if we can use local software and run the tournament in house. We will discuss dates and plans in the near future.

The board talks about sponsoring some of our more active tournament and up and coming players. It is agreed to sponsor Jeff Ruiz, George Pisa, David Flores, and Keenan Zhou.

The board agrees to sponsor these players for:

L.A. Open, U.S. National Championships, U.S. Open, and our large San Diego tournament.

Voted and approved 6-0.

Perry mentions that we still have bottled water left over from the big tournament. Perhaps we should be giving out water to our members during this hot summer season? The board agrees that this is a good idea and will start to implement this.

Steve talks about shirts and the need to approve a color and style. The board agrees that it may be better to spend a bit more and get higher quaility.

Steve: Fireman’s tournament June 25th 3-8:30, Monday. They will use 4 tables and donate $200 to the club for the equipment usage.

Voted and approved 6-0.

Steve: Perry and Pisa are done with this round of subsidized coaching. Should continue Junior program for Pisa at $50/sessions. Steve suggests that we do the subsidized coaching quarterly.

Voted and approved 6-0.

Behnam nominates Suresh Kanekar for the SDTTA Hall of Fame. He is highly regarded by all on the board for all that he does and has done for the club.

Voted and approved 6-0.

Perry: John Gascon, the head at Balboa Park, wants to get kids in for Friday afternoon from other facilities. He will need some equipment and perhaps a bit of help. Suggesion is $200 budget.

Voted and approved 6-0.

Steve: More balls are needed for the robot.

Voted and approved 6-0.

Phil: Second Sunday tournament random doubles was fun and enjoyable. Phil would like to purchase a new computer and printer for the clubs events. Bob will research prices.

All agree that it is needed.

Steve: Pickleball is trying to get more time for their program which would take from ours. It is important to keep bodies in the club during our hours or we could lose them.

Steve: The new Butterly tables will be $900 each plus $100 shipping in quantity. We have already approved a purchase of 14 tables. We need to sell 13 blue tables and plan to do so for $300 each.

Meeting closes at 8 p.m.

San Diego Open Table Tennis Tournament

May 12-13, 2018

Congratulations to Wenzhang Tao, Open Singles Champion

See all tournament results on OmniPong: Results

View more tournament photos: Photos

Watch the time lapse video of the venue setup: Time_Lapse_Video

Our San Diego Senior team received a very warm  welcome upon our arrival and the draws were already prepared. We played in Single, Doubles, and Brazilian events. We were invited to  lunch around 12. The games were concluded around 4 p.m. 

Our team players were Phil Van De Wiele, Ding Chuan, Jerry Harris, Bob Koch, Behnam Kazemi, Jim Nielson, Rubin, Shelley Hardy, James Kahn, Danny Williams, Holey Li, Morteza Beheshti, Roy Lyon, Fred Witte, Annette Witte, Juybari, Huynh Nancy and Patrick Kilian. I like to thank the event organizers and hope to invite Laguna Hills team to visit us in San Diego soon.  Thanks everybody  again for  joining our team and making  it a successful event.

Behnam Kazemi 
Public Relations Director