We are getting there!!! It seems like the courts have moved ahead slowly at times, but things are moving.

• Almost 40 folks playing today on 8 permanent courts!!! (Check out the vid below)
• Shed up and painted.
• Toilet finally here and cleverly camouflaged.
• Grass along the East side smoothed, seeded and mulched.
• Latest word is that we are looking at late October to get the gates installed.
• Committees are being set up for Court Play Times and Court Improvements. Be sure to let the board know if you are interested in being on a committee.
• Eric Swander was elected as Club Treasurer and Clay Dluehosh was reelected as Vice President. Both for 2-year terms – Congratulations!!!! And thanks for your service.

The Edward Jones Rally In The Valley (our 8th Annual Rally) was held August 6-8, 2021 at our NEW Albany/LBCC Pickleball Courts.

What a fabulous weekend – brand new pickleball courts, great weather, but connecting (and reconnecting) with pickleball players was the best!

Thank you for playing in, volunteering and supporting the Edward Jones Rally In The Valley and supporting the Albany Pickleball Club.

Our new courts opened officially less than a week prior to the tournament. What a relief!!!

Catch all of our action and medal pics!!!
Edward Jones Rally In The Valley pics in Dropbox. You can view and download pics.
Thanks for the medal pics Florence!!!

See the Action Shots from Derrick and Julie Cox Photography!!! https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.866103347643759…+4

Edward Jones Rally In The Valley Results. (Click on “Show Results”)

Huge thank you to our many tournament sponsors. Please patronize these business any chance you get as they were huge supporters of our tournament.
Edward Jones of Albany (Title Sponsor),
Moda Health (Gold Sponsor),
Selkirk Sports (Silver Sponsor),

Court Sponsors:
Xtreme Graphics,
Deluxe Brewing,
Mike’s Heating & Air,
Cedarwood Dental,
Gamma Sports,
Caldwell Banker Valley Brokers (Milton Broyles/Kent Hayworth),
Paddletek Pickleball Paddles,
Franklin Sports, and
Jigsaw Health

Also:
Home Depot,
Walgreens,
Fred Meyers,
Winco Foods,
Game Time Sports Bar & Grill, and
Southpaws Perfect Pizza and Sports Pub

We were pleased to have “Stick A Pork In It\” Food Truck, and Lakeshore Lanes provide food over the weekend.

Without these sponsors this tournament would not have taken place.

We were thrilled to give out gift cards, paddles, pickleball gear, ….  and congratulations to our many raffle winners.

Volunteers:
You probably saw them out there during the tournament making everything in the facility work on the courts, around the courts and in the tents. What you didn’t see was all the hours they put in prior to the tournament. These are the unheralded folks that are our heroes!

Tournament Director:
We were glad to have Kathy Rambousek from Pickleball Is Great as our tournament director. She kept play on time, and superbly organized. I don’t know what we would have done without her!
Contact Info: Kathy Rambousek (360-727-1476 / pickleballisgreat.kathy@gmail.com)

Please visit our Albany Pickleball Facebook Page.

NEW DATE for 2022 – Please mark your calendars! Please look for us next year on August 26, 27 & 28, 2022. We are changing our dates to correspond with the Albany Art & Air Festival so players and spectators will have even more available to them at this popular annual event after play ends each day.

GREAT NEWS!!! OUR NEW ALBANY/LBCC PICKLEBALL COURTS AT LINN-BNETON COMMUNITY COLLEGE ARE NOW OPEN FOR BOTH CLUB AND PUBLIC PLAY! 

The Albany Pickleball Club HAS paid to reserve courts 1-6 for club play. We provide liability insurance for the City and LBCC and also secondary injury insurance  for club members during club activities. Non-members are always welcome with a $3 drop-in fee. We have loaner paddles and will be glad to help anyone get started.  

Club reserved play times through the City of Albany and LBCC are:–  

• Mon/Wed/Fri – 9 AM to 12 PM,
• Tues/Thurs afternoons – Noon to 3PM ,
• Friday Evenings – 5-8 PM, Advanced play
• Sunday – 2 to 5 PM 
• Our new storage shed is up and being used.
  

Stay tuned for a work party to paint and seal. 

Please use the player rotation system to provide fair play times during reserved play.  The club will be emailing more information out to our mailing list. 

Playtime Scheduler (www.playtimescheduler.com) has become the scheduler (but not a reservation system!) of choice for most folks over the winter. We have entered our reserve play times on the scheduler to help avoid double scheduling. Playtime Scheduler continues to be a good tool for people wanting to schedule play outside of reserved club play times. 

Become a Member Today! 
The preferred method to make your dues payment (or donate funds) to our club is with our secure link: albany-pickleball-club.square.site. You can make a payment with your credit card.  
Dues are $20 for the 2020/2021 fiscal year ending September 30, 2021.
Dues are $30 for the 2021/2022 fiscal year beginning October 1, 2021.

The dues, as well as Rally In The Valley tournament proceeds go towards adding amenities to our courts and promoting pickleball for everyone in the area. Examples are the storage shed at the new courts, a pathway around the courts, shade structure, bleachers, training and clinics. Please take this opportunity to contact Cheryl or Pam or another board member and join the club.  Email: albanypickleball@gmail.com

Unfortunately the contractor lost time early in the season because of smoke and weren’t able to get the coating on before winter weather hit.

Work to be completed by the contractor will be, finish electrical, install drinking fountain and reinstall fabric to the north fence as well as repainting.

At this point the courts will be closed through the winter and as soon as there is a window of warmer spring weather they will finish up the coating and open the courts.

There was an issue about play over the winter on nice days at LBCC because of their COVID precautions, but since contract completion will not be till spring, it is a moot point. We will need to see what COVID precautions are still in effect next spring.

Black posts/chain link fence are installed for cross-court fences. Possible future change to close in the corner fences so balls don’t shoot through into other courts. Also potential to put gates in south end for access without going through courts that are in play.

Court surfacing began several days ago. Blue is the pickleball (or tennis court) play area and the green is the out-of-bounds. The kitchen will not have a separate color, maybe something to be added in the future. I believe there are several more coats to be painted, but the rain that started Friday night will delay work, again!

Net posts and nets will be installed after the painting is completed.

Concrete for sidewalk extensions and restroom/shed pads have yet to be poured. And trenches for wiring and fountain are still partially or completely open. No estimated completion date due to rain.

Pictures show courts from the center of the PB courts.

Pictures from Sports Court fence line

Sports Court: Painted for tennis but permanently lined for both tennis and pickleball. Includes a basketball hoop at the north end but uncertain about basketball lines.

Video of the crew putting down exterior (Green) surfacing

The contractor finished up 2 days of paving on 8/25. This is showing the final bit of paving to be completed. Looks nice! Next up: exterior fencing the week of Aug 31. Hoping for sports court work about mid-Sept but don’t know the exact date yet. The light poles in the middle will remain in this latest change and we will evaluate the lighting for play after the courts are finished.

Construction restarted on 8/10 after almost 2 months because of a major design change.  Chain link fencing is down. The tennis net posts were removed and holes refilled and asphalted. Porta potty/shed pad excavated and backfilled with aggregate. Short sidewalk and water fountain area excavated and backfilled with aggregate. The existing fence along the North side is remaining.

Pictures are standing to the South and looking North. The college is to the right.

This is a response that we received from the city updating us on the courts.  We are also anxiously waiting for the Phase two rules to be given so that we may start some organized play.  Stay tuned!

-When the contractor started work we found 2 significant challenges.   Unexpectedly the current courts are built on a 6 inch slab of concrete with an asphalt overlay.  We didn’t anticipate that the entire court would have this base.   We also found that the ground for the addition was unusually soft and would take 18 inches of additional excavation and rock to get it solid and up to grade.   

-With these challenges the cost to build to the original plan grew from $330,000 to $484,000.   Almost half again as much as budgeted.

-We are not at all able to come up with that funding so we had to look at how to “value engineer” (a nice way to say cut costs).

-We are confident that we can make a set of courts that work well for club play, community play, and college needs.  

-As soon as we get the newly engineered plans and meet with the contractor to make sure we can pull it off, I will make sure you and the club see what we are doing.

Some things to anticipate – still in redesign but my confidence is fairly high.

-We should still have 12 courts total
-These courts will be within the footprint of the current tennis courts.
-There will be changes in how we do entrances and exits to give us some of the room we need.
-There are some advantages to this layout which allows us to use some of the existing fence and lighting poles.
-Courts will not be in place until later than planned.   We previously anticipated late July.  We should be done before college starts in September.
-Nothing is certain until we meet with the contractor early next week.

-After we get the contractors input I will share the design information with the club.    We will still not be certain because the contractor has to go back and crunch some numbers. 

APC Board

Temporary Rules for Pickleball
Albany, Oregon
Phase 1 – Through June 3, 2020
Revised/Updated 5/26/2020 (APC)
No Phase 2 Guidelines as of 6/8/2020

Play Singles Only – Doubles Play with Household Members Only (Phase 1 – Change 1)

Hello Albany Pickleball Players.  We know that everyone is anxious to get back to playing pickleball. This is a complicated time for players, clubs, and governments. Please be patient and follow the established guidelines and restrictions. If we do not comply, we may lose what we may lose the gains we have made. The worst-case, scenario, of course, is that we have friends who come down with COVID unnecessarily.

The good news is that the Hackleman courts are open.  The less-than-good news is that play is restricted to singles. Doubles is allowed at this point, but only within your household. This was relaxed from singles play only within to household very recently.  So changes are being made as we go along.

We have been hoping to have our twice-yearly club meeting, but it looks like it will need to be canceled due to crowd restrictions.  We hope to set one up during Phase 2 when group size is raised from 25 to 50.

At this point, we are in Phase 1 (of 3?) through June 3. The state is relaxing restrictions and getting back to “normal” in phases. County and city governments get their restrictions and guidelines handed down from the state. If the precautions and compliance seem to be working (COVID trends remain flat or down), they will relax restrictions and allow more open play. If not, they will extend the phase, or the courts may even be closed.

The Albany Pickleball Club Board has been busy behind the scenes trying to improve play for all pickleball players in the area. We are consulting with the city and county for COVID opening phases and the LBCC courts. We have sent a proposal to both the City Parks and Recreation, the Mayor, and the County Commissioners. Linn county, the lead agency, has forwarded our proposal on to the state. Our goal is reopening doubles in a safe, reasonable, consistent, and compliant way so we do not lose our ability to play this summer.

Since the allowed play is singles and households, we will not be starting organized club play at Hackleman. As we are allowed to start playing open doubles, we will be back with our normal days and times of play at Hackleman at least until the new courts are completed.

As we continue to follow the established safety precautions, the most important aspect is what level of play is open and authorized. (That is singles, doubles with household members, etc.) Please refer to our chart below. We will be updating as restrictions on play levels are authorized.  Hopefully we will have input on levels and safety precautions.

We know that changes are being made nationally in precautions such as wearing masks and virus transmission on hard surfaces. We hope these will be incorporated in new state precautions.  We also know that not everyone shares the same level of concern about the virus.  Our goal is to remain within the state guidelines and make it as safe as possible to play pickleball for as many people as possible. Again, we do not want any of our pickleball friends to become sick because we failed to follow established precautions.

Please note that there may be other facilities that seem to have some different, more relaxed restrictions. We are bringing these to the attention of the county/city.  We still need to comply with our established guidelines. We hope that their play, if outside the guidelines, does not affect our progression through the phases to the “new normal”!

Other News:

• The Rally In The Valley and the SSIPA (Super Seniors International Pickleball Association) tournaments have been canceled due to COVID restrictions and because LBCC court construction may not be completed on time.
• LBCC Court Construction – After a late start, they discovered the courts were originally constructed with 6” concrete pad back in the early ’70s.  The pad developed serious cracking and the solution was a fabric and asphalt lift.  This too developed cracks over time. The project is on hold to develop a change order and hopefully will restart in a week or so. It has been a week or so for a week or so!
• Court lights: The board decided against lights due to cost.
• Possible Shade Structures – Talking with LBCC about shade options including trees.

Temporary Rules for Pickleball
Albany, Oregon
Phase 1 – Through June 3, 2020
Revised/Updated 5/26/2020 (APC)

Play Singles Only – Doubles Play with Household Members Only  (changed from Singles with Household Only)  Hopefully we will get Doubles play in Phase 2.

• Organized Club play will be started back up as doubles play is able to start. At this point setup your own singles and household play times.
• Please have patience and follow the stated guidelines so we do not lose our outdoor courts to play on.
• The Club is consulting with the City and County to get reasonable, consistent, safe guidelines.
• The County forwarded our recommendations (similar to below, but with open doubles play) to the state.
• Our goal is safe play following the established government guidelines and restrictions.

Do not play if:

• You have coronavirus symptoms: mild to severe respiratory illness with fever, coughing, difficulty breathing, or other symptoms identified by the CDC.

• Have been in contact with someone with COVID-19 in the last 14 days.

• Are a vulnerable individual or have underlying health conditions.

If you play:

·   Maintain six-foot distancing from others at all times.

·   Don’t congregate on courts, in common areas, or parking lots.

·   Limit or stagger playing groups.

·   Wash hands with soap and water and bring personal hand sanitizer to courts.

• Clean and sanitize paddles, rackets and water bottles.

Do not share equipment.

• Avoid touching gates, fences, nets, benches, etc.

• Use your paddle, racket, or shoe to pass out-of-play balls.

• Consider wearing gloves to help avoid touching pickleballs or tennis balls.

• Coordinate your group so each person serves with a different color or number ball. If that’s not an option, mark personal balls for individual use.

• Virtual handshakes only.

Use your own judgment to determine your ability to participate – play is at your own risk. 

Thank you, 

APC Board

Start work May 11, 2020. Chain link lence removed and stacked. Several pieces of equipment on site. Ground is wet from the last several days of rain. Good to see some progress on the new courts!