Congratulations to Grace Stafford, Chairperson of Clontarf LTC’s Junior Development Committee (JDC) who received the Leinster Tennis Volunteer of the Year Award at their annual awards ceremony last Saturday.

Grace took on the role of leading our JDC in January 2025 and in that time she has set a new benchmark and exceeded in giving her time and expertise to our Junior Programme and representation on the club Executive Committee.

Grace has successfully implemented several new initiatives since taking on the role, including:

• Pre-school tennis – this has been hugely successful with up to 100 juniors in attendance two mornings per week from 7.30am to 8.30am
• Movie nights – themed movie nights for junior to encourage attendance and socialisation across ages and friendship groups
• Recruitment and appointment of Junior Captains, a new role to the club.
• Inter-club teen social evenings
• Barnardos fundraiser where over €1,200 was raised by Junior members
• St. Patrick’s Day culture celebration and tennis afternoon

All of the above initiatives were all in addition to the organisation of the ongoing calendar of events for our juniors, among other things the Winter, Spring and Summer Championships, where up to 200 entrants compete, running Leinster tournaments in the club, league teams, inter-club matches and also the support to our coaches in their programme of events.

In addition to implementing this extremely busy programme of events, Grace also continued to play competitive tennis representing the club on the winning Ladies Winter League team and representing Ireland at the 2025 ITF Masters World Team Championships in Turkey.

We are hugely grateful to Grace for her energy, enthusiasm, and dedication to the Junior programme. It is fantastic to see her commitment to the club and our Juniors deservedly recognised by Leinster Tennis.