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2017 Notice of Annual Meeting
Posted February 28th, 2017
Notice of Annual Meeting May 4, 2017
The Annual Meeting of the American Platform Tennis Association will be held on Thursday, May 4, 2017 at the Nassau Country Club, Glen Cove, New York, in order to (1) Elect Directors to serve for the term of three years (in accordance with the APTA By-Laws), and until their successors are elected and qualified, and (2) To act upon such matters as may properly come before the Board.
Vote
Your APTA Board of Directors reorganizes each year following the Annual Meeting. Board Members are elected or re-elected by the members at this meeting. For those of you who cannot attend the meeting, we offer the opportunity to vote by proxy, either by clipping and mailing the form below or by casting your vote after receiving an emailed proxy.
At the May 4, 2017 meeting we will see the retirement of Ray Crosta, George Douaire, Cooey Lyon, John Noble, and Courtia Worth. Proposed for re-election is Bill O’Brien. Proposed for election are Dave Broderick, Mark Fischl, Whit Harwood, Jim Ingle.
This group is charged with making decisions about the rules, regulations and finances of the APTA.
Please take time to vote.
2017 APTA Proxy
Mailed, emailed or faxed proxies must be received by Wednesday, May 3, 2017.
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Proxy in MS Word Format
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Proxy in pdf format
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2017 APTA Board Candidate Profiles
Dave Broderick
Dave was introduced to platform tennis in high school by David Ohlmuller, but did not start playing until 10 years later when Sarah Kreiger got him out on the courts several times a week. He has been hooked ever since.
He is a member of the PPTA, where he served as a National Tester. For almost 20 years, he has been involved with the APTA Junior Nationals and for the past three he has been a co-chairman of the tournament. Together with his brother Drew and Patty Hogan, Dave founded High Energy Paddle, which offers weekly instruction to over 60 women who are looking to improve their game. He is also a board member of the New Jersey Men’s Platform Tennis Association, serving as the Treasurer and involved in running the 128-team League Classic. Dave enjoys working with Juniors and watching their development progress, as well as organizing and running platform tennis tournaments for all levels of play.
Dave is the Head Racquets Professional at the Short Hills Club in New Jersey, where he has worked for the past 17 years. He is also a certified tennis and squash professional.
He lives in Bayonne, NJ, where he is currently the second-best platform tennis player, with his wife Liz and kids Marissa (who roots for Drew more than her father) and Edmund.
Mark Fischl
Mark was introduced to platform tennis in 1993 on a court used from the prior year’s Nationals at the Huntington YMCA. He quickly fell in love with the game and started playing as much as possible. In 2002, he took over as Chair of the Men's Players Committee. In 2004, Mark became President of the APTA and served in that role for five years. Under Mark's tenure, the Clinics and Exhibitions tour was created as was the Growth Committee. Clearly his smartest decision was hiring current APTA Executive Director Ann Sheedy. In 2009, Mark was part of an effort to relocate the YMCA courts to Crest Hollow Country Club and the birth of Long Island's first public facility with five courts.
Whit Harwood
It's fair to say that paddle for Whit is a family tradition. You may recognize some of the names in his lineage. Whit’s grandparents, Chuck and Norma Baird, laid the foundation for a family-wide obsession. His parents, Bill and Nancy Harwood, put a paddle in his hand at a young age. His uncles, Chip and Steve Baird, offered countless tips, strategies and stories, including how they won their first Nationals at ages 22 and 24, respectively. After playing in several Junior National tournaments, other youth sports got in the way, but Whit returned to the game during his senior year of high school, when he played on the Short Hills Club team and was hooked.
A recent graduate of Colby College, Whit works for the Sports Brand Partnerships team at FOX Sports in New York. Returning to the New York/New Jersey area was a good move, enabling Whit to rejoin the paddle community in the area and continue his obsessive relationship with the game. Saturdays became an opportunity to play in the morning and then watch Live Streamed matches in the afternoon with the Short Hills Squad.
Whit realized that working in sports media could be put to good use at the APTA. Since last summer, he has been working to build the APTA digital and social platforms, alongside the staff, board members, and the team at ENET. The goal is simple: make it as easy as possible for every paddle player to access videos, photos, and news from anywhere at any time, via the APTA app, Facebook, Live Scoring, Twitter, YouTube, and Live Streaming.
Jim Ingle
Winter, for Jim Ingle, used to be counting the days until golf season would start again. He was introduced to platform tennis in 1993 by his business partner. It took a year of convincing to try what looked to him like a goofy game on a miniature tennis court in a chicken coop, but by 1994, he gave it a shot and was hooked.
As a partner in a technology consulting firm, in 1995, Jim decided to donate some hours and write an online system for Chicagoland platform tennis players, using this weird new thing called the Internet. Only one men’s league used it, but there were only a total of six leagues. Twenty-two years and countless thousands of volunteer hours later, the system supports 8000+ players in 51 Chicagoland leagues for both men and women.
Bill O’Brien
Bill started playing platform tennis in 1978 at the Indian Trail Club in Franklin Lakes, New Jersey. He immediately fell in love with the game and started playing in the North Jersey League for ITC shortly thereafter. By 1990, Bill had moved to Hinsdale, Illinois, and started to build what would become one of the largest park district platform programs in the country. He has started a new group of 12 to 20 beginners every year for the last 24 years, strictly on a volunteer basis, staying with them through the season as a teacher and team captain. A number of those players then went on to start programs at their own clubs, such that what started as just 2 courts in a public park in 1990 is now 38 courts in 2 park districts and 6 private clubs—with over 70 men’s teams—in the Hinsdale area.
Bill has also served as Alan Graham’s right-hand man in running the Chicago Men’s League, which is the largest and fastest growing platform tennis league in the country, with 350 men’s teams and about 4,000 players. (Alan and Bill also co-chaired the APTA National Championships in 2006 in Chicago.)
