From George Swartz

Dear Friends of River Oaks, I wanted to bring an urgently important issue to all of your attention in a more direct manner than the blog. I was up at the club tonight for my Tuesday night PCT, and following play I was stumping like a New Hampshire Primary candidate to encourage as many people as I could to commit to the $300 to keep the club going. An issue that was raised by about a dozen individuals was a nervousness about making checks out to Michelle Kuri rather than to an account or fund set up specificaaly for these funds. I had the same concerns which I talked over with Todd on Monday and with Michelle today. I explained to Michelle that people might be somewhat hesitant to write out the check to an individual. I also explained that she should not be taking on the personal risk and potential liability of having over $200k in checks written to her, even if she does just sign them over to the club. I suggested that she, on behalf of the club, open a new Bank Account specifically for these funds, to be administerd by a 3rd party such as a bank official. This would make good business sense and would remove Michelle from any risk or potential liability. Both Todd and Michelle thought this was a good idea, but I'm not sure that Michelle will take the initiative to get this done without some additional prompting and support from all of you. To that end, I would ask each and every one of you on this distribution list to call, email, or fax Michelle to encourage her to open this account. I am going to follow up with her on Friday afternoon and it would be very helpful if many of you had made contact with her between now and then. I am then going to offer to help her get this set-up so that the money goes into an account which is administered by the bank or a suitable 3rd party, not her or Chuck Simon. With these assurances and steps in place, I have a feeling that we will have a much better chance of raising the money necessary to at least keep the club open through the 2008 USTA season, and hopefully beyond. Your Fellow River Oaks Member, George Swartz