Jerry Raynor and Trish Kirik,
silver medalists September 2015
A New Record Build it, and the they will come....and come, they did. In September, we had an all time high of SeaPicklers on the courts...over 70! The Clothespin Rotation was kept busy until closing time at 9pm. Included in attendance are always new players. Also since we added two new courts making 8 total, there is much more play time and less down time. Jacksonville Magazine The latest edition of the magazine contained a short article about Pickleball on page 20. http://trendmag2.trendoffset.com/publication/?i=247933&pre=1 
Clothespin Rotation
For many months we have tried different methods of rotating players on the 8 courts during open play. Often times there are more than 40 players participating. · We have attempted placing paddles against the fence as players came off the court. Next four paddles would play next. The problem we had with this method was not all paddles had a name printed on them. Often times the same four players were always playing together, unless someone shuffled the paddles. · Another system was a dry board to list the player names. As someone played their name was removed. Once they played the game and came off the court, their name was placed back on the list. We called this method the straight line list. The second version of using the dry board was to list six groups (A,B,C,D,E,F). Each group had 4 slots for 4 players. When a court was empty, a group would be called to play. The groups were called in alphabetical order. When a player left a court they placed their name in a group on the dry board. With both versions, only the player or the board manager could place their name on the board. Both worked better than the “paddles on the fence” style of rotation. The problem we found with the dry board was maintaining/transporting/storing the board itself. We have now settled on what we call the “clothespin rotation”. Establish groups, one more than the number of courts being used. Each participant plays one game and comes off the court. Each player is given a clothespin with a group number displayed (4 ones, 4 twos, 4 threes, etc-we use 8 courts). As the group is called and moves to an empty court, the player places their clothespin on the designated area representing their group number. Groups are called to play in numerical order. Upon completion of the game the player receives a new clothespin. We put up only as many numbers as we need to rotate the players. After one hour of play, we allow four players who want to play together are given clothespins from the same grouping. The maintaining/transporting/storing of clothespins is easy. Suggestion: always have extra clothespins and marking pen on hand in case of breakage or loss of the clothespin. 
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Dan, Terry, gold medalist, and Lou
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