Saturday 11th December 2021 at Fusion Tadka, Northwood
We are really excited about all the new opportunities and projects we have in mind for the coming year. There is a lot to look forward too, but let’s have a quick recap of the Club history.
Recap on club history
Our club started playing as a group of friends back in 2014 for the first time. There were hardly 10 of us at the beginning and subject to everyone’s work commitments we tried to hold the club together for weekly sessions. We are humbled that some of those members like Anish, Dhruv, Praful, Vishal, continue to come and support the club.
We were playing at the time on Monday evenings at Ceader Youth & Community Centre. Very quickly friends of friends got interested and started coming, and our club started growing.
We started a second session on Wednesday evening, moving to Haydon School as a more permanent venue for our club. Our club members went from 10 to around 50. Very soon we started a Sunday session too.
Of course, the last two years the COVID pandemic has had a profound impact on the world and our club. For a large portion of last year, we couldn’t play badminton at all. Beginning of this year too, we had very little badminton. Fortunately, from spring onwards we were able to recommence our regular weekly sessions.
Review of 2021
What a year it has been. We have seen first a huge demand in people wanting to join our club. Indeed, many of you here today, have joined the club recently. We thank you all for your ongoing support. Some of the key highlights of the year have been:
Parent and children summer sessions
Over the summer holidays we held Parents and children sessions. After Ashish completed his badminton coaching qualification and DBS check, and with help of a few club members like Safeena, Nilam, Meena, Geetanjali and Vijay. We had great fun and excellent feedback from the parents and children who came. This is something we will look to reassume next summer.
#theBigHit campaign
This year we took part in Badminton England’s #thebighit campaign to help raise awareness about the sport in general but also from an accessibility perspective. We were supported by Aces Wheelchair Basketball Club, who lent us the wheelchairs for our special badminton night on 15th September. Thank you to all the members who took part that night and tried out wheelchair badminton.
Competitions
We had three competitions this year – Mens, Women and a Mixed Doubles competition. This was a first for the club. Previously, we only had a small doubles competition.
This year, we had 30 participants in the competition and many congratulations to all those who took part. Well done to all our champions – Ganesh as this year’s Men’s Champion, Dipali as the Women’s Champion and Clive and Ganesh as the Doubles Champions.
We want to make next year’s competition even bigger and more competitive, so start practising now!
Golden Shuttle Award
2021 Golden Shuttle Award goes to Jason and Rashna as joint players who have attended the most club sessions in the year.
COVID safety
Throughout this year we of course had to adopt various COVID safety measures and currently with Plan B announced by the Government, we all have to be mindful of the safety of all our club members.
We are so grateful that at every step all our club members, have adapted through all the various changes and modifications we have had to make. Whether it is rules around how to play and not share shuttles to accommodating change of venues and timing of sessions due to matters outside of our control.
Session volunteers
Many club members have also helped run sessions when we could not, and this makes our work so much easier. On many occasions we have simply given volunteers like Jason box full of shuttles, first aid kit and registration sheet and they have happily looked after session after session. Ganesh, Krishna, Avi and several others have all helped look after sessions in a similar manner. Thank you.
It has indeed been a whirlwind of a year for us personally, with many family happy and sad occasions. I know recently I have been unable to attend club sessions due to a recent family bereavement as well as my younger brother’s wedding. Ashish always tells me how there is a line of people willing to help and look after sessions. Thank you from both of us, as we really appreciate this.
Growth of the club
Our club this year has seen an explosion of new members joining. The feedback overall has been very positive and this is thanks to all members always being welcoming and inclusive of all abilities. Our current mailing list of players is nearly 300, with around 150 individuals playing sessions in each month. This year we have started operating at two venues on the same evening as well as recently bumping up to four weekly sessions!
Despite the growth in the club, the one ethos which has remained right from the beginning is that our club is the best friendly, local, social badminton club in Pinner and Northwood area.
Looking ahead to 2022
We have some exciting plans we would like to share with you. Importantly we welcome your participation and input into our ideas and plans for the following year.
Club discounts
Already this year at the suggestion of Runish, our club has registered with the local sport shop in Northwood Hills, Tennisnuts, for discounts to club members.
#thisGirlCan campaign
Also, we had a wonderful suggestion from Sonia, to become a part of the #thisgirlcan campaign. It’s a national campaign to encourage more participation by women in sports, by providing a safe and positive sporting environment.
This is a great suggestion and in line with something we saw this year with the first Women’s only competition we held. We would love to start a ladies only monthly session, with the help from all the ladies in our club to help run these sessions.
Session leaders
Following on from this, as our club grows, with more sessions and players, we want to create a team of session leaders, who take responsibility for running each session. We currently have five sessions a week, one session on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday – and two sessions happening concurrently on Wednesday evenings. In the new year we may start more sessions, to meet the growing demand.
As session leaders, you will of course be responsible for ensuring the session run’s smoothly. Beyond this, you would also help with the associated admin and also be a first aider.
First aiders
Currently, Ashish and I are first aiders, and I know a few of you in the medical professions are obviously first aid trained too. This is great, but we would like all session leaders to be first aid trained. To this end, we would like to organise a first aid training for volunteer session leaders next year, with the likes of St. John’s Ambulance or Red Cross. This would be a great contribution to the club, but also a valuable qualification for individuals to have in life in general.
Competition team
As I mentioned earlier, we want our club competition next year to be bigger and better. So, we would like to form a competition team who will help organise and run next year’s competitions. The competition team will help determine the competition format, rules, schedules etc. All going well in 2022, we can look forward to regional club competitions in 2023 and beyond.
Parent and children summer sessions
For next year’s summer parent and children sessions, we would welcome all parents in the club to come forward and help with the sessions. Also, to inspire the next generation of badminton players, we want to encourage a few talented members of our club to take on badminton coaching qualification, much like Ashish has done, to help run coaching sessions for children as well as adults.
Club admin
Club administration has also become a large part with so many members joining. Fortunately, as a Badminton England registered club, from next year we will be using Badminton England’s platform and app for club management. Hopefully, this will make life easier for all, and maybe reduce some of my spreadsheet time! This will entail registering all club members as Badminton England members and everyone will have to use their app for session registration, fee payments etc. We will in due course be sending out more details to all about this.
Passion for Badminton
We are all passionate about badminton as a wonderful sport that not only helps us all be active and healthy but is always a great means of making many new friends in the local community.
Badminton Marathon
Thinking more about our local community, we also have an idea for a Badminton Marathon event. This special event will aims to encourage more people to take up badminton, but more importantly the event will aim to raise funds for disability sports. We are speaking to a few charities and Badminton England to become partners in this special Badminton Marathon. We would love for a few of our members to join as a team to help put together this unique and exciting event.
Tree planting
Thinking a little broader too, and given the drive towards sustainability and tackling climate change, we are looking to do a tree planting event with the Woodland Trust or National Trust. As a club we can help make a small impact on climate change with such a project and again if anyone wants to help put this together, please do speak to us.
Grand Summer Ball 2022
Finally, we also must plan a bigger and better Club Social next year! For this we are thinking of a grand summer social. To help plan this, we would love for a few volunteers to come forward.
As you can see there are many exciting plans for next year, and something where everyone can get involved with. So, if you are interested in helping us with any one of the various projects we have in mind, please do come and talk to us.
Of course, we value any feedback from you as to how we can make our club even better. If there has been any thing we have done wrong this year, either knowingly or unintentionally, we apologise and hope to learn from our mistakes going forward.
Thank you so much for giving us your time today and listening to us. Both of us are so blessed to have a wonderful badminton family like you around us.
Ashish & Bhavni
Play Badminton Club
