Broxbourne Table Tennis Academy

Breaking news. The ETTA has now awarded us Premier Club Clubmark 2 star. Another rung up on our ladder of success.

Junior Academy kicks off this week. John Warner Friday 13th Jan. and Grundy Park Monday 16th. Session again will be 4pm warm up for 4.30 to 5.30 instruction and play.

The 5.30 to 7pm is temporarally suspended until numbers increase.  Competition play will be

increased this year, so watch this space.

The Senior Grundy Park Club is fast growing in numbers and playing standard. Our first team is leading the Hertford League Premier Division, and the second and third teams are both lying very close second in their respetive divisions. An excellent start for the first half of the season.

Today BTTA has gained  ETTA Premier Club Clubmark Accreditation.

This is the culmination of months of hard work and acheivement.

Chairman, Malcolm Norris.

Hello to all current, and potential newcomers for our new training sessions.

Weekly coaching will begin at Grundy Park commencing, Monday 12th September 2011 and John Warner on Friday 16th September 2011.

Beginners session time is 4.30 to 5.30pm but you will be able to arrive at 4pm for a warm up.

 Advanced session time is 5.30 to 7pm.

The cost this year will be £3 per session if paid weekly or £30 advance membership for a 12 week block booking, equal to a £6 saving.

We look forward to seeing you.

BROXBOURNE TABLE TENNIS ACADEMY

NEWS LETTER

August 2011.

The 2010/11 season was very successful with attendance figures increasing both in the adult Monday evening Grundy Park Club and also junior attendance at both Grundy and John Warner training sessions.

Both of our senior teams faired well in their respective divisions in the Hertford League, The first team finishing fifth in the Premier although only missed third place behind Hoddesdon and Cheshunt by a whisker.

The second team in Div 1 came an excellent second, and also were runners up id the handicap cup. Some of our juniors represented the B of B in the Hertfordshire youth games and finished 7th on the day, again only a few points behind 1st and second place scores. Also a few of our juniors have now moved on to higher levels at BATTS Harlow and some have now been selected for regional training.

Our chairman and head coach Malcolm was nominated for the 2011 Coach of the year at the sports awards in the Borough of Broxbourne but did not receive the final accolade. Although he did not know he was also short listed for the 2011 long term Service to Sport Award, and was delighted to receive the trophy.

This is a fine feather in the cap for BTTA and should bode well for our future development.

Much work and planning has been done during the quieter summer months to prepare for exciting new developments which will start in September 2011.

At Grundy we have secured a much larger playing area in order to be able to add a third match team, also to accommodate the growing numbers and potentially more visitors to the adult club.

On the junior front we shall be adding a third coaching session, a double session at Grundy and a continuation of the John Warner group. Again we would like to see our juniors attaining higher levels and soon playing in junior league tournaments and matches.

The new playing area will allow potentially eight tables to be used for normal play and practice, or six tables within barriers (32 now on order) to facilitate six official match play areas.

Playing time will also increase so that we are able to commence junior coaching at 4pm through till 7pm when the adult session starts earlier than before, enabling juniors and helping adults to have practice time together.

Matches will then be able to start at the more normal time of 7.30pm as all other clubs do.

All of this development will obviously require additional funding some of which to have be born by our members and visitors, plus numerous other funding sources which are currently in the pipeline. Although not yet all secured funds in excess of £6000 have been applied for and we are still working on other potential avenues. Members help will be appreciated in this.

As mentioned some time ago, another development in T T within the B of B

could eventually see some of our neighbouring T T clubs joining with us in the sharing of facilities and funding. Grundy Park have agreed in principle that this could be achieved and further talks will be held to pursue this idea.

Eventually Grundy could become a centre of excellence for a number of clubs running throughout the whole week.

The committee meeting later this month will see the culmination of 18 months of accreditations and paper work, which will enable us to gain our

ETTA Club Mark Award.

This award is not handed out easily, and it is a great achievement for BTTA and also a benefit to Grundy Park to have a club with such credentials as part of its portfolio.

All of the above achievements present us in high esteem when outside organisations or sponsors consider our appeals, so we look forward now to a successful year ahead.

Much has happened since my last report, so this should bring things up to date.

JUNIORS.

Junior coaching at both Grundy and John Warner have progressed well throughout this year, but we would like to see more children participating. The programme is open to all school children within the Borough of Broxbourne, over 40 schools. So we should be achieving better attendance. Come and join us, it's great fun and good for your health.

Some of our Academy players formed part of the Herts Youth Games B of Broxbourne squad in June this year, and although a relatively young team, did very well to achieve 7th place. We are targetting top 3 for next year.

SENIOR SECTION

GRUNDY PARK TABLE TENNIS TEAMS   MAY 2010

The senior section of the BROXBOURNE  T T ACADEMY was formed from players attending GRUNDY PARK LEISURE CLUB and has played in the Hertford T T League for three years now.

In our first season 2007-8 we won the Hertford second division Cup.

We grew, and were able to enter two teams in the 2008-9 season and were fortunate to win both the first division cup, and the second team the second division cup.

The 2009-10 season after such rapid success and promotion, has proved much tougher for us.

The first team, now playing in the Premier Division finishing a comendable third, and the second team a valiant fourth in the first division.

We will always welcome new members. You will find us at Grundy Park Leisure Centre, Cheshunt Herts. Mondays 8pm to 11pm. 

 Back row left to right; second team, STEVE CHILTON, GRAHAM SMITH, RICHARD FELLOWS (Captain.)     first team DENNIS SHAW, and front row ROY JAGER and MALCOLM NORRIS (Captain.) 

Our first photo shoot  took place at Grundy Park on Monday March 22nd 2010.

We are endebted to local photographer Mike Cliff who took a large series of great action pictures which will be used to promote the Academy.

Our new £1000 robot ball feeder has arrived.

This is a valuable teaching aid which will rapidly improve our players skills and consistent play.

We are grateful for the Borough of Broxbourne's Herts County Councilors, Alan Searing and Dave Hewitt, who have both contributed to our funding so far.

The equipment will be set up at Grundy Park Sports Centre ready for our next training sessions which will start on Monday April 26th 2010.

Broxbourne Table Tennis Academy started coaching youngsters aged 8 to 16yrs in September 2009. Based at two venues, Mondays Grundy Park Sports Centre Cheshunt and Fridays John Warner Sports Centre.

Starting with just 10 players, we have rapidly managed to build participation levels, and we now have over 30 children enjoying participation and improving their skills.

The coaching team is:

Malcolm Norris  ETTA Level 3 + UKCC2

Dave Langham   ETTA UKCC1

All coaches used are current CRB checked, and conform to best coaching and safety practice.

We are currently in the process of extending our area to include Ware and Hertford with a probable addition of another 30 players, and will need to build our coaching team.

The administration, development and working toward Clubmark accreditation will require more volunteers to join our team. We therefore hope that help from other TT clubs within our area will soon be forthcoming. Also help from parents will be welcome. It is vitally important that we all work together to build our pyramid base in order to continue and improve.