Stowmarket Badminton Club . . . . A Success Story

Stowmarket Badminton Club was runner-up to the ‘Club of the Year’ award at the Suffolk Sports Awards 2008.  Here Mary Hughes, club secretary, tells us about the club.

In 2006/7 our Club decided that we needed to get more people interested in playing Badminton and that the best way to do this was to start up a Junior Section.   We applied to the Local Network Fund for a grant and this was received in January 2007.  A sub-committee was formed and courts booked at Mid Suffolk Leisure Centre in Stowmarket.  We did some advertising and soon had as many children and young adults as we could take.  Three members of our Club already held Level 1 Coaching awards and they agreed to undertake training to become Level 2 Badminton Coaches. Another six Club members applied and subsequently passed their Level 1 Awards so that they can assist at the Junior training.  Having successfully launched our Junior Section we were encouraged to work towards Club Mark and Premier Club Badminton England status.

From September 2007 onwards our members attended seven different courses run by Suffolk Sport to give coaches and helpers a broad base of skills to help our Badminton Club succeed with this new venture.

A massive amount of work was done to apply for Club Mark and Premier Club status and in March 2008 we received the very welcome news that our Club had been successful in obtaining this prestigious Award.

Our Junior Section has gone from strength to strength.  In September 2007 we entered the newly formed Suffolk Badminton Junior League for players at Under 13, 15 and 17 levels.  We now have junior players in the Under 13, Under 15 and now in the Under 17 Suffolk Squads representing their County.  We have successfully hosted a Junior Tournament inviting players from other Junior Clubs in the County and have enabled our Junior and Young Adults to play and enjoy this sport and many different levels. Our Club now has a waiting list of children wanting to play Badminton and all that is holding us back from taking on more children is lack of available court space.

We now have Junior players feeding through to our Adult Club which in turns has given the Adult Club a good boost and enabled us to enter an extra team in the Ipswich and District Badminton League to bring on our younger players.  We also enter teams into the Bury and District Badminton League.

Our Club as a whole now has much more “energy” and enthusiasm.

↑ Click to enlarge

Receiving Runner-up Certificate and Premier Club (Clubmark) Plaque