Earlier in July with support from Tom Dixon from Sport Hampshire & IOW Andy Trott delivered a workshop on ‘Getting Involved’ to 26 students from Barton Peveril College in Eastleigh. The students are all part of Sport England’s Sport Maker programme, a programme aimed at creating 40,000 volunteers to help deliver and develop sport throughout the Olympics and beyond as part of legacy. The students were given the option of 3 sport workshops and the majority chose tennis.
The 90 minute workshop introduced the students to British Tennis, how the organisation works and highlighted how big the sport is in GB and how many opportunities there are to get involved from coaching to sport and exercise science, from officiating to marketing. Within the group there was a wealth of experience and the presentation had something for everyone and finished with a practical session on setting up a Touch Tennis session indoors at the College and running informal fun competition. This is something that will be developed at the College from September developed by students for students. The practical session was great fun and had everyone on court competing, scoring, officiating and coaching to get a feel for some of the many jobs in tennis in 2012.
LTA Tennis Development Officer Andy Trott “This is such an exciting time to be involved in sport in GB with so much going on and being able to highlight the power of sport to the students and open their eyes to how much is out there in these austere times where full time employment is harder than it has been in a generation. I hope to see a number of these students again in September and support them setting up their own College Tennis Club.”