Queen Camel Tennis Club's GBTW

Queen Camel Tennis Club held an extremely successful Great British Tennis Weekend starting at 9.00 am over both days.  We had a very good turn-out with 143 children and adults visiting the courts over the two days:  

On the Saturday morning there were the usual Junior coaching sessions until 11.30 am and the groups were joined by eight children who had been pre-booked onto the sessions via the GBTW booking system on the LTA website.  The ball machine proved, yet again, to be very popular with adults and children alike.  The mini nets remained up and these were used by several parents and children during the day as well as the coach helping younger juniors on a one-to-one basis.  The coach gave a group Cardio session in the afternoon which left many exhausted with red faces but vowing to come back for more!  We organised a Pass the Parcel for children at tea time to give everyone a moment to catch their breath and with nearly all the cakes having been eaten, we decided to call it a day around 5.30 pm

On Sunday morning we had our GREAT BRITISH BREAKFAST which was very popular – not just with the local tennis fraternity but also three of the older villagers who came along to enjoy a hearty breakfast.  It is the Club’s belief that as we are part of the village it is important to make villagers feel welcome and involved on these occasions, regardless of whether they will ever pick up a racquet.  Various family groups began playing whilst breakfast was being served and then there was a session serving against the speed gun which some of the men (in particular) really enjoyed.  Again, the ball machine proved popular.  Three adults who had pre-booked via the GBTW website came for an hour’s coaching at noon and stayed for tea and refreshments afterwards.  At 2.00 pm we had 10 pairs of Under 10 children each with a parent entered into the Quorn Family Tennis Cup.  This concluded shortly before 5.00 pm with a final match having to be played to determine the winning pair.

From QCTC’s viewpoint, this has been a most successful weekend.  We took three new memberships during the weekend (One family, One Adult + 2 Children and a Junior) with a further three families having taken forms to complete.  Part of the incentive to take out membership over the w/e was the offer of a free hour’s coaching with the Club Coach.  We also handed out leaflets about a Back to Tennis session starting later this week as well as a special offer for children who might be interested in having coaching for 7 weeks after half term.

The Club’s Coach, Will Ballard, was on hand over both days and worked tirelessly with both adults and children alike.

We appreciated the additional support the LTA was able to give Clubs this year.  The box of goodies was helpful – direction signs excellent, t-shirts great, A6 postcards NOT a great success as they had no information on them that was immediately helpful.  The national and local press coverage was excellent.  The Club took advantage of the various free downloads from the GBTW section of the website.  We used one of the banners and had our own name and dates printed onto it and we used the A6 postcard template to have our own message printed on the back.  We had 400 printed and these were distributed around the village and three local primary schools.  The Club also set up a Facebook page about 10 days before the GBTW and took out an advert to reach Facebook users within a 10km radius.  This proved a very useful tool and created greater awareness and several enquiries about the weekend in particular and the Club in general.  It has also been a useful way of keeping the event fresh in everyone’s mind by posting news about each day with photographs each evening.  We will be seeking a grant from Somerset LTA to cover the cost of these marketing initiatives, all of which worked well. 

We were also supported by South Somerset Tennis Development Group who lent us removable lines to convert our courts for red ball tennis.

For a small, rural tennis club we feel we could not have expected a better response.  A great deal of hard work was put in to make the week-end work and with a wonderful array of refreshments throughout the weekend PLUS the Sunday morning breakfast, members and visitors alike seemed to enjoy the Club’s hospitality and the opportunity to swing a racquet.