Updates
Where do I start? The Rossendale Juniors have continued to grow, so much so that we are almost bursting at the seams on Sunday mornings! We have a 3rd Level 1 coach trained, Yong Chen, to help with the numbers and, as you can see from the photos, SO MANY GIRLS! We recently entered a Year 11 team a new tournament, the Greater Manchester Junior Tournament in Middleton, along with two Year 9 teams, one of which was just girls :) We have also been getting involved in community projects, such as the Waterfoot Wakes Parade in July, where we made massive badminton racquets with the help of the artists at the Horse & Bamboo theatre, before parading with them through the streets of Waterfoot. We are having so much fun playing badminton at The Adrenaline in Haslingden and I just wanted to let you all know that the progress we have made is all down to YOU for believing in us when you backed our project over a year ago.
...telling everyone about our amazingly successful fund raising for Rossendale Junior Badminton at The Birley Artist Studios, Preston next Thursday 9th November! Here's me with Wendy (yes, we're on first name terms now!) the Community Champion for Tesco's Haslingden branch. She had donated some energy bars for the Year 9 and the Year 11 teams when they played in the first round of the M65 Junior tournament in Colne last month. The Year 9 team only went and won that leg of the tournament - so the energy bars obviously did the trick! Other 'progress' we've made....well, we've jumped from 6/8 players coming every week to 24/25!! And lots of them are girls, which is fantastic! We give a sticker of the week (with a certificate) each week, chosen by a different parent at the session and we've had to order some more of the amazing t-shirts for the older players. It's all go!
As you can see...we have some proper posters (and leaflets) courtesy of Rossendale Leisure Trust's marketing person, Jodie. Once we'd reached our target, we had a meeting with the new lady at The Adrenaline: we were trying to get reduced court costs (obviously) but ended up with some quality posters instead. I then got the design printed (using some of the funding) and they have now been distributed to all the Primary schools in Rossendale (+ two extra ones) who play in the Rossendale Schools' Sports competition. Today's Sunday coaching session, we had 24 young players attend (11 of them new; 9 of them GIRLS) - whether this is from the posters (which are literally everywhere in Rawtenstall/Haslingden) or the Big Hit we signed up for with Badminton England - who knows...BUT at least we've more than doubled our numbers! The first tournament, the Junior M65, is in two weeks' time, so the teams will be wearing their swish new team tops as they represent Rossendale. More news...one of our volunteer coaches, currently Trainee Coach Claire, will be completing her Level 1 coaching on 7th & 8th October. As you can see, it is all happening at Rossendale Junior Badminton - and I haven't even told you about the 300 word column in the Rossendale Free Press that seems to have come our way! The second picture is from today's coaching where Ruby's Great Grandad, Peter Wood, saw her attend her first session #notbadforaladfromhaslingden
A massive thank you to all who backed this project - or bought raffle tickets or gave cash - you/I know who you are! We have already started with our promotion of junior badminton in Rossendale, welcoming two new players to the Sunday morning coaching last weekend. The small posters we have had printed are being circulated in the local area, particularly in The Adrenaline Centre, where the coaching takes place. Little incentives are being given at the end of the coaching when we play King/Queen of the Court - at the moment in the form of small signed badminton tee shirts which I picked up from the All-England last month. Obviously, this is the just the beginning...watch this space for further progress (once the league Presentation and AGM are out of the way!)
I've not done an update for a while (mainly because we've achieved our target!) but the last donation of £74 comes courtesy of an Easter Egg hamper raffle which lots of the Rossendale badminton players bought tickets for. The hamper was donated by the Community Champion for Asda, and it was drawn at the Handicap Tournament today and won by Fiona Tremblet of Goodshaw Badminton Club. Remember, anything over our target will be donated to our neighbouring leagues of Blackburn and Colne to assist in their promotion of junior badminton.
I may have gone quiet on the raising money front, but, as you can see from the delightful picture, we had a visit from two ladies, Sarah and Louise, from Badminton England at this morning's junior coaching session. They gave us lots of ideas for how to promote the session and recruit more junior players, which we were very grateful for. In the meantime, of course, there is no session next Sunday due to the M65 tournament in Colne. Good luck to all those playing and do Rossendale proud in your new team t shirts!
