Around the World
BUILDING THE COLLECTIVE STRENGTH OF PICKLEBALL WORLDWIDE
By Karen Mitchell
DIRECTOR FOR PICKLEBALL ENGLAND & DIRECTOR OF WPF
When Frank Arico
and I set up Pickleball England we leveraged each other ’ s strengths and experience to develop our initial plan . We also networked with other pickleball leaders in different countries . One of the things that became clear during those discussions was that pickleball is at different stages of development and the associations / federations * set up still had not received national governing body recognition .
During lockdown I had hosted or joined many Zoom calls and was paying a subscription fee to ensure that my calls could last longer than 40 minutes . I was thinking of ways to use Zoom to ensure value for money . I came up with the idea of developing an online Summit for Pickleball Federations . The objective was to construct a session where federations could both share best practices whilst learning from other federations .
After developing a list of topics that would be most useful for players thinking of creating their own organization and topics that might be most useful for associations / federations trying to
grow , I reached out to contacts in different countries and asked if they would be interested or willing to present and worked with them to get their presentations ready for the Summit . I was so grateful that everyone I asked agreed to speak and saw the value in what we were trying to create .
In the end we had seven speakers plus me as host . Australia , Canada , England , France , Scotland and Spain shared their experience through their presenters , and Seymour Rifkind from World Pickleball Federation ( WPF ) spoke about the importance of leveraging an authoritative influence .
I , for one , learned through the process . We had several other countries join the Summit and many more viewing the recordings of the presentations . Australia and Canada ’ s presentations have been watched over 50 times . The great thing is that the presentations are now available for any organization to view at their convenience via
https :// www . worldpickleballfederation . org / pickleball-summit-for-federations .
So , what did we learn ? 1 . You need people with passion and vision . 2 . Set up the right structure from the start .
3 . Research the required steps for recognition within your country .
4 . Look at approved federations in other sports to see what they have done .
5 . Ask for volunteers — it takes a lot of people to spread the load ; target specific expertise .
6 . Leverage authoritative individuals to influence outcomes .
7 . The importance of events to grow credibility , revenue and interaction with players .
8 . A website is essential ( as is easy navigation and critical information ).
9 . Inclusive pickleball requires focus , if you truly want to be a sport for all .
10 . Use tools that help organization efficiency and enable communications .
11 . Gain the support of players and clubs through transparency ( bylaws , communications , etc .).
12 . The road to governing body recognition can take a long time ( 2 + years ).
We can ’ t thank the speakers enough for sharing their time and experience . There was common agreement that we should develop further summits . The next one is going to be a Summit for Tournament Directors . The U . S . has a lot of experience with tournaments , but outside North America the numbers are much smaller . We want to share best practices and templates for countries that want to establish their own events . •
* Federation : “ A group of membership organizations or professional associations that have joined together to form a larger , usually representative organization or governing body .” It is , in effect , an association of associations .