Imber Court , East Molesey , South London .
six sessions over two venues and puts on taster sessions and tournaments . South Suffolk has built a community too .
If clubs are bursting at the seams , what can we do ?
1 . We need to create presentations for the operators of venues , educating them about pickleball and finding a way to get pickleball in their schedule . Then we need to find people willing to “ take the slots ” and build player numbers and create their community . We need to continue to train and certify players to become pickleball leaders , so we have the next crop of leaders ready when the slots are created .
2 . We need to develop compelling presentations for prospective investors looking at the potential to build commercial venues with pickleball courts , to encourage them to build . This will demonstrate that if there is a venue , Pickleball England can help drive players to them .
Another sign that momentum is building is the number of online retailers that have appeared in the last six months . This time last year there was just one online retailer , UK Pickleball Shop . Now there are five ! Competition is good , but do we have sufficient momentum for all of them to survive ? If they are all going to be successful , retailers are also dependent on increasing capacity for new players .
World Pickleball Day is 10.10.2023 and hopefully we can leverage this day to get new venues to agree to host taster sessions so they can experience pickleball , and if we collectively do a great job of driving people to the taster sessions , they might want to host sessions for new clubs to sprout up . Exciting times ! •
MAY / JUNE 2023 | MAGAZINE 79