Midlands based organisation Sporting Your Futures have been successful in receiving a £1,000 grant to establish a table tennis club alongside their youth club.

The funding comes from Table Tennis England’s new #LevelTheTable Grant Scheme, which looks to support organisations in creating opportunities for people to participate in table tennis.

Sporting Your Futures was formed to navigate change in the community through sport and social activities, by being inclusive of all sections of the community in the Dudley, Sandwell and Birmingham area.

First introduced to Table Tennis England via our partnership with SPORTED, who we’re working with to embed Table Tennis opportunities across their network of member organisations, Sporting Your Futures are part of that network and were able to receive advice on guidance on applying for Level the Table funding.

The organisation applied for the Level the Table Grant Scheme to incorporate a different sport into its Youth Zone provision to allow young people aged 8-18 the opportunity to play table tennis.

The nature of table tennis encourages social inclusion and increases levels of physical activity; the Level the Table funding has supported Sporting Your Futures with removing the barriers that exist to prevent people accessing the sport. As an organisation, they are committed to delivering sport to transform lives, connect communities and achieve excellence.

Our Table Tennis club coincides with a Youth Zone initiative where we have created a safe, fun and inclusive environment for young people aged 8-18 to engage in physical activity. With the new table tennis club, we researched and anticipated that it would be a sport that the young people would enjoy playing.

Being a sport that encourages inclusive participation, of all ages, genders and abilities, it’s no surprise that the organisation has already received great feedback about the new initiative.

We have gained some fantastic feedback from the young people who have attended our table tennis club so far as we encourage a range of ages, genders and abilities to participate. We are hoping that we can continue the club for the foreseeable future and see its popularity grow, which can allow us to develop and expand our numbers of participants and tables to further increase our impact.

Sporting for Futures have been encouraging the participants to engage in the table tennis club by having 2v2 games and tournaments as the young people enjoy having a competitive and social element to the activity.

You can find out more about our Level the Table five-year Diversity and Inclusion strategy and grant scheme here to get ideas about what your organisation can do to tackle inequalities in our sport and encourage more participation.

Latest news