How we have continued working for our members during lockdown

While lockdown has put much of daily life on hold, Table Tennis England has still been busy working on behalf of our members and the wider sport.

Some of our staff have been on furlough for periods of the last year, but many others have been continuing in their roles full-time.

Here’s what we have been doing:

Places

Assessed and awarded Table Tennis England grants to more than 65 clubs and leagues
Run 34 club webinars on a huge variety of topics, with 795 bookings and almost 3,000 YouTube views
Supported more than 50 organisations, mostly clubs, to access just over £277,000 of Sport England funding
Held more than 200 one-to-one support calls with representatives of clubs and leagues to support return to play
Devised and launched the TT Kidz Virtual Schools Championships
Online National Club, Volunteer and Coach Conference planned for June 2021
Consulted county school associations to create our Schools Membership package
Worked with partners to open Ping Pong Parlours when restrictions have allowed
Worked with partners to keep Ping! tables available to the public when restrictions have allowed
Worked with host venues to reschedule events where possible

Participation

Received and dealt with just over 5,000 queries from our members and other stakeholders. At the time of writing, less than 50 queries are outstanding.
Helped our members with renewals, with more than 17,600 members choosing to sign up this year despite the uncertainty over playing.
Shared two participation surveys, with 3,100 responses to help determine where support can be provided
Launched Bat and Chat Live to support clubs engaging those aged over 50 in an online physical activity/social environment
Began consultation for the launch of a new local league product
Sent nearly 250 TT Kidz participant packs during lockdown to those most in need
Worked with partners to send 3,800 ‘play at home’ packs to some of the most isolated and inactive members of society during lockdowns
Launched partnership with LinQsport to facilitate participation on public tables
Launched partnership with Rackets Cubed to introduce table tennis to youngsters in areas of deprivation
Carried out membership consultation and launched new strategy for British League
Carried out two phases of membership consultation and launched Rankings Project
Established steering group and launched Competition Review
Established new Terms of Reference for Tournament Approval Panel, County Championships Committee and Ranking Policy Group
Developed functionality for online Tournament Sanctioning and Entry via the TT Memberships (Sport:80) portal
Developed functionality to transition national leagues onto TT Leagues platform (British League, NCL, NJL and County Championships)
Delivered TT Kidz live to more than 250 young people
Run 16 TT Kidz virtual after-school club sessions
Run virtual TT Kidz summer camp
Launched TT Kidz Awards Scheme and TT Kidz for schools in September 2020
Worked with partners in 22 locations to announce our plans for Ping! 2021. Since March 2020, we have also delivered eight Ping! partner support webinars
Continued to engage and supportnew Ping in the Community projects. Since March 2020, we have supported 45 new projects

People

Run the Pride of Table Tennis Awards, with more than 150 nominations, including for the new Lockdown Local Hero category
Launched new online course for Tournament Organisers, resulting in 45 people qualifying
Held online training for umpires – 14 new Level 2 Umpires qualified
Held 21 coaching webinars with more than 1,400 attendees in total
Launched a mentoring scheme to enable coaches to connect with expert table tennis coaches
Launched a new Disability Awareness module in February 2021
Provided 14 self-employed coach grants to support self-employed coaches
Launched the Young Ambassador programme for the 2020/21 season
Launched partnership with TTFit to help our Licensed Coaches develop their skills and connect with their players and with our National Coaches
Created focus groups on disability, ethnically diverse communities and women & girls
Worked with 35 tutors and assessors to re-write the Level 2 coaching qualification
Confirmed new eligibility for Junior age group (U19), in-line with ITTF and ETTU

Profile

Published more than 80 covid-related articles and updates – more than 156,000 views of all covid-related articles and more than 56,000 views of main covid statement
Continued daily social media updates, including more than 80 covid-related posts
Published more than 400 articles on the Table Tennis England website
Produced more than 35 content videos, generating 92,500 video views totalling more than 47,300 minutes – equivalent to well over 500 football matches!
Sent 37 covid-specific email updates with a total of more than 66,700 opens
Continued producing weekly Over the Net newsletter – a total of more than 412,000 email opens
Hosted live Ask us Anything event
Initiated new website planning and construction – expected project completion this summer
Initiated online archive project
Launched partnership with British e-sports

Performance

Worked with partners to create elite training protocols and facilitate return to training for senior athletes
Supported senior athletes and coaches to return to international competitions
Held more than 300 sessions for the junior squads, in the hall, via Zoom and covering physical, mental, fitness, nutrition and other areas
Invited more than 20 coaches from outside the performance team to be involved
Junior players performed more than 2,700 ‘task deliveries’ between them
Worked with home nations for online training sessions

In addition, we have organised and run a virtual AGM and EGM, five National Council Meetings (including the forthcoming one this Saturday), five scheduled Board meetings and five extraordinary Board meetings.