Table Tennis England members are being invited to register for online consultation webinars to have their say on our membership structure.

Membership to National Governing Bodies of Sport is often a ‘thorny’ issue with challenges relating to cost, perceived value and benefits all being live issues.

Despite improvements in recent years to both the membership system and structure, membership of Table Tennis England is still viewed as unsatisfactory and this year’s (21/22 season) Membership Survey reinforces this.

The findings are helping to inform a review of the Table Tennis England membership scheme and webinars are being hosted over the coming weeks to enable existing members, and the wider table tennis community, to give more detailed feedback and views.

The webinars are as follows – click on the relevant links to register.

Online Consultation (survey) – Opens Wednesday 9 Nov

Online Consultation (webinar) – Wednesday 9 November at 9am – CLICK HERE TO REGISTER

Online Consultation (webinar) – Wednesday 16 November at 2pm – CLICK HERE TO REGISTER

Online Consultation (webinar) – Monday 28 November at 7.30pm – CLICK HERE TO REGISTER

Focus Group (by invitation only – online) – Monday Dec 5 – Time TBC

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

Membership survey

Towards the end of the 2021/22 season, we launched our annual survey asking members to give feedback on membership and their views on Table Tennis England. Volunteer experiences were measured, and insights on equality, diversity and inclusion were captured to help us track progress against our #LevelTheTable strategy.

We are very appreciative of the members who took part in this survey, and we will continue to provide opportunities to give feedback on various areas of our work. Your feedback helps us to help you get the most out of our sport.

Here are some of the key findings and actions being considered:

• 62% of all members are satisfied with overall membership experience
• 47% of all members are satisfied with the range of benefits on offer
• 20% of paying members (Compete Plus and Compete members) are dissatisfied with value for money
• Members want more benefits which are easy to access, including discounts on the entry costs to competitions and events, and money off equipment and merchandise
• 70% of members agreed that Table Tennis England is committed to the safeguarding and protection of the table tennis community
• 32% of members feel valued by Table Tennis England – 25% do not and 47% feel indifferent
• More needs to be done to raise awareness of strategic groups including Board, National Council and Members’ Advisory Group

Our response – what we are doing:

• A working group has been formed to review the current membership structure and benefits on offer and webinars are being hosted to provide more information and to receive further insight from the table tennis community (see above)
• We will continue to develop our new website and digital channels to make processes easier for accessing the membership platform and benefits
• Day Licence enables Compete members who want to take part in a one-off, high-level national event to do so without upgrading their membership
• We will be improving the way we communicate with our members by sharing more relevant and personalised content
• We will continue to revise our Safeguarding Guidelines which can be viewed here
• Where meeting minutes were previously summarised, a full account of meetings led by strategic groups are now made available online (these may sometimes be redacted to protect confidential matters), and we will do more to communicate these to members
• Chief Executive updates are published to provide regular updates to the table tennis community

Volunteers

Key findings:

• 74% of volunteers in table tennis give up time to volunteer at least once a week
• Nearly three quarters of volunteers in table tennis are club committee members, with few undertaking one role only
• There are a number of benefits associated with volunteering in table tennis, with social and community development being considered the main benefit  

What we are doing:

• We will be running a coach and volunteer recruitment campaign to support with shortages of these roles
• We will do more to celebrate coaches and volunteers in table tennis in our communications
• We will continue to celebrate the contributions of these roles through our Pride of Table Tennis Awards – applications now open here

Equality, Diversity and Inclusion

Key findings:

• 43% of survey respondents said they had witnessed inappropriate behaviour in table tennis
• More needs to be done to increase the visibility of Women and Girls, Ethnically Diverse Communities and Disabled People in table tennis
• There needs to be increased and improved participation opportunities for priority groups
• Players with a disability need facilities to be more accessible

What we are doing:

• Earlier in 2022 we published a Workforce Protection Policy which sets out the procedure for reporting and responding to inappropriate behaviour
• We recently developed a new look and feel for Women and Girls – It’s Time to Play
• We are building on inclusive brand guidelines and our image library to make priority groups in table tennis more visible – and we will continue to work with providers to support them in providing inclusive communication through marketing toolkits
• We recently provided a Grant Scheme to support clubs to purchase wheelchair compliant tables
• Please see our 12-month #LevelTheTable strategy update for a more in-depth view of where we are making changes to increase and improve opportunities for priority groups