“We are a small association, almost 40 members, of which 14 are youth members. Four of them are playing for the first time in the (entry level) competition, specially set up for young and starting players. Especially nice to ’to gain some competition experience. We have divided the youth into two age groups: from 8 to 11 years old and from 13 to 17 years old.”
“The oldest youth group plays in the ’usual’ youth competition: ’n number of times home and away against associations in the wider area; Waddinxveen, Oudewater, Gouda, Mijdrecht, Leiden and Utrecht, frequency depends on participating teams -usually 4 to 7- in the hen.”
“The first half of the competition has already been played and we are happy that the association (NBB: Badminton Netherlands) will play the second half.from has arranged so that the numbers 1 + 2 now face each other, as well as the numbers 3 + 4, and so on. Then the differences in strength are smaller and that makes the matches vYeahl more fun. For the players, but also for the audience,” says chairman – also youth coach – Marloes Kranenburg.
“The growth of young members is actually exceeding expectations. Last year – to celebrate our 50th anniversary – we also organized one ’friends tournament’. ’Boyfriends’ was formulated somewhat more broadly, because that was also possible ’to be a father or mother. Afterwards we had cake and it was a beautiful evening. And in any case, youth members sometimes bring a friend to training and sometimes they stay there Yeahntje ’hang’. Prospective members can always borrow a racket first and then buy one from me if necessary ’n reasonable price. Use of the shuttles during training is included in the membership fee. They really only need to buy good shoes themselves.”
“As a youth coach, I can teach them new tricks, because it helps to gain some tactical insight. You can’t win matches by just hitting back hard! But, it is quite a difficult sport, and you should not start too early; first the eye-hand coördination are in order and for most children this is not until they are 7 or 8.”
“We have been working closely with Shuttle for years ’74 in Ter Aar; on Mondays several of our seniors go to the Vaart and vice versa, some members of Shuttle come to us on Thursdays. Moreover, we have already played the joint club championships for two years.”
“We do not have a multi-year plan with the ambition to continuously achieve higher performance. Above all, we want to have a good time together ’play a nice game of badminton; everyone has to get along’have a lot of fun and that doesn’t just apply to the winners!”
“But that doesn’t change anything; if the need to play at a higher level arises, we will certainly see to what extent we can honor it and possibly facilitate it.”
Next:
Marloes: “I would like to give another turn to a non-sports club”. And so we arrive at the Nieuwkoop Historical Society.
Loek Sassen
