Badminton England is reflecting on a successful Big Hit Week after schools and clubs across the country opened their doors to badminton hopefuls.
Head of the Newbury and District Junior Badminton club, Malcolm Taylor delivered two sessions on Monday 26th September to encourage a new wave of badminton players and was overjoyed with the results.
Taylor put on a girls only session at St. Bartholomews School, Newbury before welcoming new members to his club for an introduction to badminton.
“It encourages new people to start the sport which is great,” said Taylor, speaking on the importance of events such as the Big Hit Week.
“And that’s the main thing to get as many people as possible to hit a shuttlecock on court or pick up a racket and hit it.
“That’s the big driver to the Big Hit Week and a lot of badminton players seem to know about it which is great.”
It’s inspiring to see Malcolm Taylor, our Inclusion Champion, encouraging girls to be a part of our sport. 🏸
🔗 Some links for you:
To start championing inclusivity like Malcolm: https://t.co/URyYi9MSAq
OR start playing badminton: https://t.co/3M27gkgDx8 pic.twitter.com/yEmkY8x4Xo— Badminton England (@BadmintonEnglnd) September 30, 2022
Taylor, who has been a badminton fan his whole life, delivered sessions packed with freebies and games to get young badminton players excited to try out the sport.
Newbury and District club was just one of hundreds that welcomed the festival between the 21st to 28th September and Taylor was impressed with how willing the participants were to learn more about the sport and event.
With 27 people in total and 15 new members at the evening session, Taylor’s club is now firmly at capacity, in a welcome move for the local grassroots club and the coach owed it all to a successful Big Hit Week.
He said: “Many of [the participants] have a passion for badminton and want to do well at badminton so that is the biggest thing.
“And it’s the world of mouth that the sport gets round, and we get full to capacity which is really good so early in the season.
“And the girls only session just went from strength to strength.
“The girls at the school seemed very interested in it and kept asking me ‘what’s this event’ and ‘what’s the Big Hit’ when I put the banner and posters up.
“They were very curious, and I told them it was to encourage as many people as possible, like those girls to play badminton and they were excited.
“So, the event worked really well.
“We’ve had about 16 new members this year alongside those from last year.”
