Stratford Padel Club

Runners up in the FIP Rise Ceuta!! 🥈 ❤️ Really happy to have made the final here last week!! We had some great wins on our route to the final against some very strong pairs. Thank you for fighting by my side Maggie Fernandes it was a pleasure! 🙂😘 Thank you as always to my sponsors! CorteSport Dunlop Sports Aspirock LTA Padel Shack Stratford Padel Club Oliver Morgan Mike Millsopp Luke Taylor Jon Cooksey Tom Murray Steve Yeardley Olivia Clayton Chris Baird Steve Heatley

We had an lovely day at Stratford Padel Club , filled with insightful discussions and valuable moments as part of the Propel training. It was wonderful to connect with everyone who attended and to see the passion for inclusion and growth in action. Huge thanks to everyone who made it such a positive and productive experience! Looking forward to many more successful events like this! #TheMasonFoundation #InclusionTraining #PropelPeople #CommunityBuilding #EmpowermentInAction

A couple of weeks back I talked about organising Townhall Calls to discuss, evaluate and plan next steps regarding certain pillars of the UK padel ecosystem. Well, since holidays are over, here we go.... CALL 1 (of 5) TITLE: INCREASING THE NUMBER OF PADEL COURTS IN THE UK DATE & TIME: Thursday 12th Sept 6pm UK time (provisionally for 2 hours) WORKING AGENDA: 1. WHERE ARE WE NOW & WHY 450 courts concentrated in South? % of courts private, public and hybrid? Obstacles: planning permission, regulations, noise opposition, available indoor venues near footfall 2. WHERE DO WE WANT TO BE & WHY What is the target number? What is the target distribution across the country? Do we want the % of private, public and hybrid to meaningfully change?  Do we expect accessible public courts? What is the finance & build model? Who manages these? Smoother, easier, faster, more knowledgeable landlord approval and planning approval process 3. HOW DO WE GET THERE How do we get more private, public, hybrid courts financed and built? How do we get the benefits communicated to the relevant audience? Do we focus on existing tennis and sports facilities to convert existing areas? Should we maintain/certify standards of builds and how (quality assurance/safety)? Should we coordinate the building and location of courts and who should be the coordinator? How do we educate landlords? How do we educate planning permission teams? How do we allay NIMBY concerns? 4. LTA What role do we expect the LTA to play in any of the above? Supervisor? Planner? Financier? Subsidiser? Endorser? Certifier? Communicator? Lobbyist? Is it better for an alternative coalition to drive and deliver any of the above? NEXT STEPS If you would like to join this call, please forward your email address to me, either in the comments, or feel free to direct message me it, and I will add you to a Google Meet call. The Working Agenda is just that, so also, feel free to suggest other aspects of the topic that you feel we need to address. Of course the Townhall itself will be fluid and flexible. Looking forward to the conversation next week!

We need to talk about #padel in the #UK. More. But it's also high time to do more. I've done a few posts in the last few months about my views on #Britishpadel and its relationship with LTA. It's time to do something more about it. WHAT ARE YOU DOING? So even though I am a fairly fresh face to the scene, I want to organise something. I want to organise a series of calls, each focused on specific UK areas of focus and perhaps concern. WHY? My objective is broadly to understand what the scene thinks is working, what is not working, why it's working or not working, what more needs to be done and who should do something about it. WHO SHOULD JOIN? The invitation to each call is open to stakeholders in the UK scene, or even those who think they have relevant expertise or perspectives that could help the UK scene. WHAT ARE TALKING ABOUT HERE? The topics of the separate calls I want to organise are currently: 1. Increasing the Number of #Courts: Looking at Court and Club Building 2. Increasing the #Talent: Looking at Top Talent today and the Pipeline for Tomorrow 3. Increasing the #Participation: Looking at #Amateur Circuits and Tournaments as well as Programs (Kids and Adults) 4. Increasing the #Visibility: Looking at Marketing and Promoting the Sport More Broadly 5. Increasing the #HumanResources: Looking at #Coaches and Coaching Initiatives That is what I am starting with. If anyone feels I am missing any key area or focus, let me know and I will see whether it warrants an extra call or can be incorporated in the agenda of any of the above calls. IS THIS JUST A CHAT OR IS SOMETHING GOING TO HAPPEN? The point is to share view points, align to the extent possible around concerns and priorities, next steps and responsibilities. From there we can, as a scene look at assembling an interest group, or a coalition with objectives, or develop a feedback process into the LTA. I haven't got a prescribed outcome. But I do know a lot of people want to see improvements, they want progress, they want to feed into that and they want meaningful and trackable action. So let's get started. NEXT STEPS If you want to join any or all the calls, please #follow me (as I will launch the separate calls soon with draft agenda points) and #comment below so that I can have you on my radar and #share with others you think might want to participate in one or some of the calls. Thanks