I have had a number of emails and messages from ETT readers about how to start a table tennis club recently. Starting a club is also something that I have considered before so I decided to investigate further.
I was going to just write a long post about the steps involved in setting up your own table tennis club but then decided that it would be much more useful to interview somebody who had done it, successfully, themselves.
Paul Johnson is a table tennis play and coach from Lincolnshire, in the East Midlands of England. Paul is 23 (the same age as me) and we even used to practice together as teenagers! Paul is the founder and coach of Blitz Table Tennis Club in Gainsborough, a club that he started about four years ago.
I wont reveal too much now, otherwise they’ll be nothing left in the interview! So, please enjoy our discussions and feel free to contact either of us or leave a comment if you have any questions.
BL: Hi Paul, and welcome to Expert Table Tennis. Could you tell us a bit about yourself and give us a brief history of your involvement in table tennis as a player?
PJ: Yeah, sure. My name is Paul Johnson and I’m from Gainsborough, in Lincolnshire. I started playing table tennis when I was six and joined the local league aged seven. As a 12/13 year old I was among the top eight in the country and went on to become a top 40 junior in England. I’ve played for the county many times and have twice been men’s Lincolnshire county champion.
BL: And how old are you now Paul? What do you do with your time?
PJ: I’m 23 and after Easter will be a full time sports coach. I’ll be going into primary schools providing fundamental sports coaching at after school clubs, and then after that going on to do my table tennis coaching during the evening. Oh, and the weekends!
BL: Ah, I didn’t realise that, congrats on going full time! How many hours have you managed to get yourself a week then?
PJ: Yeah, I just literally found out within the last week or so, so not many people know yet. I’m contracted for 15 hours per week, doing fundamentals after school, and then it varies with the table tennis, but maybe 12 hours self employed per week.
BL: That’s great. Are you working for a particular school, or the local council, or something else?
PJ: I’m working for a big national company that looks after a lot of the leisure centres. They got some funding to send a team of six of us into the primary schools to try and improve the children’s basic skills before they go into specific sports
BL: Going into the primary schools must be a great way of getting younger kids to your club.
PJ: Yeah, it will hopefully create a really good link for the club as I’ll be in contact with a lot of kids each week.
BL: Ok, so back to business. When was it that you started getting into table tennis coaching?
PJ: Well, I believe I was 18. I was just coming to the end of my school years and didn’t know what job route to take, so I decided to try and get a coaching qualification behind me. Once I had that I decided to try and complete the level 2. Pretty much at the same time I thought it would be a good idea to try and set up a table tennis club in my area as we have never had anything like that in Gainsborough.
BL: So you set up the club pretty much as a new coach? And aged only 18 or 19? Did you have much coaching experience prior to starting the club?
PJ: Yeah. I was a brand new coach and the only experience I had was going about four or five times to another club to do some one-to-one coaching to complete my coaching awards.
BL: That’s great! So you don’t need a whole load of coaching experience to go about setting up a table tennis club. Just the passion, vision and dedication to make it happen!
PJ: Yeah, definitely. Anyone with passion and a bit of business knowledge can set up a club. Obviously it helps if you can coach but if you know someone else that could do that for you then even better.
BL: Ok, so practically what were the things that you had to do to take the first steps of setting up a club?
PJ: For my club (because I personally self funded it) I started by doing a bit of market research, to see if there was a demand. I looked at where the nearest club was, which local leagues were nearby and what sort of people played. From there, I went to have a look at different halls from small to large and also found out their different prices. Once I had decided that this is what I wanted to do, I negotiated prices for equipment, like tables, barriers, nets, balls and bats, and I went for it! I decided upon a start date, got some posters/leaflets designed and then printed professionally, picked up the equipment and then distributed the leaflets.
BL: If you don’t mind me asking can you give us a rough figure of how much it cost you financially to start the club?
PJ: I believe it was just over £4000 as I got a good deal on the equipment and I didn’t want to go for too many tables just in case it didn’t work out.
BL: Ok, so you’ve committed to the club, bought all this equipment, found a hall and done some promotion. How did things start? Did you start with a bang or did things pick up slowly?
PJ: I wouldn’t say it started with a bang but we had players from the start. I think the first few sessions we had about 8 to 10 children and then it just gradually increased as they started to bring their friends. It helped that there was a school junior league going on just before I launched so I got to know a few players, and obviously tried to persuade them to come to the club. Also, with the hall being within a school, and the school having a lunch time table tennis club, I went in to try and pick a few kids up from there.
BL: It sounds like you were quite active promoting the club then, which obviously paid off. Do you have any top tips for getting the word out and attracting members to a new club?
PJ: I would say make the effort to know what is going on within your local area, target certain events, and encourage word of mouth. That is by far the best form of advertising, so once you get people talking about it, you’re on to a winner.
BL: How many members do you currently have?
PJ: We currently have just fewer than 60 members but we’re hoping to keep that increasing over the next year or two.
BL: And what’s your membership system? Are people paying per session, or do you have an annual membership, or both?
PJ: At this present moment in time the club in undergoing a bit of a change. We’ve now got a committee, a club bank account and we’re working towards the ETTA Clubmark accreditation. We have an annual membership fee, and then players have to pay a nominal fee for each session they attend.
BL: So would you say the club is becoming less of a personal business and more of a community-type club?
PJ: Yeah, definitely. It was financially tough at the start as it involved a lot of work for very little return. I decided to try and push the coaching side of my work more and although I’m still running the club, I have help from the committee which takes some pressure off me.
BL: That sounds pretty good. I see you have a website for the club. How important has the online side of things been to the club? Do you get many members contacting you online and are you using any social media?
PJ: Currently the website is just a bit of online information about the club. We’re looking to try to do more with it over the next year, with regular updates, newsletters and reports, but as I’m sure you’re aware it can be very time consuming.
BL: Yes, I’m well of aware of that! :)
PJ: Generally, we don’t really get that many people contacting us from the website. We use Facebook as well, but at the moment that tends to just be members of the club plus a few of my table tennis friends that have ‘liked’ our page, so we use it for advertising our club competitions etc.
BL: Ok. Looking back over the last few years, what has been the biggest challenge since deciding to start your own club?
PJ: I suppose every day brings up a new challenge and I try to take them in my stride as much as possible, but when we found out that the cost of the hall was going up over 300% and we only had two weeks before we were due to re-open from the summer break, that was a pretty difficult couple of weeks! I had to find another hall, and at a decent price, so that we could keep above break even.
BL: Wow, yeah that must have been a nightmare! And what’s the best thing about starting a table tennis club?
PJ: It’s very rewarding when you’re out at a competition and the club team has won, and they are all standing there with their medals and their team shirts on, that puts a smile on your face as well as theirs.
BL: Here’s a big question… If you were to do it all again, from the start, is there anything you would do differently?
PJ: I’d probably go down the funding route and get some help right from the word go. Most people do it slightly differently to how I did it. They form a committee of about 3 or 4 people, create a club bank account and then ask for funding. I believe you can get something around the lines of £10,000 from Sport England. That would probably be a better way to go about it as my way can put a slight dent in the old back pocket!
BL: Anything else?
PJ: Getting things like service level agreements for the hall hire has been a learning curve!
BL: What are they?
PJ: Basically an SLA is a document that both we (as the club) and the people renting the hall out sign, stating things like cost.
BL: Ok, I understand.
PJ: When hiring a hall, you always sign to say that you will look after the premises but they can increase the cost at any point! If you have an SLA then you have it in writing about little things like cost. That would have saved me a lot of trouble. But having said that I’m pleased I did it the way I did as I would not have learnt as much if I’d done it another way.
BL: Ok, my final question… What do you see for the future of the club, and your role in the club?
PJ: Hopefully, I want it to become a professional club. One with its own facility, open seven days a week, and its own gym. The paying public could come in to use the gym and generate income that way. I would also like to have teams playing professionally within the top tier of English table tennis. My role within the club will hopefully be on the coaching side of things but also in the day to day management of the place.
BL: Haha, I have the same exact dream. Even down to the gym bit! That sounds like a great plan.
PJ: Haha! Obviously great minds think alike. You’ll have to move up here and help me with it all!
BL: Do you have any idea how you would go about acquiring such a place, open seven days a week, and with those kind of facilities?
PJ: Erm… a multi-millionaire investor?!? Haha. But seriously we’d have to build the club funds up, apply for a grant, and get some sponsors as well. I think we are a long way off that though at the moment.
BL: Yeah, of course, but it’s good to have big goals. Finally, how can people find out about your club and yourself if they want to know more? And is there a way they can contact you?
PJ: All my contact details are on the website (www.blitzttc.co.uk), and also on the Facebook page. The best way to get hold of me is via email as I’m out coaching when most people have finished work and want to ring me. You can also follow me on Twitter, @pjohnson_tt.
BL: That’s great Paul! Thank you so much for taking the time to chat and I’m sure you’ll have helped out loads of people that are thinking about starting up their own table tennis club.
PJ: You’re welcome mate.