Welcome to Around the Table, our regular look at the work Table Tennis England is doing to promote and support table tennis around the country.

This week we are looking into the future – at our Mission 2025 document, which details what you can expect us to do over the next 10 years to grow the sport.

What is Mission 2025?

It’s a document that sets out our aims and ambitions for the sport for the next 10 years, from the grassroots to the elite.

It outlines the work we will carry out in four key areas – Participation, Places, People and Performance – to improve and grow the sport.

Each of these four ‘pillars’ contains a series of targets. For example, under Participation, we will work to get table tennis played in 1,000 more schools than in 2015 and also re-launch a new school-club link programme.

Each of the four pillars is equally important – as each supports the overall structure, if one is weak then the others will wobble.

What else is in the document?

Mission 2025 is informed by, and includes reference to, our values as an organisation and our guiding principles.

Our values are Respect; Ambition; Inclusion; Teamwork; Focus and Excellence, while our guiding principles – our promises to stakeholders – include pledges that we will listen and respond, be participant-centred and strive for continuous improvement.

It also includes our vision to make table tennis a sport that everyone is talking about – one that is diverse and dynamic, transforms lives and connects communities.

Also described are our core objectives, covering areas such as revenue, influence, image and staff.

So why do we need this document?

Firstly, it’s important to communicate our aims and ambitions, challenges and targets to our members and to other individuals and organisations.

Mission 2025 allows us to set goals and to make commitments to all our stakeholders and also to measure our progress towards those goals. This will help to hold us accountable to our stakeholders and partner organisations.

This will also help to keep us focused on our key challenges and ambitions, and to change and improve them as we go along.

So this document is not set in stone?

That’s right. Although some aspects – our values and core objectives, for example – are less likely to change, the challenges and targets we have identified are always subject to review and improvement. Mission 2025 will be a living document.

Where can I see it?

An electronic copy is available on our website by clicking here

However, as not everyone visits our website, it is important to make sure it is available to the wider table tennis family and indeed the wider sporting family. Therefore, a hard copy has been sent to every PremierClub and to league and county officials as well as various partner organisations.

And in the coming weeks, a copy will be sent to every club in England, to make available to their members.