The countdown is on – it’s only 50 days to go until National #TableTennis Day 2016!
Dozens of organisations have already contacted us to let us know how they will be celebrating our sport. They include clubs, workplaces, schools, community organisations and even a National Trust property!
Volunteers at the Trust’s Clumber Park in Nottinghamshire have made a table tennis table from natural products and placed it in woodland. Visitors will be challenged to pick up a bat and have a go – on that table or on another outdoor one in the visitors’ area.
Elsewhere, Hinckley Wellbeing are planning to get 1,000 people in Hinckley and Bosworth to try table tennis this summer for recreation and for general health and wellbeing and will be using #TableTennisDay as part of their campaign, while the University of Huddersfield – recent host of the Cadet & Junior Nationals – have caught the table tennis bug and will be organising play on tables dotted around the campus.
Schools around the country have also contacted us to say they will be joining the party, with lunchtime tournaments and staff-versus-students challenges a common theme. At Whalley Range High School in Manchester, matches will be umpired by Year 10 pupils who have recently completed the Junior Umpire Award.
Thwaites Table Tennis Club were one of the first to download our special toolkit, which provides advice, ideas and resources to help organisers deliver a memorable event.
Thwaites are planning a family fun day including loads of free play, robot challenges, film shows of old matches and a reunion of former players. They told us: “We joined in this event last year and had a brilliant time, we also got our local pub involved who carried on the fun event with a game of round the table.”
Whitehaven Harbour Youth Project are also returning after a successful event last year, with tables in the town centre market place and at the project in the evening, free for the public to have a go.
If these ideas have whetted your appetite, here’s how to get involved:
Click here to download the toolkit
Sign up to our social media Thunderclap and help get #TableTennisDay trending – click here
And don’t forget, you can also win a custom table tennis table for your organisation in our brilliant #TableTennisDay competition – click here for details