SSRA AGM

[David Williams]

This will be held at Caledonia House, 1 Redheughs Rigg, South Gyle, Edinburgh EH12 9DQ. I believe the start time is 1400 (2:00 pm) but I'm not 100% on that. I have added it to the calendar.

Ian MacKay is the Tayside & Fife SSRA representative and I believe he will be attending. If you have anything you would like him to bring up, please suggest it here.

[ian]

Hi All,

I would like to know what the views are on promoting Squash and Racquetball. It failed as an entry into the 2020 Olympics, I feel due to the lack of awareness of the populous, as to what it is. I have never been a Squash player but have come to it through my son`s accidental discovery of it as a sport. During the last 6 years I have learnt to appreciate the advantages it has as both a fun game and a competitive sport, developing not only fitness but also maturity and life skills.
Before I attend the AGM this Sunday, I would like to have some opinions of players of ways they believe the sport can be promoted. SSRL are currently driving forward the idea of High School involvement, is this the best way forward? Constructive and practical ideas please.
Hope the weather was not too much of a downer for the Airshow and it went well Dave.
Cheers Ian

[Moderator note: I moved this post here, where everyone can see it, as it seems more relevant to this topic. 1 short phrase removed as it isn't relevant to this thread. Dave]

[David Williams]

Hi Ian,

Some points I have been considering since DDSRAs meeting with John Dunlop:

Awareness

I agree with what you're saying about lack of awareness; I think it is also due to lack of TV coverage. So lack of visibility for high level squash is also a problem - there are clips and highlights on YouTube, but to watch a full tournament you need to subscribe to PSALive.TV and that is not cheap. However I see little that can be done about this at our level except perhaps subscribe to channels/websites which show squash and help them make money from it.

Target Audience

I think they are probably right to target high schools, because it's at that age where youngsters tend to settle on the sorts of activities they will likely enjoy for a long time. Before then it's easy to just do whatever parents expect them to do, not necessarily because they want to do it. Also there will be a slower time lag between teenagers playing rebound sports at school and when they are ready to start playing for Universities or clubs.

Court Prices

I think another obstacle for squash is the cost of courts - something sports centres seem forced to keep putting up and up because otherwise the space is simply not making them as much money as it could as gym space. This is something SSRA are right to point out could be addressed on public courts by being an affiliated club, and so able to access funds which might be used to help lower court fees for members etc.

For comparison, at RAF Leuchars I often see courts being used by 18-30 year olds who are essentially beginners but enjoy playing for the exercise because it's more fun than treadmills or rowing machines - and the courts are free to use. I seriously doubt they would do this if they had to pay £6 or more for 40 minutes. Personally I rarely play for 40 minutes or less so would probably end up paying £12 between 2 players. That courts costing £6 or more per session are underused is not remotely surprising to me.

So getting court prices down is also important I think - this is only likely to happen if club can access subsidising funds.

SSRA Affiliation

Currently the affiliation system is setup to discourage people from hiding their membership (in order to reduce affiliation fees), by charging the hefty £225 for 'competitive teams', £10 per 'competitive player' and then only £1 per non-competitive player. I understand the reasoning for this, but the result is simply that clubs will be inclined to 'hide their teams' instead of their membership.

For example, as I understand it, this is at least part of the reason why there is a separate 'Perth Juniors' club which is affiliated, and a separate non-affiliated Perth club. If I'm wrong about that I apologise, and someone please correct me. So another example would be that players are either joining clubs they have no intention of playing for, or considering setting up clubs which have no official team, and simply playing for an unofficial team at the same time. John Dunlop even basically gave this idea his approval.

The whole situation seems messed up to me. The fact a club with 7 players making up a single team have to pay £295, (£42 each) when an individual membership used to be less than £20 seems absurd. Whatever happened to economy of buying in bulk? Players just are not willing to spend that, on top of league fees, court fees, balls, racquets, shoes, post-match hosting etc. It's just too much for most players. The result is an overall lack of affiliation, especially in areas like ours where clubs are unofficial and/or small.



Those are the main issues I think - SSRA are doing some things right in my opinion, but if they ever want to become a governing body to which affiliation is considered 'the norm', they surely need to rethink their affiliation policy. Unless they are prepared to wait until typical clubs have a far better 'member to team' ratio than they do right now. That's going to take at least several years, if it happens at all.

[Duncan Zuill]

My thoughts about squash club development are on a short, corny video:

[jennifer m]

Fantastic video. Loved it and the hard work behind it. (did you copy the format from the "23 and a half hours" one?) Would you like me to ask if we can get it onto the Dundee and District web site? Well done, jennifer

[jennifer mc]

Hi, I believe the meeting is 2pm on Sunday. I am intending to go and would be happy to pick up people on the way or meet to car-share.

Following our meeting with John Dunlop on the 3rd, I met one of the local high school PE teachers. He had some reservations about being able to fit the taping for racketwall on their gym hall wall due to basketball hoops, was interested in the moveable walls that would fit across a badminton court ( he did say "if they cost £500 or so each" and they are going to be £3,000!) and allow as many participants as a badminton session, and , because their school already uses David LLoyd for 5th years doing tennis, he is going to enquire about racketball and / or squash being available as a choice. So fairly positive and I plan to try to set up more meetings. I think the idea of using Forthill in the East and Dundee uni in the West and concentrating our efforts and volunteers at those sites initially is a good one and I would hope that things could role out from there. Duncan Zuill's video is great and shows what can be done.  

ps Dave when I try to post it says Jennifer is already used so I have to choose another name- I keep adding letters but can only do that for so long!! what am I doing wrong? jen x

[David Williams]

Jen - it looks like you are not logging in and are just posting as a guest. So it won't let you post as 'Jennifer' because your actual account has that name reserved. You need to click the Login button somewhere near the top. I also recommend getting a password storage application and setting the forum to log you in automatically - which I think will need cookies enabled and you tick some check box during the login procedure.

Good progress on liasing with PE departments, and nice video Duncan.

[Duncan Zuill]

That video is free for anyone - use it if you want!