On Wednesday 19th June we were delighted to host the Bright Ideas for Tennis I Play 30 Festival at our club.  The courts had been cleaned the day before so were sparkling in the sunshine which had at last decided to shine!  We welcomed children from Oaktree School in Oakwood, Mapeldown School in Cricklewood and The Compton School in Finchley - there were about 30 children on court which was wonderful to see. 

Our two marvellous Coaches ran the 1.5 hour session, which began with a warm up/ general mobility exercise and then working in small groups there was a ball rolling game where a Coach rolls a ball through the feet of the participants - there was a lot of laughing!  

Our 5 volunteer coach assistants (Kim, Margaret, Nicki, Vivien, Lucy and Marisa) took charge of an activity station each as did Danny, John & Mark from Bright Ideas for Tennis.  There was a Rally station, a Volley station, a Serve station, a bouncing ball station for hand-eye co-ordination, a forehand & backhand station and an obstacle course.  There was even an Argentina vs England “goal shoot out” between the Coaches Ignacio and Paul showing the children how to roll the ball between the cones … luckily the result was a draw! 

We had a 5 minute breather for a cold drink before the last few rotations on the activity stations before the Closing Ceremony when each child was presented with a medal and certificate by Danny Sapsford (Bright Ideas) and Lily Mills who is an Ambassador for Bright Ideas and a three time Special Olympics World Games gold medalist.  

The medals and certificate were all provided by Bright Ideas for Tennis and were extremely well received by the excited children.  One of them said “it’s like graduating” … he also said “my Mum will be so proud” - it is comments like this that just absolutely make it all worthwhile.