[gvttc general] Successful Table Tennis Outreach Story

[ANDRE MARONIAN]

GVTTC,

On September 10th, our club led an incredible opportunity to expand the sport and attract new members with a company called SMP smp-corp.com <http://www.smp-corp.com/> that reached out asking if they could rent a few tables for an in-house tournament.  The company has a table tennis table in their break room.  Over the last year or so, the amount of competitors they’ve had competing in matches throughout their work day has caused a fantastic work environment and something for them to look forward to every day.  So many got in on their in company daily competitions they wanted to run a tournament and reached out to us.

We offered to
- Run the tournament
- Do a demonstration
- 2 free registrations to their top 2 finalists in the U1000 event at our tournament
- Of course, a chance for us to plug our club and gain new members by being there.

Jeff McNinch and I attended and I have to tell you it was fun and intense and proved that Table Tennis is adored by so many.  

The tournament had over 20 participants where we ran 5 group round robins into a single elimination playoff.  We didn’t want to change their mojo so they played old style (21 points with 5 serves) and we didn’t enforce serving rules but we were able to go over rules that they can apply moving forward.  We took the top 2 on each table and even those trying to get off their initial table were battling.  The playoffs only intensified and many stayed to support and watch.  By the time we were in the Semi’s and Finals, the players were celebrating points out loud and you could see the sweat coming off their heads.  Some players were diving and sliding on the floor!  It was really nice to see and you could tell, they were HOOKED!  I judged the Finals (pic below) the same way you would expect and they were just loving it.  Brian Roets was the SMP Champion and It truly was a good time.

My assessment:  They have at least 8 people that could be strong 4 players on our Monday league and could jump very quickly with a little GVTTC influence.  We promoted the club and gave them confidence that there was a league for them.  We’re staying on this while it’s hot as I believe we could pick up anywhere between 3-5 new members because of this outreach.

Below are some pics for your enjoyment!

One of the two finalists already signed up for our tournament.  They were very thankful and I guarantee they’ll ask us back again for another tournament.

Sincerely,
Andre Maronian
President GVTTC















-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://pairlist3.pair.net/pipermail/gvttc.general/attachments/20180914/77865d3e/attachment-0001.html>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: IMG_0127.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 122555 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <https://pairlist3.pair.net/pipermail/gvttc.general/attachments/20180914/77865d3e/attachment-0007.jpg>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: IMG_0129.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 140728 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <https://pairlist3.pair.net/pipermail/gvttc.general/attachments/20180914/77865d3e/attachment-0008.jpg>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: IMG_1376 copy.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 125760 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <https://pairlist3.pair.net/pipermail/gvttc.general/attachments/20180914/77865d3e/attachment-0009.jpg>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: IMG_1379 copy.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 130028 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <https://pairlist3.pair.net/pipermail/gvttc.general/attachments/20180914/77865d3e/attachment-0010.jpg>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: IMG_1380 copy.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 128189 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <https://pairlist3.pair.net/pipermail/gvttc.general/attachments/20180914/77865d3e/attachment-0011.jpg>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: IMG_1383 copy.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 155565 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <https://pairlist3.pair.net/pipermail/gvttc.general/attachments/20180914/77865d3e/attachment-0012.jpg>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: IMG_1384-1 copy.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 75441 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <https://pairlist3.pair.net/pipermail/gvttc.general/attachments/20180914/77865d3e/attachment-0013.jpg>