Wychelm membership is sky high and packed to capacity
By Katie Garner
Wychelm has recently enjoyed a massive boom in membership and visitor numbers, now hitting nearly 35 members, compared with the mere twenty-something of bygone seasons. Our five-court sports hall at Frances Bardsley School in Romford, Essex is now bursting at the bricks with a brilliant bunch of players.
Despite being one of the only local clubs to play with plastic shuttlecocks as opposed to feathers, I think we have become so popular through a fantastic word of mouth system, and our naturally welcoming attitude. New visitors to the club pay £4 an evening, and after their third session, the club committee decides whether they would like to offer the new recruit a membership.
A major ace in our pack for the past year has been that we were the only local club to continue playing through the school summer holidays. Most clubs break up over summer as the schools close; however, we managed to raise the funds for the hall hire from our regular members who wished to continue playing those extra weeks. What we didn’t expect was the flood of visitors from other clubs who heard we were open and wanted to squeeze in some more badminton over the sunshiny summer. This was a great way for us to get some extra money in the form of visitors fees, which we can now put aside for keeping the hall open this coming summer as well.
It’s great to see such a varied mix of people at our club nights, and we really have such an energetic and vibrant atmosphere that I think attracts many of our visitors, who often didn’t feel welcomed at other clubs. This also makes for some fantastic social events – last Christmas’s do at Liberty Bell in Romford being the best so far I think! New members this year will also be in with a chance to win our ‘Best Newcomer’ award as part of our Wychelm BC Awards, presented at the Christmas meal (congrats to this years winner John Tilbury).
Massive thanks to all of our members for making Wychelm the fun and friendly club that it is!
