Fitzwimarc Badminton Club
Return of racket sports following lockdown
The Fitzwimarc Badminton Club in Rochford, wanted to provide sessions for adults who were looking to start playing badminton for the first time, or who played previously, but had lost fitness and became sedentary due to the pandemic.
By applying for Active Essex’s Find Your Active funding, the club were able to fund a six-week coaching course to help recondition those who had become inactive. Deconditioned adults were a target audience for the Find Your Active campaign, so this initiative was ideal in helping to change behaviours towards physical activity and to get people moving again.
The pandemic had a significant impact on grassroots clubs and in particular, indoor sports like badminton had additional restrictions and challenges to overcome when returning to play. Each sport was required to provide a roadmap out of the pandemic in line with government advice and badminton was one of the last activities that was able to return to some form of normality. Providers were required to navigate leisure centre guidance, NGB guidance, and adhere to coach and participant ratios both on and off the court. This meant that regular badminton players and people who were mainly active through badminton, were unable to play so often, risking potential deconditioning and longer periods of social isolation.
To help counteract this and to give local people a boost back into badminton post-pandemic, Fitzwimarc Badminton Club applied for funding to provide a free 6-week Badminton and Fitness Course, delivered by local expert coaches. This aimed to help support people back to the club and to regain fitness that they had lost, due to being inactive throughout the pandemic.
Giving a funding boost to grassroots sports organisations enabled them to return to play and offer participants who had lost confidence or were previously active, the encouragement they needed to get back into an active routine.
Aside from the Find Your Active Fund, Active Essex played a huge role in supporting grassroots sports clubs during the pandemic by advising on government guidance and the funding available, as well as ideas on how to keep their members engaged and how to return to play safely, in order to ensure the club survived through this challenging time.
