About Us

About The Club

The Club was founded in 1987 by members of Southwell Badminton Club. Since then many of our members have moved up to play for Southwell’s adult clubs in both the Notts and Newark badminton leagues. Currently around eight of our junior members play at the Southwell Centre Badminton Club on Friday nights at the Leisure Centre.

Over 35 club members have played for the Notts junior county teams with 3 progressing to play for England at junior level.  One now plays for England at senior level and many more for the Notts senior county teams.

Despite these excellent successes from our top players, our chief aim is to encourage children of all abilities to take up badminton as a sport for fitness, fun, and social development, which will hopefully lead to them playing throughout their adult life with the same objectives.

Did you know that badminton is the most popular ‘active’ sport played by adults worldwide?

We have approximately 60 members, aged from 7 to 17.  Occasionally, due to the numbers attending, prospective members may have to join a waiting list.

Season and Costs

The club runs through the badminton season, from September through to the end of May, with breaks for school holidays. Fees currently stand at £55.00 per school term.
The club has to register all members as Junior Members of Badminton England. If you require further membership, to play in their sanctioned tournaments, members should make your own arrangements.

Visitors: £5/week (3 sessions maximum as a visitor). Visitors’ fees will be taken off membership fee when joining.

If places are available, members may attend two sessions, for an additional fee – places may not be available.

Coaches

The club has regular qualified adult coaches with support from some of the junior members who have taken their initial coaching qualifications. The main coaches are:

Alex Fenton: A Level 2 coach who has coached in Southwell for the last 20 years and played for 25+ years in competitive league matches. Alex is also our Club Chairman.

Kevin Langley: A Level 2 coach with great experience. He worked with the Lincolnshire junior county squad players, coaching from Under 11 to Under 17 age groups and was the team manager at the annual ICT tournament, held at Nottingham University, for three years. A senior county player whilst living in Lincolnshire, he now lives in Notts and plays for our Over 45s team as well as for Southwell Centre Badminton Club in the Notts League. Kevin has represented Great Britain’s ‘Railways’ team for 16 years in tournaments around the world.

Kate Fenton: Kate started playing badminton at SJBC before moving on to the Notts Junior, and then the Notts Senior squads. She is also a Level 2 coach.

Dan Whaley and Eleanor Collins, ex Junior Club Members are both Level 1 coaches, helping out on Saturday mornings and Friday nights respectively.  Several of our older members help out with younger players on Saturdays.
 

Guidance

We have three separate, hour-long, ‘sessions’ running from 09.00-12.00 hrs on Saturday mornings.
 
These are primarily split on ability but are balanced to ensure roughly equivalent numbers of members in each session. Some weeks we have a 3 hour long ‘Big Sessions’ where all members meet and play together.
 
Each session has time allocated for a warm-up, specific skill or tactic training, singles and doubles games, with ‘fun’ games to end with. As time is limited it helps all concerned if your child arrives early for their session. This also helps avoid injury through lack of time for adequate warm-up.
 
Parents are welcome to stay and watch, or help.
 
Please let Alex know if you are interested in assisting with the coaching, supervision, administration of the club or running the league teams. Current, or ex-players, are particularly welcome, especially those with, or who are interested in, gaining coaching qualifications.
 
We are grateful that several parents do give their time to help; otherwise the club could not function
 
Friday coaching sessions were introduced recently, held in The Minster School Sports Hall. The sessions were set up primarily to help our youngest and newest members gain experience more quickly. Places are currently available for more members, or others interested in trying out the sport.

 

Matches

We are a league club and aim to run teams in the Notts Junior Badminton League in four age groups; Year 6 and under, Year 7 & 8, Year 9 & 10 and Year 11 & 12. Home matches generally take place at Southwell Leisure Centre on Sunday afternoons and we encourage parents to come and support the teams. It is essential that parents help to manage, and run, these teams otherwise matches could not take place. Members are expected to play in matches if selected.
 
All members are expected to enter the club’s end of season singles tournament. Other tournaments take place in the County throughout the season. Coaches will advise those who they think should enter these tournaments to gain experience.
 
If any parents, or junior players, are interested in joining the adult clubs in Southwell contact Kevin or Alex.

 

One to One Coaching

Additional coaching sessions on a one-to-one, or group basis can be arranged. Speak to Alex if interested.