IMPACT REPORT

Level the Table is our five-year Diversity and Inclusion Strategy, which was launched in September 2021. The strategy includes give integrated and interrelated phases to tackle inequality, provide equity, gender parity and ensure that the sport is representative of the demographic in England.

To achieve gender parity, we have an unapologetic focus on increasing the number of women and girls involved in the game, making table tennis a space where women and girls feel welcomed, valued, visible and have the opportunity to progress.

In the first six months after the release of the strategy;

• Our focus on evidence-based inclusion interventions has enabled us to ensure there is more flexibility for women playing table tennis. As a result, there have been amendments to domestic competition regulations to allow more flexibility in what kit is worn, which aims to benefit women, girls and religious communities
• We launched our 2021-22 Women and Girls Ambassador programme cohort. It’s purpose is to promote table tennis, encourage more women and girls to play the game and inspire them to take up other roles within the sport.
• Through the Level the Table grant scheme, we awarded funding totaling over £55,000 to 62 projects. The projects have the opportunity to engage and reach around 9,000 new participants.
• We launched a coaching bursary to celebrate International Women’s Day, giving 50% off Level 1 courses
• We are working on our messaging and imagery used online to better reflect our female membership
• For the first time ever, we had an all-female officials line-up for major domestic matches at the Mark Bates Ltd Senior National Championships

Looking Forward

Applications are now open for the next round of Level the Table funding, and we will publish our 12-month report in the autumn.

Collaboration is fundamental to everything we do at Table Tennis England, because by working with a range of partners, we can amplify our efforts to deliver work in ways that wouldn’t be possible otherwise.

While we work with a wide variety of partners throughout the year, which can be seen in the Partnerships section of this Impact Report, below are some of the partnerships we have created and nurtured in 2021/22.

Sported

Sported is a UK-wide charity promoting fairness and equality for young people through grassroots sport and physical activity. Piloting in Birmingham, a new hub-and-spoke model was utilised, which included Sported identifying a local organisation to act as a core ‘hub’, providing training, equipment and funding to enable them to establish new and develop existing table tennis activities. The ‘hub’ then reaches out into the local community to create ‘spoke’ sites, providing further opportunities to participate in the sport locally.

One such hub was Pitch 2 Progress, who reported engaged up to 40 young people every day in table tennis over their 2021 summer camps. Since then, they have established sessions twice a week, one for boys and one for girls.

Street TT

Linked with the Ping project, we have joined forces with Street TT to activate public tables and communities within a range of towns and cities as well as select boroughs of London.

Indicative engagement, particularly within London, saw Street TT successfully engage 349 new users and players on the Street TT app (25% of them women and girls), with 1,499 matches played across 11 sites in London. We also saw 13 sustained groups of players form through the partnership, leaving a lasting legacy for public and street table tennis participation.

Community Integrated Care

Community Integrated Care is one of the UK’s biggest and most successful social care charities. The collaboration piloted the use of table tennis in a range of settings – from specialist dementia care homes and learning disability supported living services, to utilising the game in mental health talking therapies.

The project has seen more than 200 of Community Integrated Care’s services receive starter table tennis packs, enabling thousands of people to take part in the activity – many of which allowed people to remain active during the pandemic. Since the pandemic, the charity has created 27 table tennis hubs in their larger services, benefitting almost 1,500 people.

People with Parkinson’s

Throughout 2021/22 our partnership with People with Parkinson’s and Parkinson’s UK flourished and a joint collaboration with St Neots Table Tennis Club led to an inaugural Ping Pong Parkinson’s UK Championship event held at the club. There have also been sessions created specifically for People with Parkinson’s at five clubs and community groups.

Everyone Active

Having previously partnered with Leisure Management company Everyone Active through our Ping programme, we developed this partnership to pilot the TT Kidz project across four centres. The pilot engaged 33 children and further conversations will explore how this can be rolled out across more sites.

Return to the Table

To support clubs and individuals to return safely to playing after the pandemic, we launched our Return to the Table campaign from July to September 2022. More than 70 events were held during the campaign, and over 100 toolkits were sent out to help organisers support the campaign. In addition, more than 130 people signed up to complete our online TT Activator course.

We also continued to support clubs and leagues with applications to Sport England’s Return to Play fund. In total, support of more than £515,000 was received across more than 90 table tennis organisations from this fund.

TT Clubs

A new club management platform, TT Clubs, was launched. The platform supports club with their day-to-day tasks including managing club membership, managing bookings, building a customisable website, using contact management to keep in touch with members, and integrating with TT Leagues for club fixtures and results.

After delivering onboarding webinars throughout summer 2021, around 40 clubs are now using TT Clubs. The platform is now in the development stages of Phase 2, with features to be announced for the 2022/23 season.

Club Audit

The club audit was completed in September 2021 by 128 clubs, providing us with insight into the needs and development requirements of clubs for the future. The results from the audit have been used to inform programme development, webinar delivery plans and newsletter content.

Be TT

The fourth year of the Be TT initiative supported clubs and leagues re-start activity after the pandemic, encouraging the use of various funding steams to inspire existing or new participants to return to table tennis.

A total of 32 projects were supported, including 28 clubs, 3 leagues and 1 youth club, with an average of 18 participants attending each project and 27% of these being female

Bat and Chat

The Bat & Chat project has bounced back well after the pandemic and is proving popular with clubs, leagues and wider community groups. There are currently 31 active sessions, with an average of 15 participants at each session.

TT Fast Format

TT Fast Format was introduced to provide a structure for league matches to be completed in less than 2 hours. This was in response to feedback from clubs, leagues and individuals wanting more options for league play.

The format has been in pilot phase and will be developed for wider use in the 2022/23 season.

TT Kidz

TT Kidz, our programme aimed at 7-11 year olds, has continued to be popular amongst clubs. The Autumn Phase, which began in October 2021, saw 29 venues engage 390 new participants into the game. Feedback form the programme shows that 93% of children are wanting to play more table tennis after taking part in TT Kidz, and 98% of children found the sessions fun.

The Spring Phase was smaller, but still engaged 246 new children into the game, giving a total of 636 new participants across the year. We have also been able to support girls only TT Kidz sessions and provided free participant kit bags to projects run in low socio-economic areas.

TT Kidz was also high commended in the Generation Active category at the ukactive Awards in 2021, largely in recognition of moving TT Kidz online through the pandemic.

TT Kidz Autumn 2021 Summary – click to enlarge

Towns and Cities

With various stages of recovery from the pandemic, the Ping project had to be agile and reflective of the populations they serve in 2021. We continued to work with 22 Ping! Places to enable bespoke programmes of activity, which collectively welcomed 991,000 players back to over 680 tables nationally.

Ping Case Study – click to enlarge

Ping in the Community

Although many communities had to pause their table tennis provision during periods of pandemic restriction, we still supported 134 new community projects between April 2021 – March 2022. The new projects spanned the whole country, from rurally isolated areas to inner city areas with high levels of deprivation. The programme engaged an estimated 2,000 players between April 2021 – March 2022.

Ping Pong Parlours

The Ping Pong Parlour project had to pause throughout the pandemic, due to it being hosted within empty shopping centre retail units. However steady progress has been made to reopen these spaces to the public, with over 20 locations open once again.

The project continues to be extremely popular with the public, engaging an estimated 2 million visits between April 2021 – March 2022. In August 2021, the project was named the winner of the Activation Award at the ukactive Awards ceremony.

Jack Petchey Programme

Our partnership with the Jack Petchey Foundation instigates and develops opportunities for young people to play and compete in London and Essex. Highlights from the projects 11^th year include:

• Awarding 248 tables to 83 schools, including 190 indoor tables and 58 outdoor tables
• Awarding 34 tables to 17 youth clubs, including 28 indoor tales and 6 outdoor tables
• Engaging and estimated 292 young people within each school and youth club through table donations, with a total of 29,200 young people being estimated to have benefited from the table donation scheme
• 10 London and Essex schools took part in the newly introduced TT Kidz Virtual Schools Championship
• Three schools completed the T3 Foundation Pilot Scheme, allowing 18 SEN student to participate in table tennis
• Three girls-only festivals took place in London, introducing more than 70 girls to the sport

Schools Competitions

Both the Butterfly Schools Team and Individual Championships were able to take place again following the pandemic, trialling both finals taking place on the same weekend. This change was well received by players, volunteers and teachers and will be considered for future years.

Schools Membership

The Schools Membership offer launched during 2021/22, supporting schools to access resources and information to develop high quality table tennis provision for their pupils. In the first year, 20 schools signed up to the Schools Membership offer.

Coaching 2021-2022

During 2021/22, our Level 1 Session Coach qualification saw a total of 237 candidates go through a total of 17 courses across the country, and twelve coaches completed the Level 3 Head Coach course. Our Activator Award saw 130 people complete the online workshop during the Return to the Table campaign in September 2021.

Linked to our quest for gender parity, 18.5% of coaches who completed a course during 2021/22 were women. Financial support for those looking to continue their coaching journey launched in August 2021 with our Charlie Childs Coaching Grant, which has a key focus on increasing the number of female coaches in the sport.

Course Development

Our re-developed and re-designed Level 2 Lead Coach qualification was launched in November 2021 which, as well as increasing their knowledge, seeks to challenge coaches to evaluate what they are doing and whether they can do things better.

Pride of Table Tennis Awards

The Pride of Table Tennis Awards received more than 100 nominations, with awards being presented at local and regional levels, as well as to the National winners at the Centenary Gala Dinner.

This year, we awarded male and female winners in both Volunteer of the Year and Young Volunteer of the Year categories.

Young Ambassador Programme

The Young Ambassador programme continues to seek to provide meaningful experiences for young people aged 14-25, and to offer clubs a helping hand. This season has seen 25 active Young Ambassadors logging a total of 355 hours of activity.

Women and Girls Ambassadors

The Women and Girls Ambassadors programme launched in October 2021 with the aim to promote table tennis and to encourage more women and girls to play the game and take up other roles in the sport. There are currently 11 ambassadors, ranging from ages 17 to 49, who have supported projects including International Women’s Day celebrations, girls-only TT Kidz and a women and girls-only 1* competition.

Officiating 2021-2022

Four Level 1 Umpire courses were held during the year, with 66 new umpires qualifying. A total of 21 achieved Level 2 Umpire qualification.

Two Tournament Organiser Level 2 courses were held, resulting in 99 newly qualified officials. In addition, seven people qualified as Level 1 referees.

There was a landmark all-women team of officials for the Women’s Doubles matches on Finals Day at the Senior Nationals.

Commonwealth Games

The 2022 Birmingham Commonwealth Games saw a strong and diverse group of English officials, with an almost exact 50/50 split of males and females. The English contingent includes several umpires who recently came through the umpiring pathway following our campaign to increase the number of diversity of umpires.

This year we returned to a virtually full calendar after the pandemic, starting with events being held under Government restrictions and working through various stages of the Government’s roadmap to a point where tournaments were staged without any mandatory restrictions. Our key successes for this year include;

• Appointing a full-time British League Executive Officer, creating capacity and resource to support British League, ensuring a consistent approach to event planning and delivery
• Adding a second venue to the Veteran’s British League weekends, creating additional capacity and providing a model to incorporate more teams into the competition
• To mark the Centenary, the English Leagues Cup Competitions was free to enter, with entries being considerably higher than previous years
• Four Grands Prix were held, with the London Grand Prix being the largest for several years with 241 competitors and more than 1,400 matches
• The Junior age group was raised to Under-19 from 1^st August 2021, a decision made in response to a similar change in eligibility made by the ITTF and ETTU
• Our National Championships have been refined and we now hold championships for every two-year band from Under-11 to Under-21, leading into Seniors
• The consultation phase of the Competition Review has concluded, with 385 responses being received and more than 20 forums and one-to-one insight interviews being completed. An outline proposal from the next stage of the Review is due to be presented to the Board in autumn

In February 2021, we launched our new website, which involved a top-to-bottom revamp designed to improve the user experience. The website now boasts modern and fresh look and confirms to the latest standards of inclusivity and compatibility with all devices.

TV Coverage

Finals Day at the Mark Bates Ltd Senior National Championships was again broadcast live on the BBC Sport website. There were 25,720 stream starts on the day, increasing to 29,334 when the 30-day iPlayer availability period is included.

Social Media

Impressions have increased across Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube by 367% to 17.764 million compared to the previous year. There has also been a significant increase in engagements with our social media content, which has increased by 418% to 719,000 engagements, and video views hit nearly 3.3 million which is up by 487%.

Top performing social posts come mainly from live streaming of events, with one live stream reaching nearly half a million people. The second most viewed video and engaged with piece of content came from the Women’s British League live stream – overall seven out of the top ten pieces of content on Facebook were videos focused on female players.

PR Activity

We have continued to engage with traditional and new media to promote the sport. This resulted in notable coverage including:

• Pre-Olympic focus on several players by BBC, ITV and an interview with Tin-Tin Ho in the Daily Telegraph
• Bat & Chat being featured in the Daily Mail and Metro
• TT Kidz being featured in Family First magazine, with a reach of up to 3 million parents

In addition, media monitoring shows press releases sent out, or opportunities arranged directly with the media, appeared in national and regional media outlets with a combined reach of more than 110 million, generating coverage worth around £1 million.

The biggest challenge this season has been operating under, and then managing the emergence from, pandemic restrictions. This affected all squads, in both domestic and international settings.

Our partnership with the University of Nottingham continued, enabling us to support players by providing access to facilities and also to support the role of Kelly Sibley as women’s coach.

A total of 5 medals were won by England at the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games, including two golds, one silver and two bronzes.

Seniors

Highlights from the Seniors include;

• England women qualifying for the European Team Championships
• Liam Pitchford reached the last 16 at the World Championships in Houston
• At the WTT Star Contender Doha, Liam Pitchford and Paul Drinkhall reached the final of the men’s doubles, with Liam also reaching the men’s singles semi-finals. Tin-Tin Ho also reached the women’s singles semi-finals
• Tom Jarvis reached the final of the WTT Feeder Fremont event in California
• Sam Walker won the men’s doubles at the Czech Open alongside his Swedish team mate

Pathway

Due to pandemic restrictions for part of the season, formal youth squads were not named and wider training groups were maintained, with the players involved varying from camp to camp.

Between 18-20 players were part of the Junior and Aspire branches of the youth programme at any one time, with 21 in the Hopes squad at the start of the season – which was taken down to 11 via a selection process halfway through the season.