Spinneroos Case Study: Sunshine Coast Table Tennis Club

The Sunshine Coast Table Tennis Club delivered Spinneroos in Term 4, 2020 and despite the challenges presented by COVID-19, they sold out their program and engaged the community through various promotional activities. Program managers, Gary & Desley, share their experiences and tips for other clubs who are thinking about running a Spinneroos program of their own.

What motivated you to become a Spinneroos provider? 

Sunshine Coast Table Tennis was aware of the small number of actual junior members in the club and the need to better foster junior players. While we have had the interest of some juniors in the past few years, we had no program specifically for this age group. Our club is well connected to Table Tennis Australia and we heard early about the opportunity of Spinneroos and decided to give it a shot. 

What were the most effective marketing activities to sign up kids? 

Initially we planned to focus on assemblies and school newsletters. However, due to COVID, we had to change our strategy and we focused on the following;
- Advertising amongst our club players 
- Posters put up around the community
- Promo + demonstration of table tennis at the main shopping centre
- Paid social media ads
These promotional activities were extremely successful and resulted in the program 3 days prior to program start. 

What were the two most effective things that TTA did for your Spinneroos program? 

1) Provision of a tried and tested, comprehensive and step by step program with back up resources
2) Provision of a fairly straightforward online registration and payment system 

What were some of the challenges that you had to overcome during the program? 

1) COVID, as already mentioned, presented all kinds of challenges.
2) Coaches - while we have a few engaged coaches who can take the reins, we can foresee some challenges to keep this role filled in the long term. 

What advice would you give to other providers who want to join Spinneroos? 

The program, as written, is excellent with fun, age-appropriate and progressive activities for participants. The Spinneroos program is well suited to highly motivated leaders and with planning and a bit of effort, we are confident your Spinneroos program will be successful. 

Is there anything you would like to add? 

We definitely encourage other clubs to use this opportunity to engage junior participants. It's important to plan how the Spinneroos program will integrate with any existing junior programs that are already in place and how you can encourage Spinneroos participants to continue their table tennis journey at your club. 

Table Tennis Australia would like to use this opportunity to thank SCTT and in particular, Gary & Desley, for their on-going support of the Spinneroos program.