A friend of mine has gone to great lengths in recent years to create a charitable group that is all about giving the elderly the chance to play TT as part of keeping active and social in life. It's called Table Tennis for Life.
Now, he has taken this one step further and has secured the use of a facility to use for playing TT...and not just for the elderly. The TT centre will be used for nightly pennant and will have morning TT session for the TT for Life group. And then there will also be coaching and public hire times. To begin with they will have 8 tables, but they facility has a LOT of vacant land around it, owned by the building owner, who is keen to extend the building to add more playing space. The building has been used for Badminton up until now, but there is not enough demand for Badminton to utilise the facility each day. So the owner is happy for it to convert to a TT facility. Moreover, its actually going to be made into a bone fide club, with a club lounge with space for member gatherings, changerooms with toilets and showers and ability to view downstairs table from up above.
I visited the centre today for the first time, and I was impressed by what I saw. Works are still going on to make the transformation with new LED lighting planned, brick walls being covered with padding and barriers being set up. The flooring is similar to taraflex and felt good to play on. The tables are top quality and really solid double fish brand. I had a few sets on them with my friends and felt that I could not fault them. Better than the Stiga Optimum's at my club, and that's saying something. The surface was a better color and the undercarriage had them hold the floor more solidly.
I took some pictures to show how it all looks and some posters to show costs and contacts numbers for playing there. Its early days for them, so league/pennant is yet to start. But they are already open for certain activities like "TT for life" mornings and for coaching. The member lounge also has a bar, I'm assuming there is a licence for the facility to serve alcohol. I certainly know they serve tea and coffee
I think it's great to see a new place for TT in Melbourne, it's a shot in the arm for our game IMO. Fpr anyone interested the premises is at 44 Henderson Rd. Springvale. Call Graham Davies for enquiries on 0417 812 828.
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