OOAK Table Tennis Forum

the burden should be not to individuals to start clubs in big places. it should be headed through development officer or table tennis rep, which table tennis don't have. Best thing is guy like you hookshot, an individual left to make such an effort on your own.

Table Tennis needs development officers who represent table tennis and establish clubs fthrough club structures so to speak.

Since Table Tennis doesn't, it will remain on its own, and relying on individual efforts such as hookshots which is hardly sustaining and surviving for a sport so to speak.

It will be interesting to know on the poor stats. You can get participation/member stats on government sites like vis (Victorian Institute of Sport) and perhaps other governmental sites relating to sports. Maybe SA has such a site for its own and a national sporting site that has statistics on membership numbers.

Same for you hookshot in the states.

I know Table Tennis in Victoria and no doubt Australia has member stats in the bottom as a sport. And Victoria has the most members in Australia.

Would be interesting to know such stats guys feel free to post your findings here. TTA should be accomodating for you Alex.

WATT (Western Aus TT) gave me their membr number a couple years ago (early last year actually). WA member stats: 286. Oz was around 6000 member, around 3000 from Vic (I think but been so long I am guessing). The definite stat though was WA. How could I forget that low number!!

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It seems every country is like above, you find the same scenario. Its the same here, I live in a city of 15 million people, yet we have to work to find a good game. The good thing is that in those few places that we have found, they are open and welcoming to new-comers and its not a win-at-all-costs environment. They will help the juniors and the youngsters and not try to discourage them by showing off their skills in spin and speed.

But like I said, I could not find 15 places in a city of a 15 million.

No wonder China is so dominant in the sport, they seem to have a table tennis table on every street.

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RM, I think you need to have many more kids so you can turn them into TT Evangelists (hmmm, where have I heard that name before?) and form their own little clubs all around Pakistan. Aim for about a million converts in the first generation and then your grandkids can have Pakistan a major force in TT in about 40 years time

You'll have done your bit for TT well and truly by then.

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nice idea Reb

You know, there is a table in every street in Vic too and probably the many wealthy countries like the US no doubt. Home personal tables and whatnot.

TT is open in China no doubt though, and on many fronts.

TT is closed on all fronts in the west like in Oz and US.

Gotta be opened up, and if it aint at clubs, the sport is hardly gonna open from individuals, even from huger efforts like a hookshot.

As a sport, table tennis is represented poorly on all the many fronts.

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Cuts hard, but not short and not down. I'm a cut above that, and not a cut out. I cut back, and am fully cut UP! I am cutting sensational.

I received a letter from Felisa Huggins of the USATT.
She did not have the actual numbers handy. She said membership has run about 8000 for the last 3 years.
If it has stayed the same, that means it is shrinking compared to population growth. I was hoping to get the actual numbers.

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I'm amazed at how low the number of players is in US considering population. 8000 players out of a population of what...270 million? Its not many is it? If I'd been asked to guess, I'd have said US would maybe have 50-100K players.

_________________
I'm always in the dark, but the Dark sheds lights upon everything!! Beauty is only pimple deep! Beauty is in the eye of the pipholder!
S/U 1: Blade: Bty Gergely . FH Black Andro Rasant 2.1 . BH Red Tibhar Grass Dtecs
S/U 2: Blade: Bty Gergely . FH Black Hexer+ 2.1 . BH Red GD Talon
S/U 3: Blade: Bty Gergely . No rubbers...thinking of adding Red Dtecs and Black Rasant
Aussie Table Tennis Shop / Aussie Table Tennis Facebook Page / Equipment Review Index / Read my Reb Report Blog: click here.

Damn that IS low!

Hookshot do you live in a rural/country area? Where bouts you live? What is your local town pop and how many nearing rival towns are there to your local town with rough pop figures?

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Cuts hard, but not short and not down. I'm a cut above that, and not a cut out. I cut back, and am fully cut UP! I am cutting sensational.

I am in the country. (for the hunting, fishing, mountains, etc)
Population about 40,000.
Nearest towns with a club, (both non-sancioned) 100 miles.
Nearest tourneys, ( sancioned ) 100 miles for one, 250 for the other.

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In America, unless schools everywhere make a Table Tennis program like they have say for basketball and baseball, there won't be much growth, if any. Even to implement this, we would have to have an invasion of 100,000 qualified coaches. They would have to fall like rain drops to get it started. If schools have the programs for it, the sport also gets played after school. I have little faith that will happen anytime soon, or if at all. It will take many thousands of Hookshots in our country to even have a chance at 10 percent growth. Many of our countries right now have much more pressing needs than TT growth, so that will also be a big factor as well for the time being.

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Hi Der,
You are exactly right, schools are where it has to start to make it big.
The other three sports dominate so it is hard to get any money for table tennis. It is happening in a few places like Portland where a group of people spend alot of time going to schools to put on demos.
Maybe the right tact would be to get "Cheer leaders" for table tennis in the schools. Yepp, that would work.

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Backhand, Sriver FX Max

Definitely keying in schools would be great.

If TT could set up representatives like hookshot, but in more metropolitan regions so to speak, and set him up with a system/structure/strategy, I think a strong work can be done for the sport. Clubs, coaches, schools, comps can be setup by a hookshot in a metro region, with certain system/structure/strategy. If each metro/city target regions can be setup to employ a rep as hookshot, with a real development strategy/structure/system in place, participation may have somewhat of a worthy chance .

Huge jobs by qualifies and set up individuals I have in mind with that..

Good luck TT .

Hookshot, your small town clould be set up as the TT capital of the states . I can imagine that in 20 years time, hookshot would have set up several clubs in his small town and have a strong inter-town rep league and flourishing clubs and whatnot . How manmy schools in your town hookshot?

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Cuts hard, but not short and not down. I'm a cut above that, and not a cut out. I cut back, and am fully cut UP! I am cutting sensational.

Sorry for the late reply Leeroy,
Not many schools. The total population is 30,000 and 10,000 in an adjoining town. Towns and cities can be hundreds of miles away here. (Thats why I came here) but may consider leaving for a bigger city after China.

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Shakehand, left handed.
Blade, Yinhe, W-1
Forhand, H-3 National
Backhand, Sriver FX Max

haha no worries bout late reply. I got the reply through my email . Man you'd make a bigger diff in a more populated area the amount of time and effort you put in with TT it's awesome.

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Cuts hard, but not short and not down. I'm a cut above that, and not a cut out. I cut back, and am fully cut UP! I am cutting sensational.

I have lost where I was going with this thread been a while. The task to promote and lift TT Ahhhhhhhh

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Cuts hard, but not short and not down. I'm a cut above that, and not a cut out. I cut back, and am fully cut UP! I am cutting sensational.

Only reading this topic now, so quite a late reply

In comparison: the Flemish Table Tennis League (VTTL) has around 8000 active members. On a population of 6 million. Percentage of players in the French speaking part of Belgium is higher than this, but I can't find the numbers.

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