On Friday evening Ballymena LTC held their annual Anti Bullying themed session.
We had over 50 juniors attend the event, between both the primary and secondary session.
It was a terrific success, where the players enjoyed competing as part of a team challenge while coming dressed in a pair of odd socks.
On arrival the junior players were split into two teams. The Primary sessions teams were called Team Rice and Team Parke, while the secondary school players were named Team Crooks and Team Cahill.
These are the names for the new house system which the club will be implementing in the new year.
The sessions followed a mixture of activities which focused on showing respect to your peers, the theme of this years anti bullying week, while working together as a team.
During Primary session, members played games such as snowball, hoop targets, team jail, target rallies, ball roll and timed matches.
The Secondary session focused on both on and off court activities.
Eleanor and Pol were made team captains and they were tasked with selecting pairings for each round of matches.
The matches lasted 10 minutes each and players scored using a continuous tiebreak system.
Director of Coaching Barry Clarke had a variety of activities planned for the juniors off court.
This included designing a paper airplane and seeing which plane could travel the furthest.
The next activity was outside using the wall, two rackets and a tennis ball. Players were paired with an opposing team member and they had to see how many racket to wall volleys they could do in a row.
These two activities proved highly entertaining and competitive for everyone.
Points were awarded for wining your activities, while also for showing good sportsmanship and respect throughout the session. To reiterate this years anti bullying theme we explained points would be deducted if the theme of the sessions wasn’t be followed.
The winner of the secondary session was Team Crooks with 815 to Team Cahill’s 790
The winner of the Primary Session was Team Parke!
The club would like to thank our junior leadership team for helping to organise these activities, while also thanking the volunteering team who came along to help run the on court games/activities and umpire the matches.
Junior member Stella Brown, with the assistance of her father, took some terrific professional photographs during our secondary session.
This was greatly appreciated, while providing the club and members with lasting memories of the event.
Finally a massive thank you must be given to two of our parents, Josie Mcillhatton and Judith Steele.
They provided refreshments for the event which included drinks, sweets, buns and doughnuts.
