Sunbury Ladies Badminton Club is celebrating 23 years of the sport in Sunbury and is calling for new members to join the community.
From humble beginnings in 1979, the ladies of Sunbury originally started playing badminton with the Sunbury Badminton Club before creating their own entity in 2000.
President Cheryl Ward was a part of the original players and said the sport has helped her to make friends and keep her fit over the years.
“It’s a club that’s kept me fit over the years and I’ve made a lot of friends, it’s a very social club,” Ms Ward said.
“It is good for the wellbeing of women to be active as far as exercise … [and] we also have the social side, where we have nights that we go out to dinner.”
Ms Ward said the club lost about half of its members due to COVID-19 lockdowns and not being able to play.
“We have about 29 members now [but] … we lost half our members during COVID,” she said.
“A lot [of them] found other activities during that time and some didn’t return due to health and fitness reasons.
“COVID had a huge impact on our club … we were out of action for at least 18 months … we’ve just had to start from scratch again, so we’ve been trying to promote as much as possible.
“Generally families have to have two incomes now, and women are working when we have our time slot to play… it’s very hard to recruit players and keep them.”
Ms Ward said for anyone competitive minded the club has a competitive day on Thursday, and a social day on Monday.
“Monday is called ladies day which is the social side of the club, where tea, coffee, biscuits are provided and a chat of course.
“It is social from that point of view, you don’t have to commit to coming every Monday … if you’ve got other things on you don’t have to come.”
Anyone interested in joining the club should email them or visit the website.
Details: https://bit.ly/41JysSc or sunburylbc@gmail.com
Zoe Moffatt
