In the last years Badminton Europe (BE) made an in depth analysis of their Member Associations (MA) based on defined Key Performance Indicators. Based on this analysis BE defined the strategy 2012-16 and evaluated it in regional conferences with the MAs. A Development and Administration Seminar was held in Amsterdam on 17/18 of February 2012 with presentations covering the main pillars of the strategy: Publicity, Performance and Participation. The seminar was also attended by Mr Bastian Cruse, EUSA Technical Delegate for Badminton.

The purpose of the seminar was to present relevant information to the General Secretaries of the participating 36 MA’s with 60 delegates. Member were provided with a forum to network and communicate with colleagues from other nations. Guest speakers were invited to present relevant topics. The Council used the opportunity to present latest developments, strategy and future of Badminton Europe to Member Associations.

First BE presented their main objectives which are to increase the number of registered players in Europe, to ensure that Badminton remains a core Olympic Sport and to have more TV and streaming coverage. These key issues of Badminton Europe could be easily transferred to the needs of EUSA and their members in terms of University Sports.

To achieve the objectives it is important to assist Member Associations to increase their number of registered members, increase the participation in badminton as a school’s and university sport, identify specific Development initiatives that can be published, offer a “Development Tool Box” to have tools for all structural needs of the Member Associations to bring their structures at a higher level and to increase the total amount of BE Member Associations that deliver a structured development program.

Adrian Christy, CEO from England showed the 100 point plan, which underpinned the BE objectives and Strategy in a perfect way. Gregory Verpoorten, Development Manager from BWF talked about the changing environments on terms of social media, international cooperation and honorary board members and offices of the MA`s. This results in a change of the required skill sets of the staff like marketing, management, financial, organizational, communication and language skills.  

The new BE Website design was presented by Manuel Rösler form BE office. Highlights are the News Slider, the interactive MA’s Map and the complete social media integration which allows to spread the news in social networks. Trine Bay from the Denmark showed an excellent example how to make media and public aware of the excellent results of their association. Guide lined by the principle “From Mass medias to lots of medias” she delivers and shares contents from all relevant Badminton websites and spins them around and around in all relevant social media. General idea of this approach is that “People influence people. Nothing influences people more than a recommendation from a trusted friend.” (Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook)

 

Brian Agerbak, CEO of Badminton Europe showed the possibilities of the BE Live stream Channel badmintoneurope.tv which covers Live streaming from all Badminton Europe Circuit Tournaments. It is crucial to get more publicity beside of the poor Badminton coverage in most TV channels. Last topic of the day was a talk with world class player Jan Jörgensen from Denmark about using the social media Facebook and Twitter to transform players from a sports star to a personality with star quality, which is essential in these times.

Ian Wright, Development Manager from Badminton World Federation (BWF) presented the School and University Project and the Coach Education Project as their development activities. BWF aims to help the MA’s to get a structured system concerning working with the schools, to get badminton into the curriculum and to have badminton taught at the universities where PE’s study. BWF delivers free online resources (Coaches Manuals, Tutors Manuals, Training Lessons and Youtube Videos) in English, French and Spanish language for School Badminton online at www.bwfbadminton.org.

Adrian Christy from England presented a franchise model “No strings Badminton” which delivers a Social Badminton Network for leisure players outside of the club leagues but related to Badminton England. Lawrence Chew from Switzerland showed an excellent example to rebuild a tennis court as a professional badminton training centre, which is mainly financed by the inclusion of leisure players as paying members.

Germany and Denmark, as the most successful European Badminton nations explained their system of Talent Identification and High Performance System as pathway to world class performance and as benchmark for the other nations. Ian Wright explained the BWF approach of mobile training centers / camps which are 4-5 week long regional training camps organized in conjunction with the BWF tournament calendar to provide high level training and competitive opportunities for less developed MA’s.