Brighton Table Tennis Club - Club of the Month April 2023

Brighton Table Tennis Club (BTTC) are widely regarding to be at the forefront of inclusive sport, bringing people together from all walks of life and championing community spirit. For April's COTM, we had a day at the seaside to see what all the 'racket' was about.

Founded in 2007 by Tim Holtam, Harry McCarney and Wen Wei Xu, BTTC started with two beat up tables in the Brighton Youth Centre but with the strong belief that table tennis can be used as a powerful tool in engaging people and transforming lives. Today the club enjoys it's own full time centre in a renovated Kemptown school, just a couple of roads back from Brighton Beach. BTTC runs over 200 tables across the city in parks, squares, schools, sheltered housing schemes, a centre for homeless people, sports centres,a psychiatric hospital and three prisons outside the city.

The club offer sessions every day of the week and pride themselves on being welcoming and adaptive to anyone's needs. 

Tim Holtam told us "The success of the Table Tennis Club is down to the people involved, you know, and I think there's just so many unbelievable people that are working here, volunteering here, playing here, helping in all sorts of ways. The integration is non-negotiable. And the way that you can structure a session, have people of all ages and backgrounds playing with each other,everyone plays with everyone. It's an exchange like the best players in the club, best players in the country, best players in the world will play with someone who just walked in off the street."

Steve Davies, one of the participants echoed hose thoughts to us, "It’s just non-judgemental, caring and providing for everybody" he said.

Speaking further about the community spirit at BTTC, Will Bailey, Paralympics and World Para Table Tennis Champion, who trains at the club told us...

"When people join this club, they're part of a family and I think that's really important. I think that's just as important as the table tennis. Table tennis is almost secondary sometimes to the family here and table tennis is just something that we all love to do. But, really, we spend a lot of time with each other just socialising."

Many attribute that supportive environment to personal growth both in and away from the game. Bly Twomey explained how being part of BTTC and having table tennis in her life has helped. "I was very shy, when I started table tennis. I was so shy that I wouldn't ask questions. I wouldn’t do anything. Now, I ask questions, I ask people to play with me. I'm so much more confident. Once you get to know everybody, the barriers just drop!"

Tim later showed us around the Fitzherbert Community Hub. "It's an unbelievable addition to the table tennis club and the whole of this part of the town".

Billed as a community of communities and made possible in part thanks to Sport England funding. The cafe, hosted by Real Junk Food Project Brighton, is open 3 days a week (soon to be more) with a mission to reduce food poverty and social isolation, serving surplus food on a pay as you feel basis that allows everyone from the local community to attend. They also offer after school cooking clubs and many more opportunities. More details here.

It's undeniable that BTTC have created something special here. While 'community' might be the most used word in this article, that's exactly what this is... a supportive, zero barriers, judgement free community where all are celebrated and welcomed as equals. It just happens that they also play table tennis!

During our interviews Steve summed it up best...

"It always needs courage to come to a new place because you think you're not going to be good enough at something. But you don't have to be any good at all. You just have to be here and enjoy yourself."

Congratulations again to Bright Table Tennis Club, thoroughly deserving winners of our #EveryBodyMoves April 2023 Club of the Month.