Shuttle Stars programme proving a hit in Northumberland

A badminton membership normal supervisor hopes a brand new junior programme will proceed to encourage kids as younger as 5 to take up the game.

Mandy Tulip, who heads up The Northumberland Membership, praised the success of Shuttle Stars, a Badminton England initiative, which is geared toward 5–9-year-olds and began in October 2024.

The undertaking at the moment has eight kids enrolled and focuses on constructing elementary motor expertise and co-ordination in addition to enjoyment of the sport.

“I’m actually happy,” mentioned Mandy when requested about how Shuttle Stars was going. “I’ve seen patterns since coming. Once I joined the membership, it was post-Covid and every thing was very gradual.

“Now, when you in a short time get six to eight kids, you just about know that come phrases two and three, they [the sessions] are going to fill. Once you’ve bought six to eight kids immediately, that’s a very good signal, you understand it’s going to be widespread.”

Mandy hopes to duplicate the recognition of their 9-14-year-old junior programme and needs the youngsters concerned to remain throughout the sport and doubtlessly progress by the ranks.

She continued: “Our junior programme for the older ones began off like [Shuttle Stars], actually a lot much less, three years in the past. Now, it’s bought a ready listing. It’s full because it has roughly 25 kids.

“All the youngsters who got here alongside through the first time period have come again for the second plus some extra. We’re hopefully seeing a pathway the place kids can begin at 5 and proceed all the best way up.”

Previous to the start of Shuttle Stars, The Northumbria Membership hosted a badminton pageant in September 2024 which noticed 120 kids attend and featured a carousel of seven totally different actions together with practising badminton-type motion, goal apply and utilizing the event equipment.

Mandy added: “We invited faculties within the space to convey alongside as much as 30 kids so they may get uncovered to the game. Typically, it’s a sport that they don’t have a tendency to hitch in with till they get to secondary college.

“From that, the youngsters bought a flavour of what badminton is all about. After that, we began the Shuttle Stars programme, which is run in several levels. We actually began on stage one, which could be very a lot geared toward full newcomers and youthful age teams.”

The assist The Northumbria Membership has obtained from Badminton England, who’ve written all of the classes, was additionally praised by Mandy.

She mentioned: “They’ve been actually supportive. They supported us with funding to run the badminton pageant.

“I utilized for a funding grant so I may run the pageant and have 9 members of workers there. We’ve additionally bought a badminton kitbag, with big shuttlecocks, nets and pompoms – we’ve bought a number of equipment that’s tailor-made to the youthful age teams.”