A chance to get on court

BUNINYONG and District Tennis Association recently debuted its Tennis4Teens program and is set to provide the region’s teenagers with after school activities.

Developed by Tennis Victoria with funding from VicHealth, the program aims to get young people aged between 12-17 years involved in a non-competitive and social environment.

Coordinator Jamie Turner said the most important thing is creative a fun and social environment for the participants.

“We just wanted to have a go at getting some kids out having a hit of tennis, the most important fact is that it’s a casual evening for the teenagers,” she said.

“We’re running the sessions Wednesday nights 5pm to 6.30pm, the kids will register on an app called Mind Body and then it’s really up to them about what they would like to do.”

“They can decide whether they want to have a hit of tennis, a cardio session or something else and there’ll always be food and drink provided, I’m also going to be setting up a table tennis table in the club room.”

With 30 spaces available in the program, Ms Turner said interested parties should get in and give it a go while they have the opportunity.

“It’s free to try and then we will charge $5 a week,” she said.

“We’ll kick things off at 5pm and go until around 6.30pm and the kids can essentially decide what they would like to do.

“We were also able to secure a $1000 grant from Tennis Victoria and on Wednesday, we will chat with the kids to figure out how we will spend it.”

Tennis Victoria representative Bree Sharp said although Buninyong is the only club in the Ballarat region signed up to the program, there’s a variety of others around the state actively involved.

“The program works to what the club needs and what the interests of the kids are, we piloted it with 10 clubs and it was officially rolled out in Term 2 of 2019 and the uptake has been really good considering last year,” she said.

“That 14 to 19-year-old age group is our biggest drop out in any sport, so it’s great if we can keep them engaged in some sort of physical activity and tennis is the platform that you can do it easily.”

For information or to sign up for Tennis4Teens, visit tennis4teens.com.au and select Buninyong.