by Ian Marshall, Editor
Led the Ramon Ortega Montes, the ITTF Continental Development Manager, always known as Moncho, the initiative followed a similar course to that held the previous year; a total of eight students attended, all teachers of whom most notably five were female.
Locally matters were organised by Urban Freeman, the Vice President of the St Kitts and Nevis Table Tennis Association, he was clearly delighted to build on the 2017 initiative.
“Last year we held a Club Coaches course for secondary school teachers, the result was really good, so this year we wanted a similar experience with the primary schools.” Urban Freeman
Theory to commence proceedings, Moncho explained the ITTF Strategic Plan. He highlighted the importance of sound organisation and transparent governance; additionally, he stressed the need to consider diverse cultures and gender equality at all levels.
Furthermore, for Moncho it was very much start from the very beginning; no member of the group had previous table tennis experience.
New to the sport but there was a universal positive response.
“I would like one day to have a full time coach at my school”. Neil Dore
“Some of the exercises we did I knew as I was a triple jump athlete; some of those exercises we did for warming up in our training.” Roatter Johnson
“My wish is to know the basics to be able to put into practice at school time in classes for table tennis.” Teresa Daveron
“What I would like to have is equipment in my school to be able to apply what we did here in this course.” Trevlyn Richards
Each participant received a racket and three balls; furthermore, a set of rackets and balls will be delivered to eight primary schools.
“The idea is to have table tennis in the eight selected schools during school time and in at least half of them, as an after school table tennis activity.” Moncho
Now next on the agenda is a meeting with the national association to organise grassroots and talent identification programmes as well as discussing the creation of a mini cadet national group from which players for specialised regular coaching can be selected.
Also, there will be supervision sessions for nine coaches who completed last year’s ITTF/PTT Level One Coaches Course, they now need to complete 30 hours of coaching of which five must be supervised.
