USTA Florida Community Tennis Workshop
The tennis community of Gainesville and surrounding areas rallied approximately 70 tennis advocates for a USTA Florida Community Tennis Workshop, “Growing Healthy Communities Through Tennis” on Saturday, Feb. 8, 2014 in Gainesville, Fla.
Participants returned to their communities armed with new strategies for growing and maintaining grassroots as well as advanced adult and junior programs and events.
“While it was storming outside, it was pouring all kinds of tennis information and new ideas inside,” said USTA Florida volunteer and Community Outreach Committee chair Deb Anderson. “People who attended were from all walks of life within the tennis community. Attendees included local and state volunteers, municipal employees, tennis professionals, tennis parents, USTA Florida and USTA national staff and more.”
The workshop was designed for the North Central Florida area where Gainesville tennis advocates were joined by attendees from Tallahassee to Daytona Beach.
Some of the topics included:
o Creating Sustainable Community Tennis Programs
o Growing Junior Tennis
o Recruiting and Retaining and Getting Former Players Back
o Marketing Tennis Events and Programs and the Role of Social Media
Anne Koterba, a member of the Community Outreach Committee and one of the workshop organizers said, “We wanted members of the various tennis communities in our area to meet and realize that if they share their local experiences, the whole area can benefit. Our workshop topics were based on a survey of community tennis people within the state, and these topics did seem to resonate with the attendees at the workshop.”
“The workshop was short, surgical and energizing,” said Glen Howe, tennis superintendent for the city of Tallahassee. “The bad news is that it gave me and my friends a number of items that Tallahassee will need to work on.”
The workshop was a pilot for future workshops to be held around the state, conceived by the USTA Florida volunteer-run Community Outreach Committee. Its success was the direct result of the financial and directional support it received from USTA Florida as well as the time commitment and planning on the part of the following committee members and staff liaisons:
o Chair, Deb Anderson, Bradenton
o Connie Fenchel, Daytona Beach
o Judy Foster, Clearwater
o Sue James, Tallahassee
o Anne Koterba, Gainesville
o T.A. Niles, Fort Myers
o Linda Curtis, Staff Liaison
o Lynne Salus, Staff Liaison