Attend the BCTTA Annual General Meeting, September 17th at 1:00pm
Get involved with your BCTTA
IMPORTANT UPDATE: The 2023 BC Table Tennis Association (BCTTA) Annual General Meeting will be held IN PERSON at #150-10451 Shellbridge Way, Richmond at 1:00pm on Sunday, September 17th instead of the scheduled Zoom meeting. As the BCTTA Communications Director, I strongly urge everyone in the table tennis community at any level from basement-player-tech-ponger to those at the highest levels of the sport to have your say. Tell your friends. The future of our sport in BC depends on your input as a bonafide BCTTA member. If you love this game and you want it to expand, to draw more players, more attention, more funding, more programs, more inclusion of diverse communities – then, YOU need to join the BCTTA before August 13th at the $43 voting membership level. To purchase a voting membership, you must be 19 or over.
Make change possible by showing up!
If you are a long-time BCTTA member dissatisfied by the status quo, then this is an event you need to attend. Stop beefing, start doing something about making table tennis great again. Read some of our old publications and newsletters from the heyday of BC table tennis: the 1970’s. Let the inclusiveness and the community you read about in those dusty volumes sell you into getting involved in recreating anew the broad community of the old BCTTA. There were contributors in every part of the province; there were volunteers for everything, everywhere and all at once. Table tennis fans and players from all walks of life participated in events held in a wide range of communities around our province and benefitted from the work of a broad range of volunteers: as players sharing knowledge and training skills, as officials providing accreditation opportunities for budding umpires, as coaches planning for mass participation beyond the current bounds of the sport. Hope and optimism abounded in the 1970’s.
Today the unity around the 1970’s BCTTA has dissipated. The sport has fractured into small interest groups; every club for themselves and their members. So few sanctioned events through which to build your ranking are being held annaully; so few clubs and teams are included in sanctioned league play around the lower mainland. Well, it does not to be like this. Our sport deserves more! Please, for the sake of our sport: get involved. Become a member. Show your pride. Become the best player and citizen of the sport you can be. Make change possible. Look at all table tennis players as equals and revel in the unity; transcend language barriers, transcend cultural differences. The sport of table tennis in BC welcomes everyone to participate at both the sport and within the sport’s government.
Let’s abandon the boundaries that currently separate players and the boundaries that define sects within the sport. Let’s forget old grudges and get to work to build the sport of table tennis in BC! Our sport needs us to unite!
This post was prepared by William Vrabel, BC Table Tennis Association Communications Director. If you have comments, questions, concerns or criticisms about this or any other article or topic on our website, or you’d like to share timely information with the table tennis community in BC, please do not hesitate to contact your BCTTA.
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