Annual Report 12/13 - The English Table Tennis Association

met on two occasions, both
times for allegations regarding
unacceptable behaviour of junior/
cadet players at tournaments.
1.4.2 Correspondence received on
the most recent matter gave the
Disciplinary Committee much
cause for concern, appearing to
reveal a culture of bullying and
intimidation not only of the young
players concerned but by some of
their parents.
1.4.3 The Disciplinary Committee
has referred the matter to the
National Council. They feel that if
protocols exist to enable officials
to deal with bad behaviour by
anyone, then they are not being
implemented firmly enough. If they
do not, then they should be drawn
up so that any official placed in
a difficult situation knows how to
deal with the matter.
1.4.4 Finally, it remains a matter of
concern that we continue to have
suspensions relating to sexual
offences.
1.5 Individual Membership
1.5.1 In total there are now around
42,000 individual registrations
on the ETTA CRM system. Of
these, some 28,000 paid their
membership fees in the season
2012/2013, an increase of 1,500
over the previous season. In
addition we have some 800
honorary members. However,
this reveals around 30% “churn”
across the database in the
first three years, which may be
attributable to the number of
cadets and juniors who join and
leave after a single season.
1.5.2 Throughout the current season,
we have been adding increased
functionality to the system and
that work is now complete.
Given the commitment we made
to Table Tennis 365 in April
2011 to build a front end user
interface (Membership Manager
and League Manager) and the
success that these systems have
enjoyed, we made a decision at
the start of the 2011/12 season to
replace the Connect “back end”
system with a TT365 enhanced
system, to remove all future
compatibility problems. This gives
us a platform which is future
proofed for the next four years to
cope with expansion. As part of
this development, members and
volunteers will have the following
benefits to look forward to over
the coming season:
• Much more regular and
frequent email contact with
the membership, using a new
email system, which will enable
us to purchase email credits
at a much lower cost, around
0.07p per email. We will also
benefit from purchasing larger
volumes of email credits. The
system we intend to use has a
number of really good features
that will allow us to provide a
proper subscription service to
our members, where they can
declare who they are happy
to receive emails from. Other
features are things like analysis
of campaign activity plus
bounce rates. This data can be
consumed by the membership
system and used to clean up
database records when email
addresses expire, and gives the
members full control over what
they receive by email and from
whom. The system will also
allow group emails to be sent
at a League, Club, County and
Region level.
• A new ETTA management
suite (which will be linked with
ETTA membership system)
will provide rich searching,
reporting and maintenance
of roles and qualifications
for ETTA members. This will
provide the basis for an active
workforce development system
allowing members to receive
information about courses and
development opportunities that
are relevant to them. Roles
Manager will be deployed to
league manager and future
club, county and region
manager toolkits as a free tool,
provided to these organisations
by ETTA and powered by
TT365, the same principle as
membership manager. The
management suite will also be
deployed for the use of staff at
ETTA head office.
• All the amendments above
will serve the traditional table
tennis market with immediate
effect but, in the longer term,
will also support the expansion
of recreational Ping Pong,
through the provision of a range
of websites (encompassing
Membership Manager/League
Manager) for the following
markets:
• Schools
• Workplace (including single
site, multiple site)
• Doorstep clubs
• Universities and colleges
• U3A
• Care sector
• Leisure centres
• Any other key partner/organisation
which operates single
or multiple sites and which
can introduce a group of
people to the game.
1.5.3 The marketing campaign to
promote both the ETTA endorsed
League Manager and our
Membership Manager system
continues to make inroads. There
are now over 300 leagues and
clubs using Membership Manager
and over 100 leagues using
League Manager.
1.5.4 There is a “Rule Change”
proposition to change the start
and end dates for the season from
the current system to a season
commencing on 1st August and
ending on 31st July, each year.
If this proposal is passed at the
AGM, then renewals for the new
season will be available from
the day following the AGM. It is
still the responsibility of every
individual member to renew
in plenty of time for the new
season’s play. Again, we will be
encouraging all league and club
secretaries to encourage their
members to renew directly with
the ETTA, preferably online, as
this is the most cost effective
route. Where a member has
supplied a current email address,
they will be reminded about the
steps for membership renewal.
1.5.5 The Membership Committee
met every quarter as part of
each National Council weekend.
Other work was carried out
by the Development and Task
sub-groups on specific issues.
Work was also undertaken
to specifically review the
‘membership’ criteria for
Organisations in Good Standing
(OIGS). There are two areas of
membership that require both
nurturing and development:
one is our current members of
Departmental Reports
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