Annual Report 12/13 - The English Table Tennis Association

the Association and the trade.
2.2.5 Finally, our grateful thanks go
to the following traders for their
support across a range of ETTA
publications including advertising
on the ETTA website: Butterfly,
Tees Sport, Joola, Bribar,
Lion, Stiga, Gerflor, Cornilleau,
Thorntons Sport, TTLinks and
Table Tennis Topspin.
3. Press & Publicity
3.1 Staff
3.1.1 The success of ETTA
communications is dependent on
a hybrid team comprising a small
staff contingent and an army of
volunteers working on events
throughout the country. Based
in Hastings, but attending major
events, the three-man staff team
is Adam Collins (Design & Digital
Media Officer), Russell Moore
(Web Content & Performance
Officer) and Paul Cornell, who
joined the ETTA in July 2012
(Press and Marketing Officer).
3.2 Olympic Profile
3.2.1 The increased media coverage
for table tennis during the
Olympic and Paralympic Games
has resulted in a higher profile
for the sport and, anecdotally, a
significant increase in prospective
members at many of our bigger
clubs.
3.3 Newspapers
3.3.1 Without doubt, the biggest media
coverage was achieved around
the Olympic and Paralympic
Games, the hopes and ambitions
of GB squad players being
reported in great detail across
both national and regional press.
3.3.2 Social and recreational table
tennis remains a popular topic
for feature editors and the
launch of the Bounce London
bar and restaurant in September
generated significant coverage,
as did the World Championships
of Ping Pong held at Alexandra
Palace in January. As an
example, the Independent ran
a two-page article, ‘Ping Pong
comes home - in style!’, focused
around social ping pong and its
increasing popularity.
3.3.3 Towards the end of December,
Sport England and UK Sport
funding announcements
generated mixed national press
coverage for our sport with
articles comparing the increase
in participation funding with a
decline in funding for ‘elite’ and
Olympic competition.
3.3.4 The National Championships
in Sheffield and European
qualification matches for
England’s men’s and women’s
teams - in Hull, Gateshead and
Portsmouth – were picked up with
strong coverage in the local and
regional press.
3.4 Television
3.4.1 Every session of the Olympic table
tennis tournament was broadcast
live by the BBC whilst the Liebherr
Men’s World Cup, in September,
and World Championship of Ping
Pong, in January, were covered
extensively by Sky Sports.
3.4.2 England international matches
and the Liebherr Men’s World
Cup received strong pre-event
coverage with interviews,
previews and features by the
regional television companies.
3.5 Live Streaming
3.5.1 Matches from the Men’s
World Cup, Senior National
Championships and Junior &
Cadet 6 Nations events were
captured and live streamed to the
internet, with subsequent video
uploading to the ETTA’s YouTube
channel.
3.6 Websites
3.6.1 During the Olympics table tennis
was covered live on the BBC
sport website.
3.6.2 There have been several
developments within the ETTA’s
web estate, the most noticeable
being where we have:
• Created satellite sites to deliver
information on the Olympic
Games, Paralympics and
Liebherr Men’s World Cup.
These have provided latest
news and results with detailed
player profiles and information
on venues and schedules.
• Created a satellite site to
promote the concept of Instant
Ping Pong!
• Increased news reporting
and added numerous video
interviews to the British League
satellite sites.
• Reformatted main website
sections to have similar ‘feel’,
i.e. coaching and development
now have latest news boxes.
• Changed the NURC navigation
to ‘Umpires’ for more obvious
access to those outside of the
sport.
• Significantly improved the
operation of Spotlight for
finding venues or events with
over 4,000 playing venues,
including outdoor tables, now
available.
• Added a bi-monthly
development newsletter and a
NURC newsletter archive.
• Incorporated analytics for
website visitor statistics and
measurement of advertising
effectiveness.
3.7 Social Media
3.7.1 Our use of social media
continues to be a major success
in communicating with ETTA
members, the media and our
target audiences of young people.
It allows us to provide additional
news channels, where we can
direct followers to specific website
articles and interact directly with
them.
3.7.2 We have expanded our ‘live’
reporting service for major events
through Twitter and Facebook.
These popular services now
provide previews and ‘live’
reports from World Tour events,
domestic internationals, Grand
Prix tournaments, National
Championships and British
League matches.
3.7.3 We have untethered Twitter and
Facebook and, over the past
year, have introduced new Twitter
feeds for each region and for the
British League. This, coupled
with the increased service we
are providing, has considerably
increased our Twitter following
such that we are now close to
target NGBs such as Badminton
England.
3.7.4 The ETTA’s YouTube account now
has close to 2,000 subscribers.
This year we have uploaded over
60 videos of matches from the
National Championships, Cadet
and Junior Internationals and
Liebherr Men’s World Cup.
3.7.5 Our Flickr photo libraries continue
to grow with over a thousand
new images added this year
from the Junior and Cadet
Masters, Sainsbury School
Games, National Championships,
international matches, Liebherr
Men’s World Cup and British
League competitions.
3.8 Archives and Museums
Committee
3.8.1 In the Olympic year we were
proud to receive a copy of Colin
Clemett’s ‘From London to
London’ about the early history of
table tennis and a latter section
on Olympic results. Other Olympic
memorabilia include a signed
pennant by the GB squad, stamps
and a coin. Many other donations
have also been received - books,
programmes, magazines,
Departmental Reports
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