BC Senior Games Pictures

Hello Everyone:

I've posted some of the pictures from the BC Senior Games.  They are at the following link. Feel free to share this link with anyone who attended.

http://s1112.photobucket.com/albums/k493/colincaldwell/BC%20Senior%20Games/

PICKLEBALL CANADA WINS THE NAME BATTLE

Pickleball Canada has received a notification that Canada Pickleball Association has changed its name to Canadian Pickleball Federation.   The Canada Pickleball name was the name Brent and Chuck had registered.

It has been a long hard battle to preserve our name and to prevent confusion as to who truly is the representative for pickleball in Canada.  Don't be fooled by imitations.

Pickleball - Wednesday August 23rd

Hello Everyone:

Pickleball will be held at Cloverdale Wednesday from 1-3 PM.  Hope to see you there.

PICKLEBALL NOT PROFITABLE IN CALGARY

I found an interesting article in Calgary's Pickleball News.  It describes the state of affairs for Pickleball in Calgary which is supported financially by Brent's Racquet Network.  Brent is losing money with his pay for play agenda and the only thing keeping him afloat is the sale of paddles and other equipment.

Here's the article in its entirety.  The last paragraph is certainly an eye opener.

Pickelball Not Profitable in Calgary

In the fall of 2010, Racquet Network administrators promised our players that we would carefully study the revenue numbers for pickleball over the winter and report back to them in the spring. Now that spring is here, we can do that.

In summary, pickleball activities in Calgary cost Racquet Network more than they earned over the winter of 2010/2011. Attempts to expand to Marlborough during prime time were particularly costly when the number of players who actually participated failed to match the number of players who indicated they would participate. Our competitive program at the West Hillhurst Community Centre also lost money when the number of competitive players failed to live up to expectations.

But even if we set those costly mistakes aside, it is clear that pickleball in Calgary has a long way to go before it can be considered a profitable activity.

Example: Southland Leisure Centre

The Southland Leisure Centre rents us courts on Tuesday mornings for the city’s largest pickleball program. The facility has eight courts, but only seven of these can be used because we need space for players to gather and be sorted into teams. This gives us a maximum of seven functional courts.

In order to access this facility, Racquet Network has to sign a contract and pay for all courts up front. The total paid in advance last season was well over $2000.00. These court rental costs are then added to staff wages, equipment costs, marketing costs and administrative costs and then divided to give us a total cost per session.

Once all costs and revenues are taken into account, the numbers break down like this …

When half of the courts at Southland were occupied last winter, we lost $47.62 per session. When three-quarters of the courts were occupied, we made $10.48 per session. When all of the courts were occupied we made $68.58 per session.

Only once over the winter of 2010/2011 were all of the courts at Southland occupied. In fact, 74% of the sessions were half-full. This means that Racquet Network lost money on 74% of the pickleball sessions we ran there last year.

All in all, Racquet Network paid out $318.85 more than we took in on the Southland Leisure Centre pickleball program in 2010/2011.

Under these circumstances, one might reasonably expect that the program would be cancelled for next season — something we seriously considered.

Fortunately, the program at Southland also generated just enough in sales of racquets, grips, shoes and other merchandise to make up the difference. So, overall, the program came close to breaking even and is considered a reasonable risk for 2011/2012.

So what does this mean for next season?

In order to minimize risk for next winter, Racquet Network will be sponsoring only three pickleball programs. One will be at the Southland Leisure Centre, two will be at the West Hillhurst Community Centre. Two of these programs will be day time programs, one will be a competitive, prime time program.

If these programs fail to cover their costs, Racquet Network will have no choice but to abandon support for pickleball the following season. While we genuinely love the sport, we cannot support any activity that is not able to at least cover its own programming costs.

Pickleball Monday August 15

I hope everyone has had a great weekend and that you are all rested up.  The general consensus is that Monday's pickleball will be at SSRC from 11:00 - 1:00  Personally, I don't favour playing at SSRC much anymore but the majority I've talked with indicated that they'd be there.  If it is really busy I will probably stop in at Cloverdale afterwards to see if anybody is there.

Anyway, come and join in and get your game face on for those of you attending this week's Senior Games. 

BC Pickleball Contact List Inquiries

Recently, there's been emails received by many of our Pickleball Canada members from a gal named Kathleen Thomas.  I suspect these emails have been generated from Chuck's contact list.

BC Pickleball is Chuck's new organization that is connected with Canada Pickleball or Canadian Pickleball Federation (whichever name they are currently adopting)  All these organizations are connected with Chuck and Brent and as published before they are NOT affiliated with Pickleball Canada.

The email requests the recipient to confirm if they would like to stay on BC Pickleball's email list.  The next email you probably will get from them is a request to sign up for BC Pickleball, for free of course, and then they'll want you to sign up for Brent's group as well.

I'm not sure who Ms Thomas is but I find it hard to believe that someone who indicates on her email signature that she winters in Arizona can support a group that promotes Apike and Hush paddles. Amazing!

Pickleball Wednesday August 10th - Cloverdale

Hello everyone.  Pickleball will be at Cloverdale this Wednesday from 1-3 PM.  I'm really looking forward to a good turnout and some great games.  I apologize for not publishing lately but I've been pretty busy down at Harrison Lake with the new lot.  I'll try to keep you better informed.

Cloverdale Round Robin - Saturday September 17, 2011

For those of you that are looking for an alternative to SSRC's Tournament I'm organizing a round robin pickleball event at Cloverdale Rec Centre on Saturday September 17, 2011.

I've sent out invitations to many of the Cloverdale and SSRC group to join us for a rousing 3 hours of pickleball.  If you are interested please email me at cbcaldwell@shaw.ca and get on the player list.  I will publish the list as participants indicate they are playing.

I look forward to seeing you there.

South Surrey "Recreational" Pickleball Tournament

South Surrey is holding their annual pickleball tournament on Saturday September 17, 2011 and unlike the previous years the tournament has become a recreational event.  South Surrey has taken over the organizing of the event from the tournament committee that had organized and run a very successful USAPA rules tournament in the past.

The new tournament will be played without the benefit of either Pickleball Canada's, USAPA or IFP rules and therefore all non-sanctioned paddles will be allowed.

In addition, SSRC management has indicated that there will be drop-down draws with no separation between competitive and recreational players.  This does not bode well with many of the competitive players who are choosing not to participate due to the lack of competition.

I too have chosen not to sign up partly in protest of the organizational change and the lack of true competitive play.  If you are disappointed in the change in format I'd advise you to do the same.