The Badminton World Federation’s Humans of Shuttle Time series highlights those who are developing badminton at the grassroots level. This month, Badminton New Zealand’s Shuttle Time tutor, Graham Berry talks about growing up in the countryside, organising badminton on a glacier, and developing badminton in his community.
Below is a snippet of Berry’s story, for the full article, head to the BWF’s website.
Early Memories
I remember badminton when I was young, mainly from hitting flies with the wooden rackets mum and dad had at Moonlight near Greymouth. Social nights were at the Moonlight Hall where it felt everyone was there playing in a one court hall with rafters that you had to play around.
Badminton was a game everyone could play; a lot of moving around the court and having fun trying to smash the shuttle. Badminton had a mixed group with young and old that I wasn’t used to seeing elsewhere on a sports field.
Developing Badminton in the Community
I live in a remote area of beautiful New Zealand on the West Coast. Here in Franz Josef we have about 250 residents and we get up to 30 people at junior and senior badminton. On the West Coast the travel time is four hours (return) when we play our West Coast competition night which goes for seven weeks. I’ve run Teachers courses in these places and it’s great to see them demonstrating and getting Shuttle Time out to the communities. I also am a coach at Mainland (South Island) where I help run and coach four camps a year with kids 12 to 18 years old. These camps are 10 hours’ travel but it’s what I love doing – seeing kids learn, but also for me to learn from other coaches and the kids.
Lessons from Shuttle Time
Shuttle Time has made a big difference with the quality of what coaches are delivering and the ease of which the kids are learning the skills. I have noticed that kids are enjoying badminton more as Shuttle Time is a lot of fun for them and they are getting the right skills to improve their game from day one.
Check out our other featured Humans of Shuttle Time to learn more about leaders across the region.
