Why is there a “need” for individual affiliation? Around 90% of our club want to play badminton on a club night, socialise and go home, to return the following week.

There is a need for two main reasons:

• If we want badminton in Scotland to flourish, we need to generate more income and connect across the badminton community in Scotland. One of the main challenges for the sport is that we have 150,000 players playing weekly however only 4,500 are members of Badminton Scotland. We need to provide more opportunities for them to play competitively at the appropriate standard, and create a model for Badminton in Scotland that is more focused on stronger and larger clubs. There is a need for more coach education at all levels and to profile the good work that clubs are doing and show that our players are working hard to achieve great results. All of this takes money and unfortunately our public funding does not cover all of these costs.

• We need to improve the data on who is currently playing badminton in Scotland. We believe that we have a very inclusive sport, but we do not have the data to prove this to public funders and potential sponsors. One of the main drivers of public funding and sponsorship/donations is demonstrating the impact that the sport is having on communities. We need better information to be able to show who is currently playing and more importantly the difference that we make by getting more people to join Badminton Scotland as individual members.