Another BASE Demo Night Success!
By Lanarkshire Badminton
We recently spoke to Jill Smith, Director of Coaching at Badminton Academy Social Enterprise (BASE) and Group Convenor at Lanarkshire Badminton Group who helped organise another successful Demo Night with Kirsty Gilmour, BASE’s Managing Director, Danny Robson (former Senior National Squad player) and Erin McIlvaney who took home two gold medals at the 2023 World Transplant Games in Perth, Australia.
BASE are a not for profit social enterprise who offer various community badminton opportunities for all ages and abilities. They operate across Lanarkshire including sessions in Lanark, Rutherglen, Hamilton, Uddingston and have ambitions to grow and expand further.
We caught up with Jill who gave us an insight into who was involved in the demo night and what activities took place:
‘‘It is actually 16 months since Kirsty visited Lanark and a visit is always welcome by the players and parents. We have had quite a few new kids taking up badminton in that period so was great for them to experience a front row seat taking them through a variety of shots played by Kirsty and Danny.
We focussed on what the kids have been working on and who better to demonstrate than Kirsty herself. Just about every kid from BASE Lanark attended along with some new kids and some very interested parents.
A variety of questions were put to our Olympian athlete before everyone got the opportunity to have a hit with both Kirsty and Danny.
The time just flew by and the parents comments on our chat continually emphasised how much the kids had enjoyed the experience.
Delighted to report that some parents decided to stay on and play some games keen to challenge the kids, resulting in a few red faces giving it their all.
Also much appreciative of support from Steven Chappell of Yonex who also attended. Safe to say a very fun enjoyable evening.’’
The club also welcomed and celebrated the success of one of their members Erin McIlvaney who took home two gold medals at the 2023 World Transplant Games in Perth, Australia. Erin won her women’s singles match (12-14 category) against her GB&NI team mate, fellow Scot Eloise who plays in Aberdeenshire, Inverurie to win gold. Erin and Eloise then played doubles matches together against pairs from Iran, Hungary, China and Thailand and won gold in their age category.
If you are keen to find out more or even get involved in supporting BASE visit: BASE (badminton-base.org)