Visions inclusive badminton club in Exmouth, Devon is run by former England Badminton player, Sue Louis Williams. The below is written by Sue: Our inclusive sessions are going really well; we are always full and have now designed our own awards for our players so that they have goals and targets to work towards. All our players are from local primary schools which I visit on a regular basis.The schools then nominate 2 players who are physically disabled and 2 players who have social difficulties. We offer them 4 free sessions..After that if they are enjoying the sessions they can join our inclusive club and pay £2 per visit. We have 2 children whom we fund because they are in care and also have 5 players who are now older (15 years) but still enjoy our sessions and cannot attend any other sports clubs outside the school environment because of their disabilities. We work closely with the local secondary school and I put all the badminton players through the young officials and young helpers awards; once they have done these awards we then use them at our sessions and pay then £5. It is always a struggle for us to make ends meet as we need a high ratio of coaches and helpers for each session. We have now purchased 4 junior sports wheel chairs. The boys chose green, red and blue frames and the girl a bright pink frame. These players then use the chairs, sometimes away from our club as I would rather they were in use than sitting in our cupboard during the week. We have enough specialist equipment but could always do financially with help towards coaches costs and court hire. David Follett of Devon Racqueteers Club takes the 4 players in wheel chairs and this is so motivating for the players and their parents to see what can be achieved with hard work. We then have myself and Sharon Hawkins who is the main coach at the Racqueteers in Exeter, along with England players, Alex and Ben Lane, and our young helpers.
