NEW Badminton facility for 2015 PAN AM – Home for Federation of Badminton clubs

Discussion in 'Canada East' started by MBCLLAP, Feb 20, 2011.

  1. MBCLLAP

    MBCLLAP Regular Member

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    It is an exciting time for all Badminton players in Markham as we approach the 2015 PANS AM games. The Town of Markham has committed to building a brand new facility to host the 2015 PAN Games for Badminton in Markham.

    The plan for the new facility is a 36000 square feet gym that will leave a legacy of 18 to 20 badminton courts for us to utilize after the PAN AM games.

    Markham Badminton club is working with Badminton Ontario to form a “Federation of Badminton Clubs” in Markham to call the facility home for all Badminton players around the Markham area. It is the wish of the Town that this facility will be the “Center Of Excellence for Badminton in Markham”, after PAN AM 2015.

    Markham Badminton Club is taking a temporarily lead to bring this “Federation” together until a Board of Directors can be formed by the community clubs to facilitate the use of the new facility.

    If you run a badminton club or a badminton enthusiast, and wish to become part of this Federation to define a process to run programs in this new facility, please email us at info@Markhambadminton.com. We will be hosting a meeting for discussion at the end of April, 2011.

    If you have any question, you can post it in this forum and I will attempt to answer your question within 3 days.
     
  2. samman

    samman Regular Member

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    Any idea the exact location of the new facility in Markham?
     
  3. MBCLLAP

    MBCLLAP Regular Member

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    407 and Kennedy by the YMCA...open field there. A 100K Sq feet facility is being build with a 50 meter pool to accomodate water polo for the PAN AM games...exercise room around the facility and a 36K sq feet gym for badminton.
     
  4. mkm_player

    mkm_player Regular Member

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    I hope Markham Badminton Club takes a strong initiative to develop badminton for the local community in Markham. They should also try to organize more tournaments locally (in Markham).

    I am one of the many people who have "boycotted" OBA tournaments. I find OBA tournaments now a days are all about the money. High cost of entry, crappy prizes or low prize money. People say that they have to pay for gym, the judges, lunch for the organizers, etc... so be it.

    What a lot of us are looking for are cheap alternative to competitive tournaments.
    We now only play tournaments like Pointfore KW, CPB, local church tournaments, UofW Survival-of-the-Fittest, etc. These are much cheaper and a lot more fun. These reasonable entry fee of these tournaments usually include - snacks, bottled water, lunch, shuttles, draw prizes (not all, depends on which tournament).
     
  5. tenchi

    tenchi Regular Member

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    +1

    Yea we should have more local tournaments. I don't play OBA tourneys anymore either. Would love to see a volunteer based organization start organizing these tourneys.
    I remember those days when we used to get a free T-Shirt + a (cheap) grab bag just for joining tourneys - which were usually sponsored by some businesses - unheard of now-a-days.


     
  6. MBCLLAP

    MBCLLAP Regular Member

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    One of Markham Badminton Club (MBC) mission is to provide affordable recreational badminton services to the local community. Our club fee is $90.00 for a family of 4 for 15 weeks of badminton, 3 hours per week. The fee includes birds and free lesson for youth who wants to learn the fundamental of badminton. The club is run by volunteers with 20 volunteer instructors; some are NCCP level 1 certified and most are on the path to getting their level 1 certification. The club has grown from 20 members to 450 members in one year and we are about to open 2 more gyms after March Break to accommodate 180 more members.

    It is our hope that this philosophy will continue to the Federation of clubs we are planning to create to occupy the new facility. The Federation will be run by a volunteer organization.

    I have personally visited 10 clubs around the Markham area and they are on board with the philosophy of the Federation of Clubs. After the Federation is formed, the first program we will be running is a Recreational League between all the clubs and yes, tournaments as well.

    I have left the badminton world for almost 20 years now. I just came back to create the Markham Badminton Club and I am saddened by the fact that many clubs/players have left OBA, or abandoned it. In my humble opinion, this is wrong. I cannot comment on what was done right and what was done wrong in the past, but I must ask all of you to focus on the present and the future to rebuild badminton. In order for us to build a sustainable structure for badminton, the structure must be build under Badminton Ontario (formerly OBA). I am not a member of Badminton Ontario today, but I hope to be one day.

    Badminton Ontario has restructured with a new Board of Directors. I have personally met with the new Board of Directors and made a commitment to the President of the Badminton Ontario that I will dedicate the next seven years of my volunteer life to help revolutionize the way badminton is run in Ontario and put Badminton back on the map.

    More good thing will be coming for badminton…you will see!!

    Please continue to give us feedback on how we need to restructure badminton to serve the community as volunteers.
     
  7. urameatball

    urameatball Regular Member

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    These days, OBA sponsorship means the sponsor provides nothing and mandates that all participants must use their products (AKA Sales contract).
    eg. Victor Ontario B Championships this year - sponsor provides 2 birds, anything after that, you must buy/use birds from sponsor. (as stated in their regulations)
    And that's on top of the $50+$10/event entrance fee.
    RIDICULOUS!
     
  8. MBCLLAP

    MBCLLAP Regular Member

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    You are correct. The key to a successful tournament is local sponsorship and dedicated volunteers. I am not sure if you came to the PAN AM promotional event MBC ran in Nov, 2010 but local business sponsor over $2500.00 of door prizes. People were walking out with $60 Badminton Bags, $200 badminton racquet, one night stay at the Hilton. We did not have enough time to give out the amount of prizes there. Over 600 people came to watch the event, Fairchild TV & Rogers Local news was there to cover the event.

    The key to sponsorship is Marketing, Marketing and more Marketing!

    Do you know that Table Tennis receives $140K grant money from the Trillium fund?

    Do you know that the Unionville Synchronize swimming club receives $50,000 funding from Trillium?

    How big do you think badminton is compare to the clubs above? We all know the answer to that question.

    Badminton problem is that we are all operating in silo, we are not organized, and we don’t have a well defined structure in place.

    Things are about to change but change will take time. It will take about 3 to 5 years to change this culture, so we have to start now.
     
  9. aZn_Popcorn

    aZn_Popcorn Regular Member

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    OBA sucks! With the new Board of Directors on OBA (AKA Woodstock group), they have cancelled the very few CDE level tournaments that we have such as the Ontario CDE's and the SOTX Cup that was just brought in 2years ago and was a pretty successfull tournament.
    If you want to promote badminton, you gotta cater to all levels of badminton
     
  10. MBCLLAP

    MBCLLAP Regular Member

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    OMG!!! I cannot say I blame anyone about how they feel about OBA. In the past year, I have not heard anyone say anything good about OBA. Don't know what happen in the past, but we need to move forward. One of the things I felt OBA miss was the recreational group. They focus on the Elite players but ignore the recreational group. They miss building up a grass root program at the developmental level. It is sad. 80/20 rules...they focus on the 20% and ignore the 80%. Change need to happen and it start with the people playing the sports and we need to come forward and make the change.

    I have a proposal. It seem like you play in Woodstock. Would you like to ask the club you play in to play a friendlies with my club. I would say my players are at the DEF level. Nothing spectular, let us start to play one another to bring linkage between clubs. I bring some players to your club one week and host some friendlies and I do the same by hosting yours. In future we can start to set up a league & built linkage and drive the change through OBA from grounds up. Top don't approach does not really drive culture change

    Maybe one day we can all wear the OBA badge with pride rather than in shame!! Culture change takes 3 to 5 years, let us start the change now.

    I open the same offer to anyone interested. My club has 7 gyms we use on the weekend, each with 9 courts, so we can do this.
     
  11. aZn_Popcorn

    aZn_Popcorn Regular Member

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    Actually I don't play for Woodstock. I was just stating that the new OBA president/execs are almost all from woodstock. We have actually just ran 2 interclub friendlies in the past 3 weeks. 1 was at the Boulevard Club with Boulevard Club, B & R, RCYC, and BadmintonBirds. The second time it was held @ Niagara Falls with various groups and players. I am not the one in charge of taking care of the events or the club. Rather that would be Pry who is BadmintonBirds Co-founder as well as TDBA President. If you would like his contacts, please IM me.
    Thx,
     
  12. MBCLLAP

    MBCLLAP Regular Member

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    Thank You..Pry and I already had a meeting setup to discuss further opportunities to improve Badminton.
     
  13. Sakura

    Sakura Regular Member

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    It's amazing how often we hear the same stories from so many clubs. I would love to run a friendlies challenge. In 2009, I did run a simple challenge out of our club, as a "test" event. I invited participants from at least 5 different clubs in the area and only 1 club other club participated. If you're serious about this, please let me know! It unfortunate that our club is imposed with one of the highest gym rental fees in the region, but with careful planning and good participation, we can deal with this.
     
  14. MBCLLAP

    MBCLLAP Regular Member

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    I would like to set it up. By setting up these friendlies matches I am hoping we can build up good relationship between clubs, so we can beging to set up recreational league play between us. One of my long term goal is to set up a league play between clubs so when 2014 come along to occupy our new badminton facility, the league play will already be in place.

    We paid $31 an hour for a 9 courts gym. All our gym times are on the weekend. Do you have time to meet up with my VP of Special Event to start planning this special friendlies.

    You can also email me at ==> info@markhambadminton.com
     
  15. Sakura

    Sakura Regular Member

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    Wow. Sounds great. We currently pay between $50-$60/hour for 4 courts. The rate depends on the facility (we use 2) and time of year (school year vs summer). Our regular nights of play are Tuesdays and Fridays in Burlington, but we can make some arrangements for weekends.
     
  16. MBCLLAP

    MBCLLAP Regular Member

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    Let us arrange a time to meet. Weekday gym cost in Markham ....wait for it, this will blow you away...For weekday gym rental fees...Catholic School Board...$54 for a whole year school year (approx 37 weeks)...Public school Board, $300 for a whole year. On the weekday, we don't need to have to pay for caretaker fees. The reason we have to paid $31 an hour on the weekend is that we have to pay for caretaker fee.
     
  17. Sakura

    Sakura Regular Member

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    :eek:

    :crying:

    :confused:

    :mad:

    I guess we'll "play at your house".......
     
  18. wanttoplaydaily

    wanttoplaydaily Regular Member

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    I want to play some friendly games with your club. Can you arrange one ? I can send 4 MD, 3XD and 1WD. We can play plastic or feather.

     
  19. MBCLLAP

    MBCLLAP Regular Member

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    Yes, I can. Let us aim for end of April/May. Maybe we can put one together along with Sakura. Where is your club? can you send me your email or email me at info@markham@badminton.com . What level are your players at and what age group. There seem to be a lot of interest in friendlies. I will approach my Board of Directors to see if I can reserve some courts at MDHS from 4 pm to 7 pm (we have 9 over there) starting in May to middle of june for friendlies with other clubs and continue to play between clubs every week for 6 weeks.
     
  20. KooGuy

    KooGuy Regular Member

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    May be off topic...

    With all these discussions going on...I hope your all are aware of

    2011 Badminton Club Championships

    Club friendly matches have been going on for years between DBC (club that I play) and others...We have friendly matches just about every month with other clubs.
     
    #20 KooGuy, Mar 16, 2011
    Last edited: Mar 16, 2011

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