In March, Tennis NT headed out to Nhulunbuy. We had an excited team and packed agenda to support the Gove Peninsula Tennis Club with their continued thriving growth. Also, to work with the club to grow the reach of tennis into the surrounding homeland communities creating potential tennis players and coaches of the future as part of a long-term plan for tennis in the community. We did this through school visits and teacher training in the town of Gove, and through training youth workers on the initial basics of coaching tennis at a beginner level within a community school environment in the surrounding homeland communities.
On the ground we had Gove Peninsula Tennis Club President and Head Coach Nicky Mayer; experienced tennis coach, Evonne Goolagong Foundation past participant and coach, Tennis Australia First Nations Advisory Group member and Wathurong man, Adam Lasky; and Tennis NT’s Tennis Development Officer Ben Cunningham and Marketing & Inclusion Manager Emily Carroll.
The week kicked off with tennis taking part in the Gove Community Clubs Day which brought all sports together in town. We followed with school delivery in Nhulunbuy Primary School, Nhulunbuy Catholic School, and Nhulunbuy High School – connecting with students from the Clontarf and STARS Academies too. We provided a development session in tennis for local teachers in town to show them how easy it is to integrate tennis into their sporting curriculum.
The rest of the week the team went to nearby Dhalinybuy to work with Laynhapuy homelands mentors in Dhalinybuy from three different communities in the East Arnhem Region (Gangan, Windier and Wunduwuy). These days followed a “train the trainer” model with the team providing interactive sessions with the mentors to train in the building blocks of tennis whilst integrating local equipment and resources out on country. From there, the participants put their learnings into practice, teaching the local kids (often in language) the fundamentals of tennis. And just like that, we had local mentors and kids from varying communities around East Arnhem teaching, learning and playing tennis. And may we say, we have some newly found competition leading into NT team formations for the National Indigenous Tennis Carnival this year.
It was a huge week full of fun, connection, culture sharing, celebration, learning and leadership development with tennis as the centrepiece. We have seen teachers in schools, mentors in communities and kids at the clubs continuing to be inspired and looking to embed tennis further into their day to day life in East Arnhem Land.
We are proud to provide multiple pathways for tennis players in the region – from tennis at lunchtime in school, to Hot Shots or Cardio at Gove Peninsula Tennis Club to being a part of the National Indigenous Tennis Carnival held annually in Darwin.
We look forward to delivering more grassroots visits to grow tennis in areas around our member clubs, and getting more people picking up racquets across the NT!
Stay tuned for our next community visit in Katherine…
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