4 October 2011 | Tennis Victoria

The Brimbank Council introduced the Streets Ahead Program to the local community and sport clubs in 2009. Part of this program was to try and get local sports clubs to provide their services to children in the area to come and try a sport. Their main objective was to target primary school children that were interested in playing club sports, who may not get an opportunity to do so.

The Albion Tennis Club thought it was a great program to get involved with, offering its services to assist the Brimbank Council with the project.

Brimbank Council chose 20 students from schools in the area to participate and the club offered them a free, one-year full junior membership if they wished to continue playing tennis at the club. So with 20 eager children from Albion Primary School and St Theresa’s Primary School, five eager volunteers and four nearly new mod grass courts, we got down to some serious ball hitting and a lot of fun and games.

By the end of the 10 weeks everyone had a solid understanding of the rules, could serve, return and play a great game of tennis. The final session was held as ‘grand finale’ round-robin competition, with every participant getting a prize. Not only did the children enjoy tennis and make new friends from the other school, but our volunteers were sad when it was all over.

We were lucky enough to do it all again in 2010, with some of our students from 2009 even coming back.

The Albion Tennis Club would like to take this opportunity to thank the Brimbank Council for letting us participate and Tennis Victoria for loaning us the racquets and balls, and providing giveaways for all the children.