23 January 2017 | Tennis Victoria

Forty five year 10 and 11 students from were treated to a special tour of the Australian Open on Friday as part of their graduation from Tennis Victoria’s Future Leaders Program.

The program, which won the 2015 Community Clubs Victoria Chairman’s Award for Excellence, sees students attend a leadership camp mid-year before completing a 40 hour volunteer project at their local club.

“The Future Leaders Program enables our next generation of volunteers to work closely with our local tennis clubs in creating welcoming environments on and off the tennis court and I congratulate the class of 2016 on all their hard work and efforts,” said Tennis Victoria Senior Participation Leader James Madder.

Some projects highlighted on the morning was the Drysdale Tennis Club’s Future Leaders Arielle Leo, Benn Pavey and Oliver Matthews who ran a trivia night and an ANZ Tennis Hot Shots Program.

Hayfield Tennis Clubs’ Siobhan Morgan built and managed a website for the tennis club while Andrew Wilson (Somers Tennis Club) and Jacob Gniel (Balnarring Tennis Club) ran a Junior Development Clinic for Primary School students and were awarded Community Young Leaders Awards for their efforts.

Earlier in the year, program participants attended a three day camp at Kyneton to develop important teamwork and leadership skills and worked with Tennis Victoria to develop their project plans to take back to their tennis clubs to complete. Watch the video of the camp here.

Expressions of interest for the 2017 Future Leaders Program are open now here.