Community sports uplifting Wardell

Wardell’s Community Courts have transformed a dying tennis club into a multi-sport dynamo of activity since taking a new direction late last year, enhancing the physical well-being of local residents of all ages and strengthening the social fabric of the village, which has faced some serious challenges recently.

The Echo spoke to Bec Heywood about this transformation, which has happened with the assistance of multiple levels of government as well as generous donations from local businesses, and the contributions of many volunteers.

She said there was some resistance to the new ideas at first, making it very hard to get the ball rolling, ‘but we were successful in upgrading the courts and being able to have basketball added to the tennis courts.

‘What we’ve now got is this amazing facility that has brought at least 14 different sports to this area.’

As well as tennis and basketball, locals can now use the community courts to play sports including futsal, pickleball, disc golf, walking basketball and walking soccer, as well as a new game called youfo, which sounds a bit like a cross between hockey and frisbee sports.

‘Yes, you can have one on one, three on three, or six on six,’ explained Ms Heywood. ‘And you pick up the frisbee-like item with the special stick and coordinate it to throw to your team member, to get it to the other side. It’s really popular in Europe and just coming out to Australia.’

Bec Heywood is Vice-President of the Wardell and District Tennis Club, which is still looking after the community courts. She said there were two people in particular who didn’t welcome the changes, ‘and they were very loud about it,’ while most of the original tennis members embraced the change.

‘Now they’re seeing the benefits, they’ve been really supportive,’ she said. ‘But at first it was difficult trying to explain to them that having basketball lines on the tennis courts, it’s not going to affect your tennis game. You know, it’s going to be okay!’

Rising after the floods

She said her community recognised that something had to change to bring hope and life back to Wardell after the devastating floods, particularly for people with young families.

‘What happened was the old tennis club, and the old committee, had basically all but shut down.’

She said everything remained dormant until Ben Franklin MLC got a grant to refurbish the courts, and then Ballina Shire Council was also lobbied by the community. ‘We stepped up and said, “Hey, we’ve lost all these facilities, we’ve lost our rec club… and this is an opportunity to bring more to the town for a pretty minimal cost.

‘It was a lot of talking to council and convincing them that this could happen. So yeah, we did that. And they put the extra money towards it. Tamara Smith has helped us financially as well,’ said Ms Heywood.

With a new committee in place after the floods, she remembers ‘we jumped in and said, “Hey, we’re here, we’re going to pick up the pieces, we’ll clean up everything. But we want basketball lines added – we want more for Wardell. This is not a hard thing to do.”‘

While multi-courts might have been a new idea for Wardell, she said they were a common innovation at the schools where parents sent their kids.

Now that there are new lines for multiple sports, hoops and removeable goals, the next focus of the committee is on trying to get a grant to upgrade the clubhouse, which dates back to 1972.

Bec Heywood says there are also plans to bring other sports to Wardell, so people don’t have to travel. ‘So we’ll be starting to do our group sports; basketball teams and football teams. We’ve also got regular Tuesday night tennis comps.

‘We’ve got the philosophy that we want people to be active and it shouldn’t cost a fortune to do that.’

Participation way up

Ms Heywood says there are now an average of 120 individual uses of the community courts per week, a dramatic increase on previous numbers.

‘We’ve opened up the courts for school holidays so that kids can go and play, and it doesn’t cost them to do that. And they’ve been really respectful. You know, we’ve had no vandalism. It’s just all positives!’ she said.

‘We’ve taken the fear out of all these things that people put in as blocks in the past. The kids have now got something to do and somewhere to go.

‘Kids can also meet one another within the neighborhood. We’ve got lots of children here from all different schools. So normally, they wouldn’t see each other. But this has brought them together.’

Is this something other tennis clubs should consider?

‘Tennis isn’t as big as what it was,’ said Ms Heywood. ‘And that’s the thing, we have to look at within communities – how to spend money that’s given to us at the state level the best way possible.

‘Also, we’re looking at space. So we didn’t increase our footprint, but we created 14 more unique games and sporting activities out of this.

‘Like Ben Franklin said, it’s about taking away the fear factor of change, and allowing and embracing this to happen so that you can create something for the future. This will benefit our community for the next 25 years.

‘It is keeping us really busy, but people are excited,’ she told The Echo. ‘We’re all volunteers. We’ve got parents that have stepped up to say, “hey, we’ll help open and close the gates” and coordinators that have stepped in to lead with different sports. Everyone just comes on board.

‘We’ve got parents and kids coming to play games together now. It’s getting people off screens, getting them outside.’

Ms Heywood says it’s a beautiful thing to see new connections forming.

‘WardellCORE have been an amazing positive change for us in our community. And I advocate very hard for them because of what they’ve done – it hasn’t been easy for them. They held a raffle for us to help raise money, to get much-needed equipment.’

Why own when you can loan?

As Bec Heywood explains, ‘Our philosophy for Wardell Community Courts is why own when you can loan? We have the basketballs, the tennis racquets, everything there.

If people go, “I don’t know if I like tennis or I like basketball and I don’t have the equipment…” we can go, you know what? We’ve got it all here. Come and try!’

You can follow the inspirational Wardell Community Courts story on Facebook or learn more and get involved here.

The Wardell Community Courts are open daily 7am-6pm throughout the school holidays.