Colchester Open Dates

This year the Colchester Open will take place over two separate weekends due the availability of courts and clashes with other local badminton events.

The singles and level doubles will be played on Saturday 28th March at the University of Essex.

We are aiming to play the mixed doubles and veterans events on Saturday 14th March or a date early in May. We are still trying to finalise a venue booking for this.

Colchester 2* Tournament Start Times

The U11, U13 and girls U15 events will be played in the morning starting at 9am.

The U17, U19 and boys U15 events will be played in the afternoon, from about 1:30pm.

There were no entries for girls U11 or U19 events so these sections have been withdrawn.

Individual start times will be sent out on Thursday once the final draw has been made.

Racketlon Tournament @ University

If you play a bit of squash, tennis or table tennis as well as badminton then why not try Racketlon? The University of Essex are hosting a tournament for players in the Colchester area to give the sport a try. You play your opponent at all 4 racket sports; the player with the most points at the end is the winner.

Entry Form | Rules

Colchester Junior 2* Tournament

The Colchester Junior 2* tournament will be held on 1st November 2014 at Colchester Leisure World.

You can either enter online via Tournament Software or using the Entry Form.

Payments must be received before the closing date either by cheque or bank transfer. Please contact Simon Gilhooly if you wish to pay by bank transfer.

Tournaments in September

Early season tournaments as follows;

• Colchester Restricted - Sunday 7th September - Entry Form
• U17 Junior Restricted - Sunday 21st September - Entry Form
• Essex Senior Restricted - 27th / 28th September - Entry Form
• U13 Junior Restricted - 27th September - Entry Form
• U15 Junior Restricted - 28th September - Entry Form

Summer Badminton Events

Calling all Coaches

We have organised a couple of sessions with Level 3 Coach and Coach Instructor Steve Bish to help local coaches develop their skills. Steve is a very highly regarded coach and instructor and much in demand from other counties. He will cover a range of coaching tips and address any questions.

Dates: Monday 7th & 14th July
Time: 8-10pm
Location: Stanway School
Fee: £8 per session or £15 for both

Please contact simon.gilhooly@gmail.com to reserve a place.

Mixed Doubles Coaching

I am coaching a couple of sessions to help league players improve their Mixed Doubles game. Mixed Doubles is generally regarded as the most difficult format to master. The sessions will cover tactics for mixed doubles using lots of practice drills.

Dates: Thursday 26th June & 3rd July 3rd & 10th July

Time: 8-10pm

Location: Stanway School

Fee: £8 per session

Please contact simon.gilhooly@gmail.com to reserve a place, ideally as a mixed doubles pairing. Places are limited to 6 pairs.

County Team Summary

The county first team will drop back to Division 1 next season after a difficult season. Unable to field our star player, Sarah Walker, in any of the three weekends and missing strong players on other occasions didn't help the cause and exposed our lack of strength in depth at the top level.

The second team won Division 3 South and therefore bounce back at the first attempt. However the team used an enormous number of different players and the regular faces may be looking to veterans badminton in the near future so the team is likely to find things difficult next year.

The third team had a good year and finished second in Division 4 South missing out to a strong Middlesex IIIs side.

A significant restructure of the County Championships is being proposed for the 2015/16 season, with all levels being played over a number of weekends at neutral venues and possible changes to eligability criteria for players.

In the Veterans competition three teams made it through to the national finals weekend played at Lilleshall. The O40 team including Stanway pair Andy Lager and Simon Gilhooly won the final against Leicester 7-5 and the O45 team with captain Trevor Rogers defeated Cheshire 8-4 to retain their trophy. Unfortunately the O50 team ran up against a very strong Yorkshire side in their final going down 9-3.

Meeting Dates

Dates for your diary;

Annual General Meeting - 19th June 2014 @ Colchester & EE Cricket Club, Lower Castle Park starting 7:30pm

Fixtures Meeting - 28th August 2014 @ Colchester & EE Cricket Club, Lower Castle Park, starting 7:30pm

Federation Affiliation to BADMINTON England

For the first time we have completed our BADMINTON England affiliation as a league and have now received their Public and Employers Liability Insurance certificate.

This affiliation is FREE to leagues where all member clubs are affiliated.

A huge thank you to all the club secretaries and anyone else involved in getting the paperwork (or computer work) completed each season.

As a result of being an affilated league we've been able to work with our Development Officer to secure £3,000 to invest in badminton activities. I would be delighted to hear from any clubs or individuals that would like to run an activity or otherwise get involved in helping.

Easter Badminton for Kids

We are running two badminton coaching sessions over the Easter holidays as follows;

• Tuesday 8th April, 10am-12pm at Highwoods Sports Centre
• Tuesday 15th April, 10am-12pm at Manningtree Sports Centre

The cost for each session is £8. Please see Easter Coaching page for more details and bookings.

League Points Reported on Tournament Software

We recently came up against a limitation of the League Planner software that we adopted this season.

Our rules allow for half points to be awarded in situations where the final rubber is shared due to lack of court time. League Planner can't handle half points but we have implemented a simple solution, which is to double the number of points awarded so Rule 9 will need to be modified to say;

6 points are awarded for a 6-3 win or better
5-1 points for 5.5-3.5
4-2 points for 5-4
and 3-3 points for a 4.5-4.5 draw

This has also highlighted that fact that our League Rules need a fairly serious overhaul, not least to take into account the new format of the Women's Doubles competition. This will be dealt with at our AGM.

Colchester Junior Level 1 - Start Times

The start times for the junior tournament next weekend will be as follows;

Saturday 22nd

• Boys Singles Y8/9 - 9:30am followed by doubles
• Boys Singles Y4/5 - 1pm followed by doubles
• Boys Singles Y6/7 - 1pm followed by doubles - UPDATE a few matches will start from 12:30pm - individual start times will be sent out later today

Sunday 23rd

• Girls events - 9:30am
• Boys Y10/11 - midday
• Boys U19 - midday

Play should finish before 5:30pm each day.

Sadly, there were no entries for the Girls U19 events. The Boys Y10/11 and U19 events have been merged.

Details of the event including the draws will be available from the BADMINTON England Compete website.

Colchester Open 2014

The entry form for the 57th Colchester Open is now available - entries close on the Saturday 15th March.

I'm pleased to announce that Yonex and Stringer's World from Manningtree have agreed to sponsor this year's tournament. Stringer's World have recently opened a shop specialising in badminton, tennis and squash rackets, string and shuttles to complement their online business. We hope to have some demonstration  Yonex rackets available to try on the day.

The tournament will use Yonex AS30 shuttles.

The event will be held at the University of Essex over the weekend of 29th / 30th March.

Colchester Junior Level 1 Tournament

This is a 1* event limited to junior players that have not won previous events or progressed in higher level tournaments. It's an ideal event for anyone that's thinking about playing their first tournament or only enters a couple of events each season.

The event will be played at Colchester Leisure World over the weekend of 22nd / 23rd February 2014.

Please download the entry form and return it to the Tournament Secretary before 15th Feb to take part.