Posts in category: TTI News

The Irish Table Tennis Association has undergone a radical transformation over the past 5 years. During this time, the Association has employed its first full-time member of staff and now boasts a paid staff of two as well as an all island panel of participation and high performance coaches who work at grassroots and performance levels in our sport. We have launched a new website and social media presence, have re-imagined our approach to growing participation in the sport and have devised and delivered a significant number of new tournaments and events. We have undoubtedly punched above our weight at high performance level with some fantastic results achieved by our dedicated elite squads during the past few years

The word “branding” has become a short-hand for “corporate identity”.  It is generally used to describe an organisation’s visual identity.  Think of it in the same way, that what you wear says a lot about your personality and the way you want people to view you.

Similarly, our audience will have made a judgment about The Irish Table Tennis Association purely on the way we presented ourselves visually.  The organisation has adapted, grown and re-focused since we last re-branded, and the new brand will communicate our values, our ethos and what we are as an organisation and will develop a personality of its own.

It tells the audience everything about the company – acronyms can sometimes confuse the outside world.  Think about the ITTA – for those outside the Table Tennis world, would they know what the acronym stood for?  Table Tennis Ireland, to use a common phrase “Does what it says on the tin”.  We are Table Tennis in Ireland.

We believe the new brand reflects a changing, progressive organisation;

·         The incorporation of a simple, modern and professionally designed logo at the heart of our brand.

·         This logo puts the player at the centre of our brand, reflecting a player-centric organisation,

·         ‘Table Tennis Ireland’ is a simpler brand for marketing purpose, removing ‘Association Limited’ from our brand image while retaining it in our M&AA and official name.

Table Tennis Ireland will officially be launched at the 2014 AGM on June 7th. You will have seen the new logo gradually phased in, and everything new will be produced with the new logo on. This may take a little time as stocks of items are reduced. As previously advised the four provinces crest is part of the history of the association and will still be used to represent the four provinces.

For any advice on the new logo, or if you want to get a copy to add to your website, please contact [email protected]. If you see the old ITTA logo anywhere, please let us know.

We are Table Tennis Ireland (never shortened to TTI) – we want to tell the world about the sport we love.

For this year’s AGM, the Board of Table Tennis Ireland has decided to publish in advance some of the key Director reports. The attached document contains the following full reports for each of the following areas:

–       Board Report

–       Coaching Report

–       International Report

–       High Performance Report

–       Marketing Report

–       Volunteer Development Report

–       Participation Report

The Board would encourage all members who plan on attending the AGM to read each of the reports in advance of the meeting. This will allow each Director to present an overview of his/her report, highlighting key areas. Due to the amount of content in each report, this makes it easier to facilitate more time for questions and discussion of items of interest relating to each report to those in attendace at AGM.

It should be noted that the Finance Report and 2013 Accounts will be presented in full at the meeting and have not been included here.

Click here to view AGM Pack.

Blog 5 – Nationals and Internationals

It’s been a while since I got around to writing the next edition of the blog, so it’s about time I wrote blog 5. There’s been plenty of table tennis inside and outside of Ireland since I last wrote about it and I will do my best to include it all so forgive me if some parts are briefer than others.

                To kick off this blog I have to start by talking about the National Championships. With so much of the seasons training and competition being geared up to the Nationals at the beginning of March it is hard to say it’s not the biggest tournament of the year for almost all players and coaches in Ireland. The prestige of being involved, competing, winning and potentially being crowned National Champion is huge.  This year the event was in the University of Limerick which is a great facility and was a good home for the Nationals this year. The level of play at this year’s nationals I felt was at an all-time high. Especially seeing some of the juniors progress to the last 16 and quarter finals and challenge the seniors. Every match from the semi-final onwards being a titanic 7 set battle the spectators were given a tournament to enjoy. For me personally it ended in despair. I won against John Murphy 4-3 in the semi-final which is always a great result as he’s a 5 time National Champion. I then found myself in the final, racing to a 3-1 lead over Paul McCreery and in a position to take my 2^nd national title only to be pipped to the line by Paul 4-3. I can only compliment him, he’s a real fighter and I just couldn’t cross the line, he wouldn’t let me. He fought for every point and made me work extremely hard. I hope I can say the same that I made him work hard as he probably ever has for a title. Congratulations to him but hopefully I’ll be back next year and things might go in my favour next time. Unfortunately it was the same story in the doubles and mixed doubles I lost out again in the final match of both competitions. Three 2^nd place finishes at the Nationals is not what I had hoped for but a good result all the same, I took plenty of positives from my performances and hope to improve on them in the future.

                Moving on from the Nationals, the training didn’t stop for long. After a short break to get over the disappointment and to regain motivation to push forward, I got back to the drawing board as I was entered in the German Open Pro Tour. As the event was in Magdeburg which is just an hour from our base in Eilenburg, myself and Ashley travelled there to compete and hopefully claim a scalp. I was drawn against Ionescu from Romania and Kolarek from Croatia, both players were ranked inside the top 180 in the World. As this was only my second Pro Tour and it was considerably stronger than my first to say we were up against it was an understatement. The experience was a great one and I’m glad that I played. The only thing on paper that I took home was winning a set in a 4-1 loss against Ionescu however being amongst the top players and getting some top quality match practise in can only be of benefit. Notably, Ashley lost 11-9 in the 6^th set against a Korean that is ranked in the top 20 U21’s in the World. This was an exciting match and unfortunate that he couldn’t go one step further and get a victory but, it was something that really showed his improvement and ability to compete at the highest level. All in all, the German Open was an extremely enjoyable tournament to be a part of and what we’ve taken from it will hopefully stand to us in the coming months leading up to bigger and more important events as a National Team.

Directly after the German Open I flew home to Ireland to play in what is probably after the nationals, my favourite event of the year, The Senior Interprovincial Championships for Leinster. Unfortunately due to the schedule at the German Open I had to miss Friday night’s match against Connaught however, Leinster thankfully came through without me. After a Saturday morning win against Munster we were all set for a deciding game against Ulster, the same as it has been in the last number of years. I have felt, each year we were getting closer and closer to claiming a scalp against the Ulster team who have been so dominant at the interpros. As the match progressed, I put my two singles points on the board early with our girls unfortunately losing theirs. Eventually Ulster were leading 5-4 with Sam Logue on to face Daryl Strong to try and take us to a deciding doubles or give Ulster another title to their name. In a nail-biting match Sam came through against Daryl 3-0 but it was a lot closer than the score line suggests. Myself and Ryan Farrell were pitted in the doubles against Peter Graham and Daryl. This was my first taste of a deciding doubles at an interpros and I was up for it, I felt we had a great chance once myself and Ryan didn’t let the occasion get the better of us, and we definitely didn’t. It was one to remember, and I am told it was a thrilling encounter to watch, we ran out 3-1 winners in an epic matchup. Unfortunately this was the only match that we did not get on video, which was a disappointment as it would have been a nice one to look back on through the years. I am delighted with the result as was the rest of the team, but I can’t praise the Ulster team enough they have dominated for years, even without some of their best players and I’m sure next year they will be out in force to reclaim the interpros.

                The final weeks leading up to the World Championships have been extremely exciting. It’s a long time since I’ve been able to say I’m excited by the prospect of a tournament rather than just looking forward to it but this year there’s a different feeling surrounding the World Championships, we’re prepared, we’re ready and we’ve got a chance. Training before the event has been very match orientated with a lot of exercises based around serve, serve receive and first attack. Myself and Ashley have done quite a lot of multi ball with the Chilean coach in our centre which has been of huge benefit. Our half long attack has improved steadily which gives us an opportunity to attack when others may not. I would also say we are both reacting quicker and moving quicker to the ball as a result of multi ball and the speed at which it is done. As added preparation for the Worlds the ITTA along with the Ulster branch is sending the Worlds team along with the players from the Commonwealth long list to the Luxembourg Open in order to get some vital match practise. If you remember the last World Team Championships in Dortmund 2 years ago, you will remember that we stayed in division 3 by the skin of our teeth with some epic battles in the relegation clashes, the most memorable being against U.A.E when Paul McCreery beat Rashid Omar, a man that had been 4-2 with Wang Hao a year previous to Dortmund. This year the draw is a very open one, we could potentially win the group or come last in the group, we’ve been drawn against; New Zealand, Mexico, Guatemala, Latvia and Kuwait. I strongly believe that with 2 years of preparation that myself and Ashley have put in since the event in Dortmund along with Paul’s training in England and the added dimension of Ryan Farrell this year we will be in a much stronger position to compete at the higher end of our division. I hope you will all get behind the team and follow our results.

                The next blog I write will probably be after the World Championships has concluded, my league season has concluded and the season itself has concluded. So it will probably be a reaction to the events along with my plans for the ‘off-season’ in Ireland. I will be helping the Northern Irish team in their preparation for the Commonwealth games so I’m sure any break I take won’t last for too long.  As always, if there is anything you would like to see included in the next blog just comment below.