Hey all, My buddy and I are in London from July 29th to Aug 5th for the Olympics and would love to come and meet up. He'a a regular on this site and this is my first post under this account. We're both life long players and would love to see how we compare to you guys over in London and also have some fun! Please let me know when the venue has been decided. We'll be staying near Hyde Park. Cheers, Jack
R20190 & Drew tze en and other London-based BCer.. Please help in inquiring for more infos @ these places~thanks! : - Harrow Leisure Centre (near Wembley, i suppose ?) - http://www.brent.gov.uk/sport.nsf/Files/LBBA-448/$FILE/Badminton is hitting Brent.pdf *gamelessx25 (Jack), welcome on board! We'll be giving away free BC t-shirt, so if you're interested please contact jamesd20 and see more infos in this thread : http://www.badmintoncentral.com/forums/showthread.php/113191-FREE-Badminton-Central-T-shirts!!..
I may have an issue now - just received info from the Olympics stating than I can only take one small bag in to the Olympics which kind of rules out me bringing any rackets ( As I will be coming by truing will not have anywhere to put them!
..we'll figure something out. YOu may have a place to store them "temporarily" while you're watching the morning matches on Aug. 4th and after the matches.
I'm ringing the clubs tomorrow to tell them I've got a "badminton party" to host - cross your fingers...
..yes, we are crossing our toes as well.. For the London BC get-together, R20190 & drew tze en, we would like to get somekind of a confirmation of a venue & time from either of you guys by this upcoming weekend, if not earlier, if possible~thanks!
..yes, we are crossing our toes as well.. For the London BC get-together, we would like to get somekind of a confirmation of a venue & time, by this upcoming weekend, if not earlier, if possible.
I would be round London from the 1st to the 5th of August. So I would want to make it if possible as I dont have any sports/matches to watch on the 4th.
ckyew, do you by chance play @ or have contacts for clubs in and around London. If you do, can use your help in booking/reserving a place as well. Will need from around 4 pm for abt 3 hrs and abt 4 courts. Thanks.
Sutton can do 7-10, but I've had a "you must be joking!" from two other clubs. The booking lead time is only a week, so there's no rush yet. I've got another dedicated club I can try as well.
Just a little update. I've been sharing some of the work with a friend and to be honest, if you know London prices, it's not really going to happen for under £100. Lets just take the shuttles for instance. Assuming we only use 1 shuttle per 15min game. That's 4 shuttles per court per hour. With 4 courts for 3 hours, that 12 x 4 = 48 shuttles (4 tubes) or 5 tubes to be safe. At £15-£20 a tube, that's already >£75 shuttles alone! Sports centres tend to close early on Saturdays or are either more expensive or are very difficult to book due to popularity. I've called up about 5 sports centres already and the cheapest one so far is the Harrow Sports Centre. Which is £7 for 40mins. (Others are like £16+/hr). So for 3hrs that would be 5 x £7 x 4 = £140. (Note: you can't book half sessions so rounded up to 5 lots of 40mins). However, only members can book courts and only up to 6 days in advance. But if we can be treated an "Event" and book the whole hall, we can book now and it may work out cheaper. I'll need to contact their event's manager to find out. I'll do that tomorrow as I couldn't get through today. Alternatively there are some schools that may open their sports halls for hire and my friend is already enquiring about this. At present, I think to get this to work, we are realistically looking at around £200, if not more for this event. If we had more time, we could have negotiated with local sports shops to sponsor the event or even to supply shuttles at cost in return for some publicity on BC (if kwun approves)? Also, how can we be sure there are enough confirmed attendees in order to cover the costs? Do we have a list of confirmed attendees? We'd need at least 30 confirmed attendees to ensure that the costs stay reasonable for everyone and that the organisers get their money back etc.
I'm actually situated up North East of UK so I personally dont know any of the clubs that play down there. But I've played once at a hall very near the Elephant & Castle tube station. A friend brought me there, its like a multipurpose hall but at the moment, the friend is away on holiday in Europe and will not make it back in time for any queries. Sorry that I wont be able to help on that.
I can confirm immediately if a time is fixed. But its looking like an 80%+ rate of being able to make it. haahaaa.. really hoping that this goes through now..
Keep the leads coming!.. ..sounds good, Sir Mark!..7-10 pm is fine. I just don't know how many BCers will come to the Birmingham get-together.. Appreciate the help & your effort and checking out so many options, R20190! Regarding the items shared above: What we want to get for now are club options where we can hold it at a later time, before we can make a decision hopefully by this weekend. As for the rate, if £200 is the cheapest incl. shuttles, then we just have to deal with it. If we can book earlier and book it as an "event" to get a "cheaper" rate for the Harrow Sports Center, then please go ahead>location-wise is perfect as it's close to Wembley area. As for shuttles, i'm sure a few BCers will be able to share some of them. As for the costs, the organizer will cover.. At the present, we still don't know how many BCers will come, don't know if there will even be 30 BCers. But i have a feeling we'll reach that number. I will update the list of BCers who will come soon.>>PASS THE WORD AROUND.. ckyew, appreciate your help as well! As for now, our targeted BC get-together slot time (not yet confirmed) session is from 4 pm to 7 pm..
Update - Please add your name to the list below: 1st get-together is scheduled to be around Manchester - time & place to be determined. 2nd get-together is scheduled to be around London - time & place to be determined. - jamesd20 (James D.) - 1984AllEngland (James) - ctjcad - Sevex (Matt) - Mark A (Mark) ; if someone can give him a ride.. - Boggieeiggob ? > will you be available as my London guide? - amleto - Fengwei? - dolbydog (Frankie) + Jack - chichee - HK50plus - Benwilluk - Swiftlegend - Ollie - anthemtwins - ckyew - R20190 - Fu-tu - Syaoran_Style (Tarek) & co. - gamelessx25 (Jack) + friend? - drew tze en
dolbydog(Frankie) + gamelessx25(Jack), so minus 2 to the list , we will be attending the 2nd get together in London on the 4th of August!
Ok, another update. Cost of 4 courts for 3hrs is £126 at Harrow and they only have 5pm to 8pm on Sat 4th Aug 12. Is this ok for everyone? I'm still not sure where we're going to get the shuttles from yet (still making enquiries) but if anyone has any ideas that would be good. At present, it is looking like it will end up around £200. But more importantly, with just over a week to go, is that we need enough confirmed attendees. If we end up with a low turn out, it may end up costing a little more (per person) than people would like to pay. Here's a screen dump of one of the arenas from thier website. 10 courts in total.
Looks good to me. I've just checked that it takes about 50 minutes on the tube from King's cross to Harrow and Wealdstone which is the nearest station to the hall on a normal day. So its probably safe to say to make it an hour 15 mins at least from London City Center during the olympics period. So now we just need people to be able to confirm.
Amazing nostalgia there. If I remember correctly, there should be a viewing gallery just above the photographer's position. I played there many years ago - winning the London Youth Games. LOL I think our opponents in the final came from Redbridge.
Wow! You're a senior player in terms of playing in that tournament, I have been competing in that tournament for 3 years now