My academy runs inside a table tennis club in Cape Town - Top Table Tennis Club
The club started in 2011 or 2012
It uses one of the local community multi-sport centre complex, so in other words we need to share it with basketball, badminton, judo, university exams venue etc
There are2 halls, one is a basketball court (main hall) - with enough space on both sides to put stands, so overall we can fit 18 match-space tables in. Or around 25 tables for training purposes.
Here is a photo showing 2/3 of the hall. (2 idea how high the ceiling is, but it is very high)
Here is another layout, we can have 5 tables in there, and have 5 rows.
The smaller hall basically can fit 2 badminton courts (length + length)
We can fit 7 x match-space table or around 12 - 15 x practice tables (3 tables in a row x 5 rows)
We have the main hall on Monday and Wednesday, and the small hall on Tuesday and Saturday
18:00 ~ 22:00 during weeknight and Sat is 09:00 ~ 16:00
We also have the hall during Wed afternoon, but that was planned for a schools program and didn't happen.
Some times we are able to book the hall on the other days, and there is times where the hall is not available for us to use (other TT tournament using our hall, or other sports/activity).
The club has access to 10 tables only, while the venue is also the "storage" of the local provincial body that has maybe over 40 tables stored. Any provincial activity - ie tournament or training will also happen in the same venue. This was also the venue of the SA open last year. And likely the best venue in South Africa.
We also share the venue with 2 other clubs - one unversity and one miltary club. But they aren't always around to train, and only there during league matches.
Another club whose venue is not available for around 3 months in a year (due to exams taking place) also share our venue during those time.
Our club has 9 teams in the local league, + 1 x university + 1 x miltary + 5 x other club, and we had 14 home teams at our venue last night (I wasn't there to take photos). So in essence we had 28 teams of 3 people each + crowd at our league night last night.
I have considered building or renting a full time centre, aiming for 600 to 1000 square meters, which can host between 12 to 22 training tables.
But the time isn't right yet, so I have put all plans on hold, and waiting for the time is right to continue this plan.
At the moment, table tennis development is limited to the venue/hours we have. Most clubs only train once a week, while my academy is 3 times a week only, as Wednesday is reserved for league matches
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