Update from Keir Worth, ES CEO

Hi all

A belated Happy New Year – 2020 is well underway and we had an incredibly busy end to 2019 too.

Strategic Progress Q3, Year 3 (of 4-year cycle)

Together, we continue to make good progress towards our KPIs. Since the start of Year 1 / April 2017 our highlights include:

• A rise to 621 affiliated clubs (up from 304)
• A rise in members to over 35k (up from circa 25k)
• A rise in coach members to over 1k (up from circa 750)
• A rise in website sign-ups to over 9k (up from 1.5k)
• Exceeding our 4-year participation target of 12k, with a year to go – we have collectively engaged over 20k players thus far

County Support & Opportunities

We have a number of county support initiatives underway:

• This year’s coaching conference, held at the Nationals next month has been designed for county coaches – there are some places remaining and coaches wishing to attend should be nominated by their county
• CAs have been making nominations for the Junior County Programme Director course we are piloting next month – we are delighted to have 19 candidates
• In March, we begin a specific Level 3 Advanced Coach Award, for coaches who are involved with delivering county programmes – there are CA bursaries available

Please do contact [email protected] for more information on any of these initiatives

Talent & Performance

• The men’s team won silver at the World Team Championships in Washington last month – a great achievement, beating the 3^rd & 4^th seeds (France and New Zealand) on the way to the final where they lost to Egypt
• The British Junior Open (2-6 Jan) was the biggest yet with a record 800 entries. England juniors performed well with the highlight being Sam Todd winning the u17 boys (the first player to do so since James Willstrop). England finished 3^rd in the medals table.

Marketing & Communications

• We formally launched England Squash TV at the BJO – we had 20k page views and added 1k website sign-ups
• This month sees the launch of a social media campaign to drive membership, website sign-ups and participation
• We are in the process of commissioning an insight project to help us better understand the current perceptions of squash, to help us shape future campaigns
• The latest England Squash Magazine (issue 4) will go out in digital format before the end of the month, with printed copies going to affiliated clubs in February

In other news, Louise Perry (Director of Finance & Operations) will be leaving England Squash at the end of February – Louise has been a fantastic member of the England Squash team and we wish her well. We have an interim FD in place during this transitionary period.   

As ever, there is lots more activity ongoing, but I hope this email provides a good snapshot of progress and opportunity. Thank you for your continued support in driving the game forwards – we’ve come a long way together.   

With best wishes

Keir