Mike James in conversation with John Walker and Nick Leighton about Halton Tennis Centre, then and now, with an emphasis on the last twenty years - the first Curious Cows Podcast.
Highlights:
- 2m03s: Nick recounts a brief history of what went on at Halton through the twentieth century.
- 9:27 John remembers joining Halton and how he was encouraged to become involved.
- 13:22 Nick discusses the last 20 years in numbers - finance and people.
- 23:34 The Complete Tennis Experience
- 24:54 The turnaround begins; conditions John required to start the process
- 33:44 Nick's light hand at the tiller and evolution
- 42:23 All valued and welcome and the value of volunteers
- 47:06 The present and future; looking to the future and post-pandemic and managing change
Notes and credits:
This episode was recorded over Zoom during the January 2021 pandemic lockdown, hence some noises off.
Music: John Bartmann (CC BY-SA 4.0 Attribution-ShareAlike licence)
The Curious Cows Podcast
The aim of Curious Cows Podcast is to challenge herd wisdom by being curious cows via a series of interviews with those with a 'story to tell' throughout the Chiltern area from a variety of different disciplines, most commonly with a sporting link.
Winning of course requires some definition, and for us at the Chiltern Institute of Learning Development and Sport (ChiLDS) it is simply to develop ourselves, our organisations and people to ‘better our best’ on a daily basis through adopting the deep child-like curiosity to learn. We know children in a very real sense have beginners’ minds, open to wider possibilities. They see the world with fresher eyes, are less burdened with preconception and past experience, and are less guided by what they know to be true.
ChiLDS has grown out of Halton Tennis Centre (formerly the RAF Tennis Centre at RAF Halton, near Wendover in Buckinghamshire.
RAF Halton itself has a long history in training, learning, development and sport over the last 100 or more years. The first recorded military aviation at Halton took place in 1913 when the then owner of the Halton estate, Alfred de Rothschild, invited No 3 squadron of the Royal Flying Corps to conduct manoeuvres on his land. Following a gentleman’s agreement between Rothschild and Lord Kitchener, the estate was used by the British Army throughout the First World War and in 1916 the Royal Flying Corps moved its air mechanics school from Farnborough, Hampshire to Halton. In 1917 the school was permanently accommodated in workshops built by the German PoWs. Since that time Halton has been inextricably linked with learning, development and Sport particularly as the ‘home’ for RAF Sport itself for many years.
Halton Tennis Centre: haltontennis.co.uk | Everyball Tennis: everyball.uk | Mike James: coachingbymike.com