b'THE SECRET IS OUT spread the word!Until recently, pickleball may havedidnt want to alienate our existingtolearnandinexpensivetoplay. been the sporting worlds best-keptaudience.So we created a 50-plusAnother attractive feature is its multi-secret.Locally, at least, itew underclassi cation.Soforthoseexistinggenerationalappeal.Atouropen most peoples radar because registra- members,nothingchanges,butwe house, I saw young kids with their tion was limited to those 50 years ofcan easily welcome newcomers. grandparents.Itdoesntget age and older.This limitation earnedTolong-timea cio- any better than that, in my the game an undeserved reputationnados like Robheopinion. And no matter as one exclusively for seniors. hashimselfbeenwhat age you are, once That certainly kept our Club fromaprovincialsilveryouplay,youllfallin growing, says Rob Smith, Convenormedalistextollinglove with this game.for the Port Perry Pickleball Club. the virtues of pickle- Withinterestin Two important factors have con- ballwaspreachingpickleball booming, spiredtodramaticallyimproveitstotheconverted.the Club has turned its fortunes. Now he admits heseye to the future.Were now able to sign membersexcited to watch andas young as 10 years oldas youdencourageitstre- Please turn to page 4expect, that was the key to opening itmendous growth.up to a much wider audience, he ex- Pickleballs anplains.And we mounted a publicityeasy gamecampaign at the same time.The synergies created by that po-tent combination, he says, have been nothing short of remarkable.Noquestion,hesmiles.The word is out.If he needed further proof of the clubsincreasedpopularity,Rob found it at the two-day open house held on an early-September weekend.Itwasapop-upbecausethere was no time to arrange widespread publicity.Butinspiteofthat,we signedup15newmembersthat weekend, and had a total of 80 visi-tors, including existing members.There was, he says, a lesson em-bedded in the result.When we saw the demand, we re-alized we need to o er court time on weekends, going forward.The entire event was beyond our expectations.ThePortPerryClubscurrentRob Smithmembership numbers 220.Its target,Convenor of says Rob, will see it in time hit 500. Port Perry At the same time that we lookedPickleball.toexpandourroster,wecertainly FOCUS - OCTOBER 20193'