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Dartford VC show much creativity in engaging with members during lockdown

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Article Sun, May 24 2020
Loughborough, England, May 24, 2020. Dartford Volleyball Club are a Kent-based team established for over 32 years, with a men’s and women’s team playing in the National Volleyball League (NVL) for over 10 years. In an effort to keep in touch with their members, apart from the now usual social media and Zoom catch-ups, in times of lockdown they have organised a weekly ‘Taskmaster’ challenge, including build tallest tower, camouflage yourself and create a Volleyball scene. Moreover, they have compiled a video ‘pepper drill’ using submissions from the team.

The women’s of Dartford are now competing in Division 1, whilst the men are playing in Division 2. There are also teams playing in the Kent League and representatives of the club have won the South East Volleyball Association League tournament on several occasions.

“The club has not been impacted significantly by the crisis, financially as we do not have any overheads and most fees are collected by standing order.  We are looking at options for giving a rebate to members next season. The biggest impact will be on our junior initiative. We started a weekly session from scratch in October and had it up to 25 attendees by March,” says a representative from the club. “This was initially subsidised by the club. We plan to restart this and we would be interested in obtaining some funding, for hall hire and additional coaching fees.”



“The biggest challenges will be returning to fitness without injuries, retaining our current members, and getting them back into the routine. We will also be following any infection prevention rules during the initial phase of returning to the court,” he concludes.

Many thanks to the Volleyball England Foundation, the charitable arm of Volleyball England, for contributing to this story. For further information, visit www.volleyballenglandfoundation.org.

For further information, visit https://www.dartfordvolleyballclub.co.uk/.