The Queen’s Club has been named Club of the Year at the 2024 England Squash Awards for its successful outreach programme, which is run by The Queen’s Club Foundation.
Based in West Kensington, the club is an esteemed racket sport venue established in 1886, whilst its foundation has been in operation since 2015.
The foundation’s current initiative, ‘Improving Lives through Racket Sports’, has delivered free squash coaching to more than 220 children from local state schools this year. Of those, 64 came from disadvantaged backgrounds and 48 had special educational needs and disabilities.
Kate Maurici, Head of the Queen’s Club Foundation, was delighted to see the club receive the accolade. She said: “It is absolutely amazing. The programme has been going for some years now, it has been building year on year, but recently we’ve expanded it, with the introduction of a Special Educational Needs School.
“It has just been fantastic and there’s so much good feeling about the programme, so this award means a lot.”
In addition to coaching, the programme offers an educational setting where children are provided with a space to read or work while the other half of their class plays. At the end of the programme in March, an inter-schools tournament takes place enabling the participants to experience competition in a supportive environment.
The foundation currently works with five local schools and is hoping to grow the programme in 2025, adding more schools to further their impact. In addition, they hope to increase their outreach by going into schools that are further away from the club.
Kate added: “The facilities and coaching at the club are fantastic, but the thing that I realised as soon as I joined is that the club is incredibly committed to its outreach work. The foundation was set up by three members who wanted to give back and share a very privileged facility with others.
“The club recognises it’s not just about, ‘can we create another player’, but how can we really improve the lives of those around us, so they’ve been very supportive.”
England’s Gina Kennedy recently became the foundation’s first squash, and first female, ambassador. This was something Kate views as crucial in getting more women involved in the game.
She said: “I was keen to get a woman involved at an ambassador level, so I reached out to Gina, and she came straight back to me and said absolutely. She really wanted to help, and we had some great initial conversations. Since then, Gina has played an exhibition match at the club for those on our outreach programme which was a hugely inspirational experience for the children.
“One of the things that I’ve realised through my work is that female role models are key, and female coaches are key. So, anything that we can do to give girls an opportunity to speak to amazing players like Gina will only help get more girls into the sport.”
Find out more about the 2024 England Squash Awards here.