This month we’re featuring Pat Hammond, regional admin of the pickleball community in Livonia, NY.
 

How long have you been playing pickleball and where did you learn to play?

I had never heard of pickleball until my long time friends, Scott and Peg Proctor (former high school tennis coaches) introduced me to the sport 5 years ago. They approached our local school district and got permission to set up three courts in the gym. A few of our founding members taped the floor, bought nets and balls, and put up flyers inviting people to come join us. That’s how Livonia Pickleball got started. Not long after that, Scott Proctor introduced us all to PlayTime Scheduler. A few years later, the Proctors worked with the school district to convert a former tennis court into four outdoor pickleball courts. 

How would you describe your local pickleball community?

For a small town in upstate New York, our Livonia Pickleball community is quite active. You’ll find many of our players on the courts 5-6 days a week. We usually play in the mornings, so most of our players are retirees, and one of our players recently celebrated his 80th birthday. We have another player who just celebrated the 25th anniversary of his heart transplant! Our youngest player is in her 40’s, works full time, but still finds time to join us each week, and we do our best to keep up with her! Many of us learned to play at the same time and along the way have developed friendships that will last a lifetime.

What is your favorite thing about the sport? 

I cannot think of anything I have enjoyed more than playing pickleball… of course the exercise is great, but I love the laughs we have every day, and the friends I have made on and off the courts.

What advice would you give to a new region considering setting up PlayTime Scheduler?

I have found PlayTime Scheduler to be easy to use as a manager, as well as for the players. In our situation, there are certain days throughout the year that we cannot play due to school functions. PlayTime Scheduler makes it easy for us to schedule play, make changes to the schedule, and communicate those changes with our players. I have found PTS communication tools very helpful, and utilize both the email function and “add note” button to communicate with our players.

We set limits on the number of players that can sign up each day and most days our waitlist is full. One of the benefits of PlayTime Scheduler is that our players can easily remove their names if necessary, and then players on the waitlist are automatically notified by PTS when they've been moved up.

We've used PTS to organize special events including a pickleball bootcamp with a PPR pro certified coach. We even used PTS to coordinate participation in our local parade with our decorated float to promote Livonia Pickleball.