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On 25th August we had the pleasure of welcoming Hitoshi Saga, Yoichi Satake and Mashiro Watanabe of the Japanese Badminton Association and Kenji Takahashi of Yonex U.K. This group had a meeting with the French Badminton Federation before travelling on to Ireland. They will then travel to meet Badminton England and the Danish Badminton Association.

The Olympic Games will be held in Japan in 2020. The Japanese Badminton Association are preparing for this. The purpose of these visits is to get information on how other Associations are dealing with their Badminton heritage so that they can develop their own legacy.

The Museum Trustees met the visitors with David McGill, C.E.O. of Badminton Ireland. Their first call was to the Museum in Baldoyle Centre. They were able to have a view and discussion of all items on display. I gave them a brief note on the development of the Museum and gave an indication of how donations of memorabilia are recorded. They were very interested in The Strollers, a group of Irish players, whose aim was to develop Badminton and this group visited Denmark in 1928 and this was the beginning of the development of the game in that country. We were able to give the visitors a photograph of the Strollers and a fairly detailed report on that trip. I felt it was right to display some photographs of the visitors in the Gallery Section.

David McGill then brought us to National Sports Campus where they were impressed with the National Indoor Arena and the Indoor Athletics facility. David the brought us to meet Frank and Sue Peard both of whom have such vast knowledge of Irish and International Badminton. This was a very enjoyable occasion and there was good discussion between the visitors and the Peard family

In the Historical Section We are going back to the very early stages of organised Badminton in Ireland. We are displaying a note on the 1902 AGM of the Irish Badminton Union to the Badminton Association proposing that the scoring system be placed in line with that of tennis. The suggestion was circulated to all the affiliated clubs. As only four clubs were in favour of the proposal it was not taken any further

Dick O’Rafferty
Curator