Badminton Club
- East Carolina University

 

FAQ

What is your reimbursement policy?

The ECU Badminton Club supports tournament play. If a member informs the officers at least 3 weeks prior to a tournament, we will try our best to distribute funds in support of participation in the tournament. In all cases, transportation will be provided. In the event that a member uses their own vehicle, the amount of reimbursement can be determined by the following equation: [(Amount of Miles Traveled/20) X Current Price of 1 Gallon of Regular Unleaded]+Amount of Miles Traveled X .12 For instance: if 100 miles were traveled, then the amount of reimbursement for the owner of the car is 100/20*2.08(current price)+100*(.12)=$22.40. This equation includes cost of gas and depreciation costs.

In the event of an initial entrance fee, the ECU Badminton Club will likely pay all costs if deemed reasonable. Also, most—if not all—rooming expenses will be taken care of.

Those who feel that they have not been properly reimbursed please talk to the officers directly, and we will do our best to satisfy your concerns.

What's your policy on tardiness and participation?

Ultimately, you decide when and how often you wish to participate. However, we suggest coming at least twice a week and on time. In some extremely rare instances, one officer comes to a practice and absolutely no members arrive. As officers, we have a duty to wait 30 minutes for any latecomers, but—if no one has arrived at this point—we will cancel practice for this day. In instances that this happens, we put up a sign that says practice is cancelled and it offers our apologies to anyone who comes at a later point. We deeply apologize to those members who arrive late due to extenuating circumstances to find that practice was cancelled, but we ask that you understand our position. We hope that most of you, unless important activities prevent you otherwise, arrive to practice in a timely fashion.

Do I need a racquet to join?

Absolutely not. We have club racquets available to members. But it is always a good idea to purchase a racquet when you are ready to make that next step. When someone has his or her own racquet, it allows the member to get used to that one racquet and also gives more incentive to play (you want to get the most out of the racquet YOU bought!).

Racquet purchasing guide:

Racquets can cost anything from $20-$220 depending on what you want. Here is a website to match up the type of racquet to what you want:

http://www.badmintonwarehouse.com/articles.asp?id=123
http://www.badmintonshoponline.us/unlimitshop/selection.htm

So you chose a racquet. Now, what does all this U/Grip Size/Stringing Tension stuff mean?

U represents weight.
U: greater than 95 grams
2U: 90-94 grams
3U: 85-89 grams
4U: 81-84g
5U: 80 grams or less

Realize that a light racquet is good but too light of a racquet doesn't provide a lot of power (3U-2U is normally a safe choice)!

As for grip size: racquet grips sizes range from G2-G4 (thin to thick). G3 is average.

Choose a grip size that's big enough that your fingers do not feel all bunched up and that's small enough that you can maintain a tight grip on it and won't let loose of it on powerful swings.

For stringing, it's relatively simple: You can get more power the lower the tension but less control. So with 20 lb. stringing, you can get a good deal of power with the trampoline effect but it won't nearly be as accurate as a higher tension. For beginners, a good stringing is about 22-24 lbs. Once you're able to easily make clears, then you can begin to move up to higher tensions. Professionals have their racquets strung at 28-30 lbs but this normally results in strings being easily broken and they have a lot of wrist power to compensate for the loss of power.

If you wish to go ahead and purchase a racquet, these websites have racquets available at a relatively reasonable price:

http://www.badmintonshoponline.us/
http://www.bbesports.com/English/index.htm
http://www.e-badmintonusa.com/
http://www.ebay.com (can be risky for counterfeits!)

These websites have a good selection and dependable merchandise, but are likely to be a little bit more expensive:

http://www.badminton.net/cart/index.php
http://www.badmintonalley.com/
http://www.badmintonwarehouse.com/

What is the Club Sports and Badminton Club's budget policy?

Firstly, one needs to understand the requirements of creating a budget. As a solidified club, the badminton club has to create a budget and follow the guidelines set up by ECU Club Sports. These guidelines are as follows:

Funding is divided into Allocated and Checking Funds.

Allocated funds are given to us by the university and the amount partitioned disappears after one semester. Checking funds, on the other hands, stays with the club for the rest of its existence and is given by the members and fundraising activities.

Each semester, the club must submit a budget request. In this request, we must list everything we are planning to spend money on and its estimated costs. The university will provide 60% of this amount. The remaining 40% must be raised by the club (or must be available in the checking account). Failure to do so will result in cutoff of all university funds and the club must suffice with its own money. As of this year, the badminton club was a new club. As a new club, we did not have to make a budget and were not under the requirements of the 60%/40% rule. However, beginning next semester, this will change.

The ECU Badminton Club is trying to raise itself to the standard of other clubs. However, being a brand new club, this is difficult and not without growing pains. Clubs such as Duke get appropriated $800 and receive $1000 in club dues (40 members at $25 each). Out of this money, they provide their members with feathered shuttlecocks. The costs of these feathered shuttlecocks amounts in $1200 and the remaining is spent on miscellaneous equipment and tournament play. We would like to reach the standard of providing a certain amount of feathered shuttlecocks during practices, but did not have the revenue base to do so initially. However, thanks to your patience, beginning next semester we will likely achieve this goal. Also, in the same vein as Duke and other local clubs, we will begin appropriating a solid 30% of our funds to tournament/friendly match participation. Guidelines for reimbursement are listed in another section of this FAQ. Also, one thing that people must realize is that us selling shuttlecocks is against Club Sports policy. We are not supposed to resell product bought with university provided funds. But, since we are a new club, the Club Sports Director kindly allowed us to do so for this one year to build up a solid financial base. This means that, starting next semester, we will be unable to accumulate revenue through shuttlecocks. So, where will the money have to come from to satisfy that 40%? Dues. We want to keep dues affordable so we ask that you understand if we save a portion of our funds this semester for the financial burden coming up in the coming year. Furthermore, we will only spend money on things we believe should be purchased. We will not blindly throw out everyone's money just for the sake of it being used. For your convenience, we will also provide an expense chart every semester that will be listed below so that you can see where your funds are going.

Expenses Spring 2007:

Inner-ECU Tournament: $311.00 (Assuming prizes chosen are most expensive of the options, costs includes 18 tubes of shuttlecocks (10 MAX provided for play, 8 for prizes), 8 t-shirts, and about 48 Gatorades)

Amount Appropriated for Tournaments: $275.00

T-shirts: $257.50

Shuttlecocks: $105.56 (amount of shuttlecocks given away at Inner-ECU Tournament subtracted from total amount purchased)

Current Total Expenditure for Spring 2007: $949.06