Didsbury and District Pickleball Club

July 20th 2025 Newsletter with Important Information

Hello Pickleball People:

This is a short newsletter to inform everyone of some changes that are occurring to pickleball play in Didsbury.

Back in January of this year, a group of folks met and recognized an opportunity to add to the enjoyment of pickleball players in our community. New players were leaving the game and seasoned players were going elsewhere to find play at their level. A non-profit club was formed, the Didsbury and District Pickleball Club. The current directors of the Club are Kevin Grahl, Dena Wannamaker, Rick Grass, Larry Bisschop & Chelsea McLaughlin.

A condensed version of the goals of the club: “Provide our players with quality places to play, including an outdoor facility eventually, where everyone is challenged by the level of competition, but where the player can still expect to have a level of success; all the while still maintaining and improving those social aspects of the game that every pickleball player loves”

Moving toward those goals will require changes to the way things are currently done. Transitioning to a new format will be exciting and challenging. Creation of the non-profit society was necessary for pickleball in Didsbury to move forward in a more organized & positive way. The Club Directors will be happy to answer any questions and receive feedback from the members. The change-over to the new format is a 3-step process as follows:

Step 1: Starting in September, a new schedule of play will be implemented for the fall 2025 season. The schedule will be posted in August on our Facebook page Didsbury and District Pickleball Club Facebook Page and on our Pickleball Canada web site. https://secure.pickleballcanada.org/club/didsbury-pickleball-club/41524/

This schedule is the our initial attempt to best utilize gym time and introduce level-based sessions, while still allocating separate times for families or couples to play in a more non-competitive atmosphere.

There will be 4 levels of play;  Beginner, Novice, Intermediate & Advanced. A club rating will only be required for the Intermediate or Advanced sessions. As many players are currently “unrated”, a rating clinic is being offered on August 8 & 9^th at the Zion Church gym. The cost is $35 per player. We are very fortunate to have Claudia Solito, a highly regarded level 2 instructor conducting the rating clinic. She currently teaches out of the Calgary Pickleball Center. Claudia will evaluate 4 players over a 2-hour time period, assessing their skills and strategic play. Each player will receive a club rating as well as personalized recommendations for areas they can work on to improve. (Stay tuned for a clinic signup to be posted on Team Reach - the current Zion Fun pickleball members get first chance to signup)

Other accepted ratings are CTPR, (Canadian Tournament Player Rating), or UTPR (USA Pickleball Tournament Player Rating). A DUPR rating with 25 games played is also accepted.

Those players playing in the beginner or the novice bracket, do NOT require a rating. However, these players cannot sign up to play in a higher bracket. However, if an Intermediate or Advanced session is short players, a player from a lower level may be invited to join in to be the 4^th
or 8^th player.

Players are allowed to play on sessions below their level being mindful of the skill level of their opponents and playing accordingly.

Step 2: In August we will start to phase-in a switch from TeamReach, to an app called Pickleheads.
Pickleheads is much better suited for level-based play as well as being very round-robin friendly. It also can put a limit on the number of sign-ups for a session IE: 5 or 9. If more players are interested, they go on a waitlist, and when we get 4 more players waitlisted, we can open another court. Until we have had a chance to help everyone get settled in with the new app, we will try to post everything on both TeamReach and Pickleheads for a month, as we transition to the new app. It is strongly suggested that you check out the app when you have time and familiarize yourself with it. If after installing it and trying to log in, it’s giving you grief, let one of the Club Directors know and we’ll help you through the process.

Step 3: The last step to the changeover to a new club, is for our members to sign up to the Didsbury and District Pickleball Club on Pickleball Canada’s website. https://secure.pickleballcanada.org/club/didsbury-pickleball-club/41524/

If you are already a member of Pickleball Canada (PC) and Pickleball Alberta (PA), we encourage you to sign up to the Didsbury and District Pickleball Club. The entry fee is free until September 1^st.

If you are NOT a member of PC and PA yet, then we suggest you wait until September 1^st
to sign up. For insurance reasons, all players of the Didsbury & District Pickleball Club must have a PC & PA membership before playing after Sept 1,2025.

Both of those organizations allow you to sign up 4 months in advance of the new year. This means that if you sign up Sept. 1^st
for the 2026 season, your membership begins September 1^st 2025 and continues until Dec 31^st, 2026. (Essentially, it means that you get 4 extra months of the $15,000 Sport Accident insurance coverage that every player who signs up to Pickleball Canada gets.)

The fee on Sept.1^st and going forward, for the Didsbury and District Pickleball Club, will be $15 for the year. This means that to join up to Pickleball Canada ($10) and Pickleball Alberta ($15) and our club ($15) will cost you $40. Please note that you only have to pay once per year for Pickleball Canada and Pickleball Alberta. Once that is paid, you can sign up to as many clubs as you want and only pay the individual club sign up fee. (In our case $15.) For reference: Olds is free, Sundre is $10 and Carstairs is $30.

This whole idea of indoor pickleball only works thanks to the tremendous community support of the Zion church, and as such, it is very important to point out that all members will still be expected to help out when they can, at the church, moving tables and chairs as required for special events. We are very grateful that the Zion church allows us gym times for pickleball and recognize that this volunteer effort on our part, is a small price to pay for the use of this great facility

Finally, thank you in advance for your patience and understanding as we try to get this up and running. Our #1 goal is to provide our members with an appropriate level of competition, a clear path to improvement and plenty of opportunity to meet, and get to know, other players. Once we get firmly on our feet and have things running smoothly, we plan to start fundraising for some long overdue, high quality, outdoor pickleball courts in Didsbury. Stay tuned.

Sincerely,

The Directors of the Didsbury and District Pickleball Club

New Banner!!!

Welcome to the BRAND NEW Didsbury and District Pickleball Club

Thank you for stopping by and signing up. We're looking forward to some great times, some great camaraderie with wonderful pickleball people, and of course, where appropriate, some challenging competition. Have a great game with us and remember "Keep your Paddle Up." ;>)