Waterloo Hotshots CIC is a community-focused organisation directed by John Fenton, a qualified Tennis Coach and ex-High School Teacher.
John has been playing tennis at top league level for over 30 years; he has a wealth of experience in the game as well as a great aptitude for teaching and learning and social enterprise.
Waterloo Hotshots’ focus is on uniting communities by giving everyone an equal opportunity to access courts, equipment, coaching, and the great game of tennis. We run many of our projects at Waterloo Lawn Tennis Club and work with other coaches to offer various services to a range of different people.
We see the sport of tennis as a great way to integrate with others, develop friendships, keep fit and have fun.
Our aim is to offer tennis coaching to as many people as possible by making it accessible and affordable, with a view to building our communities physically, mentally and emotionally.
Develop friendships, keep fit and have fun.
We provide opportunities for people in surrounding areas of Waterloo, Merseyside, the chance to access tennis playing and coaching facilities and equipment through working with qualified professional tennis coaches.
Our coaching programmes and associated services run throughout the year and focus on different people to help them progress as tennis players.
We give children and adults the opportunity to engage with tennis to show how it is a sport that provides them a safe and positive space to develop friendships.
We do this to help improve people’s physical, mental, emotional and social well-being in order to create a strong sense of community.
Each coaching programme lasts for 6 weeks and is open to both adults and children: Thursdays at 12:30pm at Waterloo Tennis Club (L22 3XG) for adults, Fridays at 5pm at Crosby Leisure Centre (L23 6SX) for under 10s and Sundays at 3pm at Waterloo Tennis Club for over 10s. We are currently working with Asylum Link; The British Red Cross; Waterloo Community Centre; South Sefton Ukraine Welcome Centre; local schools and Sefton CVS to facilitate this project effectively. We are always looking for additional partners to help us develop our projects further. This project is funded by the National Lottery Awards for All and will run into Autumn 2025.
From July 19th to 4th September 2023 we ran a Summer holiday club for juniors at Waterloo Tennis Club. Daily activities included tennis coaching and related games, dodgeball, rounders, den building, outdoor games such as hide and seek and some indoor activities such as arts and crafts.
We provided free fruit for children to snack on throughout the project, which went down really well (especially the watermelon and strawberries!). We were also treated to some wonderful encounters with wildlife in the Tennis Club’s sizeable woodland area: the children were excited by hunting for bugs, sightings of squirrels and visits from foxes!
We were pleased to support working parents in our local community over this period, and their feedback on the project was excellent. It was partially funded by the Youth Diversion Fund, associated with Community Foundation for Merseyside and Merseyside Police and Crime Commissioner.