GOVERNANCE
Board members and operation
The Board is responsible for the governance of the organisation, the Directors and Trustees play a key role in determining the strategic direction of British Para Table Tennis. Led by the Chairman, Karen Tonge MBE, they all work on a voluntary basis and come from a wide range of backgrounds, including business, education, health and sport. Together, they bring a diverse range of skills and expertise and through scrutiny, advocacy and challenge help us achieve our collective ambition of developing elite Para Table Tennis.
The BPTT Board is supported by various sub committees which are accountable and report to the Board. these sub committee’s are:
Finance, Governance, Communications, Competitions, Performance Monitoring, and Selection.
Chairman - Karen Tonge MBE
2015-19
Karen is an experienced Board Member and Chairman and Vice Chairman in the sport, health, public and education sectors. These have included: Chairman North West Region TTE since 1988; Halton Table Tennis Ltd Chairman from 1999; Cheshire County TT Association. International Umpire since 1988 and International referee from 1997; Member of ETTA Management Committee including Equity, Safeguarding and Teaching & Training1998-2002; Honorary Life Member Table Tennis England.
Member of TTE and ETTU Umpire & Referees Committees, Director for World Championships in Manchester followed by Competition Manager for Commonwealth Games 2002. She has been Director of Sport Cheshire 2001-14 and School Games Ambassador 2014-17 and on Executive Halton Sports Partnership 2001-17.
Wealth of Board experience from her time as Non-Executive Director, Chairman of Audit and later Vice Chairman of an NHS Trust; then Chairman Community Health Council and Health Forum. Chairman Children’s Advisory Panel, member of Adoption Panel and School Governor for many years. CCPR DIO Vice Chairman 2005-9 and North West Federation of Sport Chairman. Also was on National Trade Union Executive.
Karen tutored for TTE in coaching & training umpires, Sport England in Running Sport. Currently self-employed Sports Consultant. Karen became involved with Para Table Tennis with coaching of a player and then as Referee for events. Proud to have been appointed BPTT Acting Chairman (formerly BTTAD) in 2014 and elected Chairman in 2015.
Financial Director - Robert Geary
2012-16 - 2016-20
Robert has been involved with table tennis for nearly 30 years. He continues to play in the local Leicester League; is chairman of Knighton Park Table Tennis Club; is a qualified table tennis coach and county umpire.
Robert was invited to join BTTAD when the previous Finance Officer of BTTAD (pre incorporation) resigned his position and has been actively involved with the BTTAD since 2012.
Robert is an accountant by profession: working in both the accountancy profession and in industry. Now, semi-retired, Robert continues to earn income from various roles within accountancy and tax advice. Although not active with any other sports, Robert takes a keen interest in most sports. The rest of his time is taken up by his family.
Non Executive Director – Mel Cheung-Turner
2017-21
Mel is an experienced multi-channel Marketing Director with over 20 years’ experience in both B2C and B2B environments.
She spent most of her early career with Littlewoods Retail, where she held key strategic marketing roles across home shopping, high street retail and e-commerce channels.
She went on to become Head of Marketing at Johnson Cleaners, the UK’s largest dry cleaners and was consequently appointed to the Management Board as their Marketing Director in 2007. In 2012, Mel joined Morrisons Supermarket to lead the online strategy for the Bradford based supermarket giant as their Head of Online Marketing.
Mel’s experience is extremely diverse and includes senior executive consultancy within the bar and food industry and latterly as Marketing Director with Citation, a professional services provider offering Employment Law and Health & Safety solutions to SMEs.
Mel went on to found her own marketing consultancy, My Creative Thoughts Ltd in 2018 and now works with both B2B and B2C clients as a Virtual Marketing Director.
In addition to her Non-Executive Director role with British Para Table Tennis where she is Chair of Communications Committee, Mel has also been a Non-Executive Director on the Roy Castle Lung Cancer Foundation, Retail Board since 2008.
In her spare time, Mel likes to spend time supporting her young son who trains at Halton Table Tennis Club and competes in tournaments nationally and internationally. Mel also enjoys running and likes to take part in North West charity fun runs with her family.
Non-Executive Director – Kim Laws
2018-22
Kim started his working life as a Maths and PE teacher in Hampshire. After founding a software house he retired from teaching in 1993 to develop Norcon Computers into one of the country’s leading suppliers of Electronic Point of Sale systems for Convenience Stores.
Having been a board member of the Portsmouth Community Health Council and Vice Chair of Governors for St Vincent College, Gosport, Kim joined the board of BPTT in 2018.
Kim participated at age group representative level in cricket and swimming, but in the early 1990’s he became a member of the English off-shore Sailing Team. In 1996 Kim was part of the three boat England team that won the Commodores Cup.
A life-long recreational table tennis player, today Kim also enjoys cricket, golf and is an active member of Fareham Bridge Club.
Non-Executive Director – Jaime Morgan Hitchcock
2018-22
Jaime has been involved in table tennis since 2012 when he was a volunteer at the Paralympic Games in London; since then he has continued to volunteer at various international events. Jaime is a Co-founder (with Para Team GB coach Matt Kenny) of Advantage Table Tennis Academy, based at Sheffield’s English Institute of Sport; this provides disabled people with free table tennis coaching by national team coaches, as well as coaching for able-bodied players.
Aside from table tennis, Jaime is particularly committed to making sport available to everyone, and understands full well the health and psychological benefits of regular exercise and participation in organised sport, whether individual or team – hence his involvement in Sport4Health CIC, a non-for-profit Community Interest Company, which works closely with borough councils and provides free sport for underprivileged children and vulnerable or disabled adults in London.
Aside from sport, in 2009 Jaime co-founded the software design and development agency Abcum, which focuses on the development of software products through partnerships with other companies, using the latest technology based on its proprietary data platform – which enables collaborative applications with real-time data updates, advanced access permissions, and complex data analysis.
Jaime is married to Sarah, and has a young son and daughter.
Phil McCallum
2018-22
Phil has been involved with Table Tennis for 23 years, firstly as a player, then coach and completing the pathway to official. He is a current UKCC Level 2 coach and is currently working towards the level 3 qualification.
Phil has been club secretary for Drumchapel Glasgow Table Tennis Club since 1999 and has oversaw all activities including schools development, club development, and deals with all sponsorship matters.
Phil was a member of the Board of Director for Table Tennis Scotland for 6 years and his roles included Development and more recently Performance Director.
Phil also has a track record of organising National and International events including Grand Prix events, Scottish and British National Leagues and European matches.
Phil sits on several International Committees including the ITTF Equipment Committee, ETTU Youth Committee and is the European Director for the Commonwealth Table Tennis Federation.
Company Secretary - Mike Smith
Mike has been involved in table tennis for almost 60 years – still playing in the Leicester League. His administrative experience in table tennis started as Secretary of his University Club but has since involved many roles in Club, League, County, Region , nationally and internationally-all still happening . Currently he is a Board Director and Honorary Life Member of Table Tennis England He has a special interest in providing opportunities for competitive play for juniors locally in Leicestershire and nationally.
His involvement in para table tennis started with Special Olympics but broadened when he became Secretary of the then BTTAD in 2005. His current role is Company Secretary -supporting the Board and with involvement in most committees.
He is retired from his senior administrative role at Nottingham University. Apart from his family, his major interest is other sport especially cricket and rugby -as well as the theatre.
Mike Smith is not a board member, however he attends board meetings in his role as the BPTT Board Secretary.
Non-Executive Director – Catherine Willcocks
2020-24
Catherine has extensive experience advising international clients on risk and regulatory aspects of business strategy and growth, initially as an Internal Auditor at Deloitte from 2001 to 2007 and then Global Compliance Director at J.P. Morgan from 2007-2020.
Catherine’s executive career has focused on creating risk and governance frameworks to address business risks and regulatory developments across a wide range of industry types, including retail, central and local government agencies, community and civic charities, as well as highly regulated fiduciary asset management and insurance organisations. She contributes expertise in global digital transformation and has a proven track record in directing corporate-wide regulatory change initiatives and automation of compliance oversight.
Non-Executive Director – John Timms
2020-24
John has over 25 years of major event management and operational experience working with national and international governing bodies across Olympic and Paralympic Sports, many of which has involved working with UK Sport as a key stakeholder and partner.
He has held the position of Event Director and other senior roles at many international sporting events including the 2011 ITTF British Open Para Table Tennis held in Sheffield.
John was a Technical Delegate for the International Wheelchair Rugby Federation at the 2012 Paralympics in London and sits on the IWRF’s competition committee advising on competition structures.
Through his Sports Management Consultancy – MLS Contracts Ltd. John now shares this knowledge and continues to support, develop and deliver all elements around the staging and hosting of major international sport events.
John has a large background in developing community engagement through sport in Sheffield and was the lead on the multi award winning community programmes of the Sharks Basketball Franchise. These continue to highlight how Sport can engage and deliver across a number of areas in the community and education curriculum.
His personal interests include being the Vice Chair of Governors of Sheffield College a stakeholder of the Sheffield Sharks basketball franchise and a keen golfer (of no repute!).
Non-Executive Director – Martin Clark
2020-24
Martin is a Chartered Certified Accountant, now retired, having run his accountancy practice for 40 years subsequent to spending many years in industry.
He remains involved in table tennis as a player in local leagues, as he has been for the past 50+ years and administratively, currently as National Councillor for Worcestershire, whilst locally he is involved in his village community centre.
He was Finance Director of E.T.T.A for 10 years to 2013 during which time he was also engaged as Financial Expert to E.T.T.U and a member of the I.T.T.F . Veterans Committee.
He was Treasurer of Veterans English Table Tennis Society (VETTS) for 15 years to 2015 and currently is Treasurer of the Association of English Table Tennis Umpires (AETTU) in addition to that of Worcestershire County.
In 2012 he was part of the London Olympics Anti-Doping team dealing with table tennis and a number of other sports.
In all he brings a wealth of knowledge and experience to BPTT.
Non-Executive Director – Rebecca Hembrough
2020-24
Rebecca is the Performance Manager for women’s golf at England Golf. Together with the coaching team she has brought greater parity of coaching and competitive opportunities, a focus on transparent processes and accountability, and a compelling number of individual and team successes. She chairs the women’s selection committee and has served on the GB&I selection panel. On the course Rebecca has had the honour of being the GB Golf Team Leader at the 2014 Youth Olympics and the Team Europe captain at the 2017 Asia Pacific Junior Golf Championships. She has captained Team England at various European Girls’ Team Championships and World Amateur Team Championships.
Rebecca brings over a decade of experience working in performance sport. In the beginning as a sport psychologist as part of a multi-disciplinary sport and exercise science team at Sheffield Hallam University. In this role her standout experience was working with the GB women’s volleyball squad for the 2.5 years leading into the London 2012 Olympics. She worked at the Games for the duration of the volleyball competition as part of the support team.
Her passion is to support people to have the courage to be more than they thought possible. She is excited to support BPTT and it’s family as part of the board and the performance monitoring committee.
Outside of work her loves are her family – Nina, her whirlwind of a toddler, husband Dave and two retired greyhounds. A resident of Sheffield she enjoys the outdoors, strength training, and is a scratch golfer at both Hillsborough and Glossop Golf Clubs.
POLICIES
The British para Table Tennis Board is responsible for the governance of the organisation, the Directors and Trustees play a key role in determining the strategic direction of British Para Table Tennis. The Governance Committee which is a BPTT Board sub committee manages the governance of the organisation on behalf of the Board.
Governance for BPTT has a primary function of complying with the Sports Code of Governance as issued by UK Sport. The key areas of that code are addressed and enshrined in the various corporate documents, such as:the Articles Of Association and the policy documents that enable it.
Copies of these documents are shown below in their various categories for you to download.
BTTAD AGM Proxy Voting Form 2020
BTTAD Finance Report 31 December 2019
BTTAD Finance Front Sheet 31 December 2019
BTTAD Balance Sheet 31 December 2019
BTTAD Income and Expenditure 31 December 2019
BTTAD Funds Report 31 December 2019
BTTAD Nationals Income and Expenditure 31 December 2019
BTTAD AGM Proxy Voting Form 2019
BTTAD Finance Report 31 December 2018
BTTAD Finance Front Sheet 31 December 2018
BTTAD Balance Sheet 31 December 2018
BPTT Balance Sheet 31 March 2019
BTTAD Income and Expenditure 31 December 2018
BPTT Income and Expenditure 31 March 2019