Hobart, Tasmania, 21 Might 2024 | Vivienne Christie
As Nationwide Volunteer Week is well known throughout Australia, few people can match the efforts of Brendon Oliver-Ewen.
Having invested 1000’s of hours into the institution of Hobart Out Tennis, Oliver-Ewen has ensured Tasmania’s first LGBTI tennis membership has flourished right into a vibrant, numerous, and ever-growing group.
But a modest Oliver-Ewen, who was honoured as Volunteer of the 12 months on the Australian Tennis Awards in 2023, doesn’t search congratulations – and even thanks – for the huge contribution he’s made via his lifelong dedication to the sport.
“Very early on, I wished to speculate as a lot as doable within the sports activities that I used to be taking part in in,” he explains.
“It wasn’t essentially out of any altruistic beliefs, simply the easy equation that I cherished taking part in tennis and if I might assist different folks take part additionally, there’d be extra enjoyable for everybody.
And as a proud homosexual man, Oliver-Ewen enthusiastically shares that tennis has given him rather a lot.
The 42-year-old was born in Sydney however because the son of missionaries, spent a lot of his early childhood in Papua New Guinea, then America. On the household’s return to Australia, tennis turned Oliver-Ewen’s self-described “survival mechanism” in his later years at college.
“I used to be a reasonably fem, fats, nerdy child with an American accent coming into major faculty right here in Australia. That set of elements doesn’t typically lead to a rather well accepted well-liked particular person,” he relates.
“I didn’t know something about AFL, NRL, netball, I didn’t know any of the Australian sports activities. The one sport that I did have, that I might play, that allowed me to have a standard language with the opposite children, was tennis.”
This translated to agency friendships fashioned via the game. Oliver-Ewen appears again particularly fondly on journeys to locations together with Lake Macquarie and Newcastle when he represented his highschool and was a member of the McDonald’s squad on the native tennis centre.
“I believe the explanation I wished to offer to sport rising up was simply because I recognised that it supplied a spot the place everybody might get numerous it, everybody might probably discover a place,” he remembers.
Quick-forward a number of years, and tennis in Tasmania is now the beneficiary of Oliver-Ewen’s ardour for giving again.
After relocating from Sydney in 2017, Brendon was a part of a small group of buddies who recognized the chance to create an setting the place numerous communities might come collectively.
This led to the formation of Hobart Out Tennis the place Oliver-Ewen, a basis and now honorary life member, has carried out a broad vary of roles together with secretary, public officer, authorized officer, event director, performing president, media supervisor, committee member and plenty of extra.
The tasks that Oliver-Ewen – a lawyer in his equally busy skilled life – tackle for the membership can incorporate every part from writing media releases and grants, to serving to run weekly socials and when time permits, taking part in within the occasions.
“I even bake cookies each time we’ve a event!” he provides with fun. “I believe it’s simply a kind of conditions the place you do each and something that must be achieved.”
Brendon Oliver-Ewen in certainly one of his many volunteer roles as a event director.
It’s a piece ethic that has helped Hobart Out Tennis go from power to power.
Having launched as a registered membership with simply 5 members in 2019, it has attracted over 100 members within the 5 years since.
Social occasions and tournaments can sometimes entice between 50 and 120 contributors, whereas greater than 2000 folks often have interaction with HOT’s linked Fb group.
The membership additionally hosts a yearly worldwide event enticing contributors from the LGBTI group from everywhere in the world, and has via Oliver-Ewen’s efforts featured in all mainstream media in Tasmania.
However above this, the largest level of pleasure for Oliver-Ewen is the membership’s at all times welcoming and inclusive ethos.
“You don’t really must be a member to affix us and play socially,” he factors out. “You don’t even must have performed tennis earlier than! You simply have to consider in our objectives of inclusion and acceptance.”
Hobart Out Tennis’ inclusivity can be proudly measured in different methods.
“I’ve turn out to be very passionate, not only for LGBTI rights, but additionally rights for anyone who doesn’t match inside the stereotypes,” he feedback.
“We’ve bought folks from all numerous communities who now come and play at Hobart Out Tennis, whether or not or not it’s gender, sexuality, incapacity, ethnic background or age.
“Tennis is now getting used as a strategy to deliver folks collectively, and much more, a strategy to attain out to the broader group and construct bridges so we will collectively discover methods to be inclusive typically.”
That deeply rewarding setting means the hours that Oliver-Ewen invests within the membership – which he’s reluctant to place a determine on however are no less than 10 hours every week – hardly ever really feel like work.
“I believe that’s what volunteering is actually about,” he smiles. “It’s not pondering, ‘I’m going to offer, give, give’. It’s via feeling the enjoyment that contributing offers you if you find yourself a part of one thing that makes a distinction.”
“As of late everyone seems to be busy, but when anyone on the market isn’t certain in the event that they wish to volunteer or not, don’t consider it as time that’s being taken away from you. Know that any time give will likely be paid again within the presents and joys which can be given to you as a part of that course of.”
Inside that outlook is a real pleasure for the Nationwide Volunteer Week theme this 12 months of “One thing for Everybody.”
Firstly, and arguably most significantly, it represents the ability of inclusion.
“Sport can facilitate an setting the place all people is united,” says Oliver-Ewen, who has witnessed that affect via the expansion of Hobart Out Tennis. “It doesn’t matter who you might be, if you wish to play, you’ll be able to have a spot.”
That there’s “one thing for everybody” additionally extends to the wealthy rewards of volunteering.
“It doesn’t matter what it’s important to give,” says Oliver-Ewen. “Something you’ll be able to contribute will make a distinction and have an effect on the lives of individuals round you, notably if these folks gave struggled to seek out acceptance. And that means we will all faucet into the wonderful advantages of residing in a various nation.”
Discover your strategy to play: Go to play.tennis.com.au to get out on courtroom and have some enjoyable!
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