Hobart, Tasmania, 21 Might 2024 | Vivienne Christie
As Nationwide Volunteer Week is widely known throughout Australia, few people can match the efforts of Brendon Oliver-Ewen.
Having invested hundreds 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 neighborhood.
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 by way of his lifelong dedication to the sport.
“Very early on, I needed to speculate as a lot as potential within the sports activities that I used to be enjoying in,” he explains.
“It wasn’t essentially out of any altruistic beliefs, simply the straightforward equation that I beloved enjoying tennis and if I may 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 quite a bit.
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 grew to become 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 college right here in Australia. That set of elements doesn’t usually lead to a very well accepted fashionable individual,” 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 may play, that allowed me to have a standard language with the opposite children, was tennis.”
This translated to agency friendships shaped by way of 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 needed to provide to sport rising up was simply because I recognised that it supplied a spot the place everybody may get loads of it, everybody may doubtlessly 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 surroundings the place numerous communities may 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 lots of extra.
The duties that Oliver-Ewen – a lawyer in his equally busy skilled life – tackle for the membership can incorporate the whole lot from writing media releases and grants, to serving to run weekly socials and when time permits, enjoying within the occasions.
“I even bake cookies each time we now have a event!” he provides with amusing. “I believe it’s simply a type of conditions the place you do each and something that must be completed.”
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 appeal to between 50 and 120 members, whereas greater than 2000 folks usually interact with HOT’s related Fb neighborhood.
The membership additionally hosts a yearly worldwide event enticing members from the LGBTI neighborhood from everywhere in the world, and has by way of Oliver-Ewen’s efforts featured in all mainstream media in Tasmania.
However above this, the largest level of satisfaction for Oliver-Ewen is the membership’s all the time welcoming and inclusive ethos.
“You don’t truly 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 targets of inclusion and acceptance.”
Hobart Out Tennis’ inclusivity can be proudly measured in different methods.
“I’ve grow to be very passionate, not only for LGBTI rights, but additionally rights for anyone who doesn’t match throughout the stereotypes,” he feedback.
“We’ve received folks from all numerous communities who now come and play at Hobart Out Tennis, whether or not it’s gender, sexuality, incapacity, ethnic background or age.
“Tennis is now getting used as a method to convey folks collectively, and much more, a method to attain out to the broader neighborhood and construct bridges so we will collectively discover methods to be inclusive usually.”
That deeply rewarding surroundings means the hours that Oliver-Ewen invests within the membership – which he’s reluctant to place a determine on however are at the very least 10 hours every week – hardly ever really feel like work.
“I believe that’s what volunteering is absolutely about,” he smiles. “It’s not considering, ‘I’m going to provide, give, give’. It’s by way of feeling the enjoyment that contributing offers you when you find yourself a part of one thing that makes a distinction.”
“Nowadays 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 items 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 yr of “One thing for Everybody.”
Firstly, and arguably most significantly, it represents the facility of inclusion.
“Sport can facilitate an surroundings the place everyone is united,” says Oliver-Ewen, who has witnessed that influence by way of the expansion of Hobart Out Tennis. “It doesn’t matter who you might be, if you wish to play, you possibly can 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 possibly can contribute will make a distinction and have an effect on the lives of individuals round you, significantly if these folks gave struggled to seek out acceptance. And that manner we will all faucet into the wonderful advantages of dwelling in a various nation.”
Discover your method to play: Go to play.tennis.com.au to get out on court docket and have some enjoyable!
