Hi Anon,

Thank you for your You Make Change submission.

As a frequent user of the sports halls myself, I understand that it can be difficult to find a casual booking space and sympathise with your situation. I have spoken to Sport and Wellbeing management about your suggestions, and they are unwilling to consider having volleyball nets in the Team Southampton Hall because there are no sockets in the floor, and they feel that free standing volleyball nets are too large a health and safety risk. The management are also in agreement that a larger volume of members want to play basketball casually than volleyball, and it would be unfair to restrict them to one sports hall based on the smaller demand of another sport.

That said however, I have been in talks with Sport and Wellbeing management to remove full court booking space for basketball so that only half court bookings can be made (and adding half court options in TSH instead of full court). This would free up availability for half court basketball activities and will hopefully have a trickle down effect to make the court more available for volleyball players at the same time. New outdoor courts are also being installed at Avenue campus which will also hopefully result in more basketball players migrating to that site and freeing up availability for volleyball in our indoor spaces.

In addition I would recommend looking into joining our affiliated volleyball club if you haven't already. They train for 7 hours a week in Jubilee and can offer regular training with professional coaching. You can find their page on the groups hub at susu.org/groups/suvc

Best wishes,

Steve Gore, VP Sports