Chris Graves

I started volunteering in sport at school, local clubs and at local events when I was in year 10 and soon became part of the Leadership Academy. As a volunteer I won the East Midlands Young Volunteer of the year and also the national Yonex Young Volunteer of the year. Here I completed many young leader awards including indoor rowing coaching and then progress to take my FA Level 1, and Badminton England Level 1 & 2 coaching qualifications. This allowed me to be employed by the SWLSSP on the carousel of coaching. I also did work for Badminton England running BISI festivals and tournaments. I also ran indoor rowing festivals for all local secondary schools as well as taking rowing teams to national indoor rowing tournaments, with the best results being from two girls relay teams picking up a national bronze and silver medal.

I play badminton at club level for Grantham Badminton Club, but I mainly row for Newark rowing club. Here I am part of the men’s squad and we compete at elite club level with our highlight of competing at the International Henley Royal Regatta for the last 5 years. My best achievement at rowing would have to be rowing in a 4 at the Head of the River on the Thames, an international event with over 600 competitors and in our category we placed 5th!

I use to work for Badminton England as the Assistant Badminton Development Officer for South Kesteven. And was also the chair for the East Midlands and National Youth Forum as well as sitting on the Badminton England Community Advisory Group.

I was lucky enough to be asked by Badminton England to be part of their team at the Olympics as a Games Maker. For this I was part of the Sports Equipment team based at Wembley Arena, looking after the courts and equipment for the players.