Who we are
Port Stephens Pickleball Club Inc is one of the fastest-growing community sports clubs in New South Wales — a club built entirely by its members, for its members, without ever having a permanent home to call its own. Today we're 240+ strong, playing between 8-10 sessions a week across two venues in Port Stephens, welcoming everyone from eight-year-olds to players well into their eighties.
Our story
It started small. In 2019, a handful of players began meeting in the side room of a community hall in Nelson Bay — a narrow space with a low ceiling, and a sport most people had never heard of. Word spread, and by 2021 the group had outgrown the side room altogether, moving into the hall's main basketball court to fit everyone in.
By 2024, that same community of players had grown into something worth making official. We formally incorporated as Port Stephens Pickleball Club Inc, affiliated with Pickleball NSW, with 40 founding members putting their names to what had started as a handful of people in a side room. As club President John Grace puts it, "It can become a small game of chess on a pickleball court" — deceptively easy to pick up, but with endless layers to master, which might explain why so few people who try it ever stop.
Five players became twenty, then forty, then 240+ — grown almost entirely by word of mouth, with 13 Level 1 accredited coaches now running sessions across the week, and a genuinely competitive edge too: our members have entered 250+ tournaments and brought home more than 170 medals in singles, doubles and mixed doubles.
Making a difference
We've grown a strong community within our own courts — and we've made a habit of taking that spirit further afield too. We've donated nets and coaching to help neighbouring Medowie Pickleball Club get started, run a full school term program at St Philips Christian College, and more recently delivered coaching sessions for Tomaree High School's teachers and PE excellence students. We've also hosted a dedicated session for Invictus Australia, supporting veterans and first responders. On court, our teams take on neighbouring clubs like ATP Around the Ponds in friendly interclub matches, with more on the calendar as the sport grows across the region.
What keeps people around, though, is often simpler than any of that. As member Jo Laming says, "You can just turn up and meet new people" — and that's true whether you're seventeen or eighty. Teenagers and retirees regularly share the same court, post-session coffee has become its own tradition, and it's not unusual to see members playing well into their eighties alongside players a fraction of their age.
Ready to give it a try?
Whatever your age or experience, there's a session with your name on it.
Come and play with us
