TTQ was pleased to recognise Trevor Barrett with Life Membership at the 2024 Annual General Meeting held on 23rd March. 

Trevor was honoured for 18 years service to TTQ with Life Membership, and has now stepped down from the board to round out a significant contribution to the sport of table tennis over many years.

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Trevor Barrett - 18 Years Service to Table Tennis Queensland

Trevor Barrett first became involved with table tennis in 1975, where it was a popular sport among teachers at the school he was teaching at in western Sydney. He then became a member of a table tennis club in the Blue Mountains where he lived and continued this involvement with this club until he moved to Queensland in 1986.

He then joined the Twin Towns Table Tennis Club, playing there until he later joined the Gold Coast Table Tennis Association in 1989, where he was an active member until early 2007. During his time at the Gold Coast Association, Trevor held the positions of Committee Member, Secretary, Vice President, and President. In these various roles Trevor was actively involved in the development of the Gold Coast Table Tennis Association, in areas such as bringing a more structured approach to committee meetings, sourcing financial grants, improving club facilities such as newer tables, Taraflex flooring and roof insulation, and bringing a more active social element to the club, such as the annual club Christmas Party and Awards presentations.

In 2006 Trevor was awarded Life Membership of the Gold Coast Table Tennis Association and was also subsequently recognised by a court at the club being named after him.

Trevor became Vice President of Table Tennis Queensland in 2006, and subsequently was appointed President in 2007. He held the position of President for 12 years and has been Vice President for the past five years. Trevor is by far the longest serving President in the history of Table Tennis Queensland and was re-elected each year unopposed. He has seen the progression of numerous Board Members and several Executive Officers during his tenure on the Board of TTQ, and his primary focus has been to bring cohesion to the Board to enable it to effectively represent the broad ranging geographical spread of table tennis clubs in Queensland, which are spread from Cairns to the NSW border. A major long-term goal was to promote and foster the sport of table tennis equally across Queensland, as well as furthering the support, retention and success of Queensland representative players across all age groups up to national level and beyond. In recent years Queensland has experienced considerable success at National level, with some Queensland players also representing Australia. The Queensland Hopes program in particular has been identified as a leader program within Australia and Oceania, and the Queensland U18 Boys table tennis team was awarded the ‘Best Queensland Junior Sporting Team’ across all sports at both the 2016 and 2017 Queensland Sports awards.

Trevor credits the success of Queensland players to the effectiveness of the TTQ Board’s efforts in establishing a successful High-Performance program, an effective Hopes development system, a great depth of effective high performance and club coaches, a strong base of accredited officials and club volunteers, a consistent and improving financial base to be able to assist players, and the gaining of good government financial support for the sport in Queensland. Another major factor has been the consistency and high standard of TTQ staff which brings effective administration to the sport in Queensland, and a consistent management structure to Queensland tournaments and other major tournaments held in Queensland. The strong support of volunteers in each of the clubs has also been a major contributor to the development of table tennis in Queensland over many years and cannot be undervalued.

Trevor was also a primary instigator of a school table tennis sporting program in Queensland, which led Australia in this area. There are now annual regional finals in seven geographical areas across Queensland, culminating in a state final each year in Brisbane. The development of this structure has resulted in table tennis now being formally recognised as a school sport in Queensland, something which had taken many years to achieve. In 2015 Trevor was pleased to be a Manager and Coach of a Queensland school squad of over twenty players that travelled with the support of Education Queensland to Adelaide, to represent Queensland in table tennis at the Pacific School Games.

In 2007 Trevor and his wife moved to Bundaberg, where until his retirement he held positions of Head of Senior Mathematics at Shalom College and Head of Mathematics at St Luke’s Anglican School. He promoted table tennis at both of these schools and has been involved in assisting with the long standing regular inter-school table tennis competition in Bundaberg, hosted by the Bundaberg & District Table Tennis Association. He has been a committee member of Bundaberg & District Table Tennis Association for five years, is the current Treasurer of the association, and participates regularly in fixture events.

Trevor for many years represented Queensland as the State Delegate to the Annual General Meeting and Development Forum of Table Tennis Australia. As Table Tennis Queensland President, Trevor has always encouraged, and been supportive of Table Tennis Queensland and its associated clubs becoming involved in major Table Tennis events. Examples include the Australian Veterans Championships at Caloundra, the ITTF Australian Open on the Gold Coast, the 2018 Australian Juniors Championships in Townsville, and of course the Commonwealth Games.

As an accredited National Level Umpire, Trevor assists with umpiring at events whenever possible. Trevor was an inaugural recipient of the Table Tennis Australia 25 Year Service award and was recently one of two people awarded the Queensland Service to Sport Award, which was presented by then Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk at the Queensland Sports Awards.