James runs 299 Lighting, a commercial lighting company based in Bristol. Padel had become something he played most weeks, and he kept noticing the same thing: two hours on court with someone tells you more about how they actually work than a stack of business cards ever does. You see how someone handles pressure, whether they communicate under stress, whether they're generous when a point goes against them. None of that comes up over a handshake and a coffee.
He mentioned the idea to Yinka, who runs Courts and Connections, a corporate padel events company, so he'd already seen the same thing play out at a bigger scale: tournaments, client days, team-building sessions where padel did more for a room of strangers in an hour than most networking events manage in an evening. Between the two of them, the idea for a standing Friday session took about five minutes to agree on.
The format was kept deliberately simple. No membership fee - it's £11 a session with breakfast included, and your first one's free. Weekly, not monthly, because a group you see every Friday becomes a habit, not an event you have to remember to book. And properly coached, since half of any given group has never picked up a racket before. Gabby, Rocket Padel Bristol's head coach and an LTA Level 2 Padel Instructor, and Will Edlin of Elite Padel Coach both put time in on court most weeks, so nobody's left standing around not knowing what to do.
Beth, who's part of the team at 299 Lighting, now helps James and Yinka run the sessions day to day, from pairing players up to keeping the morning on schedule.
Rocket Padel Bristol was the obvious venue. It's the UK's largest indoor padel club, with enough courts that a growing group never has to wait around, and a café built for exactly the second half of the morning: breakfast and a proper catch-up once the rackets are down.
That's really the whole idea. Play for two hours, talk properly for one more over breakfast, and let a Friday morning do more for your business than most networking events manage.
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