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BULLEEN-TEMPLESTOWE BASKETBALL CLUB

ANNUAL REPORT 2022-23

Welcome

The Bulleen-Templestowe Basketball Club is built on a rich history. We acknowledge the contribution of the Life Members of the Club, especially the late Jan Collinson whose footprint on the club and in basketball will always be remembered.

The Bulleen-Templestowe Basketball Club acknowledges and pays respects to Elders and all Victorian Aboriginal communities. Our home stadium in Bulleen, is on Wurundjeri land, and we acknowledge the Wurundjeri people as the Traditional Owners of this land. We honour and respect Traditional Owners, past and present, and value the rich culture and history of the First Peoples of this land.

President’s Report

Becoming the President of the Bulleen-Templestowe Basketball Club has been a true privilege and given me incredible insights into the passion and commitment of our community.

Personally, one of my highlights was the Life Members morning tea and listening to amazing stories of dedication and love for the club including from the late Jan Collinson, who will be sorely missed. It was a reminder of the importance of recognising our history and the responsibility that the Board has, as custodians for this great club. Another highlight was seeing the support of so many Boomers at events such as the amazing Women’s Big V Youth League One grand ﬁnal victory, the annual Will Hoole Memorial, and the numerous domestic and rep ﬁnals where you cannot help but be impressed by the ‘sea of blue’ who turn up to cheer.

As the father of an eleven year old basketball addict, who plays both Junior Champ and Junior Domestic, and wants to participate in every tournament or coaching session he can, it is also a great reminder to say thank to you every parent, coach, referee, score table official, team manager, tournament organizer, canteen staff, office staff, convenor, cleaner, court supervisor, volunteer, sponsor… the list goes on. It really does take a whole team effort to make our community club operate and be successful. Thanks so much!

The club has focused on four major priorities over the past year:

1. Child Safety: There is nothing more important than the safety of our children, so the club has invested in the development and rollout of our child safety programs. A big thank you to Lisa Gandolfo, Nerida Mason and Daniela Pepe for making this happen.

2. Sustainability: We have worked hard to overcome the impacts of COVID on our player numbers and ﬁnancials in 2022-23, and I’m pleased to see the growth in our junior programs, investment in new referees and a return to surplus. Other notable achievements include:

a. Modernisation of our facilities including ﬁxing the broken seats on white court, installation of onsite storage at Sheahans Road, upgrading our telephony system, and numerous building ﬁxes to ensure the comfort and safety of all club members.

b. Investments in a new referee rostering system, improved canteen IT systems, and installation of digital signage to promote our canteen and support better communications.

c. Strengthened ﬁnancial and risk management governance led by Stuart Dorrington, Club Treasurer.

d. Canteen revitalisation at both Sheahans Road and EDSC – After 7+ years, Katrina sadly advised us of her retirement as Café Manager to explore an exciting new opportunity outside of the club. We say thanks to Katrina for all of her hard work! Our focus on canteen revitalisation has been led by experienced staﬀ such as Mary and Betty with support from Emily Norgate and Ryan Rogers.

e. Long term leases– we’ve signed a three-year lease to lock in EDSC which is an important facility, and negotiated a new agreement with Aligned Leisure who has taken over as facility manager from YMCA and manage Sheahans Road and Mullum Mullum.

As always, we couldn’t do this without the stewardship of the Board of Management and our team, particularly, thanks to Ryan Rogers, Teresa Cherbakov and Helen Vassiliadis for managing the operations of the club, Clare Hoole and Tracy Best for keeping the shop running smoothly, and Melanie Franklin and Mitch Pratt for their hard work in running the Referee Program working alongside the Referee Advisory Committee, and Jen Hanrahan, Emily Norgate and Kelvin Bowers for their leadership and support of the basketball programs.

3. Community engagement: We’ve conducted a number of surveys across junior domestic, senior domestic and junior championship programs and better understand what is working and areas for improvement from the perspective of our members. In addition, we have regular deep dives at the Board level to hear directly from the respective program leads. This data driven approach is helping to shape our priorities and where to focus our eﬀorts. These insights have highlighted that we are doing a lot of great work which we can be very proud of, but also that we can still improve in areas such as further strengthening referee education and development of our coaches as well as having a stronger focus on community engagement and social events.

A special callout to Dee (our Media Manager), supported by Ryan Rogers and Derek Pangbourne for all the excellent social media posts. I hope the club has noticed our investment in new media content, regular player/coach/referee awards, consistent branding and trying diﬀerent ways to engage our community. We also look forward to the forthcoming award ceremonies and celebration events which should be lots of fun!

4. Evolution: The strength of our Club is built on our history and we respect and honour this, and in addition we need to try new things. We are a small community club, and we don’t have the resources of larger organisations, but we recognise that the expectations of our members continue to rise. In meeting these expectations, we are not an island and we compete against other sports and basketball clubs. We recognise the changing nature of the demographics of the local Manningham community, the cost-of-living pressures and increasing challenges to attract volunteers, but we continually ﬁnd new ways to engage our members and attract new members. It’s a balance between old and new, and we need to carefully manage the change and communications, but I believe it’s important that we evolve our club. Notable investments this year include:

a. New General Manager – Ryan Rogers, who has brought a raft of ideas based on his business and basketball experience and is doing a great job in running the club on a day-by- day basis.

b. New Competitions Manager – Emily Norgate. We will be forever grateful for the dedication shown by Maureen Franklin (Senior Domestic) and Sue Scott (Junior Domestic) and thank them for their eﬀorts over many years. Emily brings her expertise and enthusiasm as a member of staﬀ, and I’m excited about the continued evolution of the management of our competitions going forward.

c. Community Basketball and Programs Oﬃcer – Jen Hanrahan, continues to bring her love of the club and basketball and has an expanded role to help grow our

junior numbers, introduce new programs and strengthen our community engagement. Examples of Jen’s programs include the new 3x3 tournament, walking basketball, and all abilities basketball.

d. Basketball Development & Domestic Oﬃcer – the development of our junior domestic talent and junior domestic coaches is critical for our success and Kelvin (“KB”) Bowers’ role is important in providing hands on coaching guidance and running junior academies and player development.

e. New BIG V Convenor – Glenn Hoole was appointed and has done a wonderful job in attracting crowds and strengthening our teams.

f. Revised Senior Domestic competition – to address declining numbers in our Senior Domestic, we re-branded the competition, and have introduced numerous improvements that we hope will attract and retain players.

g. New junior competitions and academies – it’s been so exciting to host new competitions including the highly successful Kings Weekend tournament, Spring Showdown domestic competition, 3x3 tournament as well as numerous junior academies, masterclasses, and holiday camps.. many for the ﬁrst time ever or at least… in over one decade. Thanks also to Sally Steel for her continued support particularly with Junior Championship.

h. New referee education program – under the guidance of Mitch Pratt, the club continues to invest in our referee education program and it will continue to be strengthened with the inclusion of referee coaching. This will continue to be a priority going forward.

i. New air conditioning – thanks to a $54K grant from North East Link, and a $100K budget allocation from the City of Manningham, we’re excited to be able to install new evaporative air conditioning for all three courts at Sheahans Road in time for summer. This is something we

President’s Report continued...

One of the most pleasurable things about being on the Board is hearing about all of the amazing achievements from our club. A number of key highlights include:

• Basketball Victoria Community Service Awards – 35 years: Anthony Aitkens, Ross Moll and Melanie Franklin; 15 years: Helen Vassiliadis

• Julia Walsh – Head Coach of the Australian Boomerangs who won the gold medal at the Virtus Global Games. Gaylene McKay was the physio for this event

• Big V Women’s Youth League One – Champions 2023

• Women’s Senior Championship – Champions 2023

• Big V League Awards nominees – Caitlin Bryan, Mason Rogers, Annabel Deerbon, Joshua Uhr-Henry, Olivia Bontempelli, Amy Baum, Jamie Uhr-Henry, Keira Lindemans, and Tahlia Leeson

• Lily Carmody – selected for the NBA Basketball Without Borders camp

• Justin Wong – Development Coach – U18 Boy’s Vic Metro team

• Justine Walker – Reserve U/16 state team

• Success of our girl’s U13 and U14, and boy’s U14 3x3 teams for making the state championships, and U16 girls for winning the Casey tournament. We also had numerous Boomer’s winners at our inaugural 3x3 tournament during the July school holidays.

• Teagan Potter, Justine Walker, Logan Hamilton, Jude Sheen –Vic Metro Combined athletes

• Lily Carmody and Holly Griﬃths – U20s Victorian women’s team – National Championships

• Metro Country Challenge 2023 – congratulations to Dylan, Trevor (TJ), Violet, Sienna and coaches Justin Wong and Caitlin Bryan

• Trevor Noseda, Ethan Cleary and Yasmine Trabucco for making the Victorian State School teams

• U12 Girls and U18 Girls qualiﬁed for the National Junior Classic

• Jamison Bamblett – Victorian State Indigenous team representative

• Owen Foxwell – committed to South East Melbourne Phoenix

• Holly Griﬃths – committed to the US NSAA D1 program

• Danijela Kujovic, Lily Amor, Aleisha Cadee, Lily Carmody, Holly Griﬃths, Caitlyn Van Es, Joel Foxwell – U20 Australian Junior Championship representatives

• Sarah Dorrington, Jaz Brmbota – completed a six month post-graduate program in the US at the DME Academy where Tabitha Betson is already enrolled in a high school program and had numerous college oﬀers.

Finally, I would like to thank all my fellow Board members, Derek, Lisa, Sally, Stuart, Tricia and Julia, our General Manager Ryan, Life Members, Hall of Famers, and all the staﬀ and volunteers who unfailingly do what is needed to make this Club strong.

One last thank-you and it’s to Julia Walsh who is retiring from the board after 11+ years of service. Thank you so much for all you have done for the club over many years. We look forward to staying in touch.

Roger Jeffrey Club President

A message from the

Vice President

To the BTBC basketball community, it has been a privilege to serve the club as a player, coach and board member. Community clubs make sport aﬀordable because of the unpaid volunteer workforce. I particularly want to thank those people who continue to put their hands up to ensure this club is sustainable, relevant, and generational. Bulleen has a great history and I am proud to have been part of it.

Julia Walsh Club Vice President

2023 Financial Year Report

The following Financial Report covers the period 1 July 2022 through to 30 June 2023, otherwise known as the 2023 financial year. The results in the 2023 financial year – pleasingly - are reflective of a return to full competition operations.

We have seen progressive changes in the way we are charging for competition participation with more of our programs that we run, or participate in, moving to upfront payment to simplify competition management. Whilst the club is impacted by inﬂationary pressures, we are very conscious of managing the changing timing of payments and any adjustment to competition charges to minimise the impact on our members.

Following two very challenging years for the club whereby our programs were significantly impacted by COVID, the 2023 financial year has been one where we have looked to re-establish a baseline for our performance, resulting in a marginal surplus being achieved after a significant deficit in the prior year.

The increase in both income and expenses now reﬂect a full year of operating activities with full registration and participation income for all our programs, together with a full year of court hire costs, game expenses and salary and wages now being recognised.

We continue to be guided by our 2025 strategy, together with our vision and values, to ensure we remain targeted on the priority areas that have been set for our club in regard to where we allocate our resources. We have however been prudent with new spend throughout the year as we have managed through the recovery of our programs.

We have seen a strong rebound post COVID in participation in our core junior programs including Primary School Competitions, Junior Domestic and Junior Championship reﬂecting the great work undertaken by our Community Oﬃcer, Coaching Directors and Convenors. Our Senior Domestic competition has however been impacted by participant numbers not returning post the prior year season cancellations. This is an area in the club whereby additional focus is required to rebuild quality programs and transition from the strength observed in our junior programs through to senior competitions.

Some highlights in terms of income for the club included participation in the camps, clinics and academies that we have offered, with exceptionally strong results with income just over $100k received after a low of $27k in the prior year. This reflects strong interest in the development opportunities which our club has been presenting, highlighted by the variety of offerings from community-based camps through to elite offerings. We have also seen the introduction of the Under 10 tournament hosted by the club and our inaugural 3 on 3 competition which generated a great vibe around the place.

Our Canteen also returned to full operation. Whilst income has increased dramatically year on year, it remains an area which we are focusing on to deliver bottom line proﬁtability.

We would also like to thank all of our sponsors for their ongoing support including our key sponsors Bendigo Bank, Lavrin & Lawrence Orthodontics, The Sporting Globe Bar & Grill, iAthletic and Charm Building and Construction.

On the cost side of things, Court hire remains the biggest cost to the club at $716k and we continually look to optimize its usage to minimize our expenses. We appreciate the support of those organisations that enable us access to their courts to facilitate our various competitions and training needs. In particular, the Manningham City Council, YMCA and East Doncaster Secondary College have played key roles in what we have done during 2023.

After 2 years of our people being required to support the club through the COVID period and salary and wages being underpinned by the Job Keeper program, we have returned to a full year of cost being borne by the club. We have invested in

Financial Year Year Year ended 30 June 2023 ended 30 June 2022 Income 2,349,165 1,381,612 Expenses 2,345,769 1,622,703 Surplus/Deﬁcit 3,396 (241,091) $ $

positions structurally during the year as consistent with our strategy, to reestablish our grass roots programs. We have seen beneﬁts in this from participation numbers in our junior pipelines as we look to support and drive ongoing growth.

Our game expenses have also increased to reﬂect a full competition schedule. This cost relates primarily to our referees who have done a wonderful job adapting quickly to the ramp up in activity.

Our cash holdings remain strong, ﬁnishing the year at $526k. We do however target to constantly hold a minimum of three months of maximum monthly expenditure to ensure suﬃcient coverage to protect the club from unforeseen circumstances. We have more work to do through the recovery of cash collections to be where we would like to be. It is this prudent cash management though that saw the club well positioned to survive through the COVID period.

Of particular note, is that in our year end cash balance, we hold an amount of $51k for grant monies provided to support much needed air conditioning to be installed at the Sheahan’s Road stadium. A massive thank you to all involved in the application for the grant, as this will be of signiﬁcant beneﬁt for all those that participate in our competitions over summer at this stadium.

Significant effort has also been put in to establishing a budget for the 2023/24 financial year with a target on specific areas of our operations to maximise income opportunities and restrict the ongoing operating costs of the club. This new budget targets a healthy surplus for the year which will see us rebuilding our cash holdings to enable reinvestment back into the club for the future.

I would also like to make special mention of Teresa Cherbakof, the Finance Manager for the club, who has again done a wonderful job throughout the year to enable us to stay on top of the vast ﬁnancial activity that takes place across all of our programs. Your support is incredibly valued!

Stuart Dorrington Club Treasurer

Financial Report continued...

Secretary’s Report

One critical area of compliance that we can all be proud of, is that our Club continues to be a leader in the implementation of Victoria’s legislated Child Safe Standards.

The role of the Club Secretary is all about good governance, legal compliance, maintaining club records and making sure we follow our Rules of Association. Compliance with Child Safety Policy, standards and processes, is a continuing area of focus.

All children who participate or work in programs at Bulleen Templestowe Basketball Club have a right to feel and be safe. The welfare of the children in our care will always be our ﬁrst priority. We aim to create a child safe and child friendly environ ment where children feel safe to engage and participate in our programs.

All allegations and safety concerns will be treated very seriously, consistently and conﬁdentially with our robust policies and procedures. We have dedicated Child Wellbeing and Safety Advisors to support these processes.

In the last 12 months we have reviewed and updated the Child Safe Policy, established a BTBC child safety reporting process, hosted a Child Safe Training Webinar for all staﬀ and volunteers and published club speciﬁc guidelines and resources for children, teens and adults. In 2022 we conducted a child safe risk review of all Club Programs and we sought advice from Aboriginal members of our Boomers community about how to strengthen Cultural Safety at our Club. We were fortunate to receive a Victorian Government Grant of $4000 to support this work.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank our volunteer Child Wellbeing and Safety Advisors, Nerida Mason and Daniela Pepe for their outstanding support and my fellow board members for supporting work on Child Safety without reservation. Our focus in the next 12 months will be further strengthening child safety for our referees.

In closing, I would like to express my gratitude to Julia Walsh for being a great leader and mentor and I wish her well as she leaves her position on the Board after 11 years.

Lisa Gandolfo Club Secretary

BIG V 2022-2023 Report

The women’s program has been outstanding this year as we saw the Youth League One Women’s team and the Senior Champ Women’s team, both claim the Championship for 2023.

This season started with new coaches and assistants for all four teams for the BIGV season, not something that we like to see in a program, but the results are still good.

SCW head the line up and coached by Mason Rogers who has spent many years coaching and assisting at WNBL, NBL1 and BIGV level, returns to the Boomers from where he played a couple of seasons in our junior championship program.

Keeping players such as Olivia Bontempelli, Annabel Deerbon and Emily Maltezos from last season set a good foundation for this season and with the addition of a multitude of talent from within the club and from outside. Mason and his assistants, Marcus Embury and Adrienne Callinan proved that this team was a top contender for the SCW trophy ﬁnishing second on the ladder to last years winners Wyndham, the only team to beat us during the season. The SCW got stronger over the ﬁnals series, taking the Championship title home for 2023. A huge congratulations to all involved.

D1M started the season under the guidance of Mark Whitehead, and saw out the season under the guidance of Ryan Rogers.

The D1M started the season 3-5 under Mark Whitehead but made a major resurgence winning 6 of 8 games in the back end of the season including games against eventual champions Shepparton and ﬁnalist Warrnambool after the coaching change.

With the return of Peter Deng Jr, Evan Solakidis, Mack Kanellos & Mitchell White the team had potential with the additions of Riley Johnson, Josh Uhr-Henry and William Alhaddad (our import from Syria). We also had some young players Callum O’Neill, Connor Makarounis and Jack Hoole in the lineup, as players to watch out for in the future.

YL1W consisted of a team of younger athletes who looked like they were keen to play at the senior level and surprised myself with their style of basketball. Led by Hannah Ronan-Black they kept up a high standard throughout the season. Coached by Caitlin Bryan and Lauren Ibbott, they worked tirelessly to keep

energy levels high especially since most of these players were also playing Junior Champ only to play BIGV on Saturday and sometimes following up on the Sunday.

This was Caitlin’s ﬁrst year in the BIGV and she impressed everyone managing to take this team into second place behind Eltham, who went through the regular season undefeated. In front of a huge sea of blue and gold supporters the YL1W became the 2023 Champions in a home game grand ﬁnal defeating Camberwell. A huge congratulations to the coaches and each and every athlete.

YL1M coached by Alex Wilson and assisted by Mike Tzounis, this team consisted of last season’s players Nathan Stewart, Sam Holland, Thomas Giannatos and Marcel Haj along with players from our junior champ U20 boys. This team showed they were not to be taken easily after starting the season with 2 double headers in the first 2 weeks of the season and being 3-2 after 5 games they looked the part. Unfortunately, the team couldn’t keep the momentum going finishing a creditable seventh with a 13-9-win loss record. This team will improve next year after their first season together.

I would like to thank all the coaches, team managers and players for the eﬀort they have put into this season to get us heading back towards having all teams in the championship level, it’s getting closer, and we can do it.

To our support crew Pete, Chloe, Amanda, Craig, Clare and Mary for getting the venue ready week in week out and keeping our supporters fed with hotdogs and chips.

LET’S GO BOOMERS.

Glenn Hoole BIG V Convenor

Junior Championship Program Report 2022-23

Tryouts were once again extremely busy, with over 850 athletes attending. While it is hard to please everyone, we again enforced of the 48-hour black out rule after teams were announced, and it worked well. This resulted in very few complaints, mainly from athletes wanting feedback after not making teams which is understandable. Our team numbers were up from the previous couple of years after COVID which was great to see.

Tryouts were extremely busy with our coaches working hard to ensure we followed process, assessing all the athletes and achieved our goals at tryouts. Our Director of Coaching and myself were both available 24 hours a day during tryouts, which was exhausting, but necessary to ensure the process was run to the high standard we set.

After tryouts we announced teams and went straight into practice matches and grading with all our 1’s teams qualifying into VC.

All of our 415 athletes were ﬁnancial (fully paid) with the Club before we started grading phase 2, with the exception of a handful of families who were placed on payment plans. This is a highly time-consuming task, but a goal we like to achieve.

This year we have seen the return of Junior Academy, which has run all year thanks to Ryan, Jen, Kelvin Bowers and their team of coaches. This will deﬁnitely see growth in our U12 program this coming year in tryouts and will assist us in our target of having more teams in the U12 age group going in the 2024 season.

We have run through a majority of the season without a Director of Coaching and acknowledge that we need to concentrate on athlete and coach development moving forward. General Manager Ryan Rogers has some great ideas around player/coach development which I look forward to working with him to implement them during the 2004 season.

As we plan for the 2023/24 tryouts, we have announced our Head Coaches and the list of coaches who will be in each age group in 2024. We have locked in four practice matches for the coming season with other clubs and having our coaches locked in for next season I feel we are ready for the busy tryout season ahead.

We have had a fantastic representation at SDP and state team level this year, with Lily Carmody, Holly Griffiths and Owen Foxwell all representing the Club as Development Players at WNBL/NBL level. We are currently heading into finals, which is so exciting. We look forward to a successful finals series and wish all of our teams well.

Sally Steel Junior Championship Convenor / Director of the Board

Referee Program 2023

It has been another big 12 months for the BTBC Referee Branch and referee program! We have seen an increase in referee numbers at local level, further development of the referee coaching team and high level representation from officials on state-run competitions such as VJBL and Big V!

With the training of new officials and expansion of our programs reach being the driving force of the last year, we have been able to run beginner referee schools every term with in depth coaching sessions and personalized training programs for officials. Not only have we seen a new wave of green shirt officials, but we have been working with our current cohort to develop their skillset and empower them to be the best official possible. We have run upskilling courses and provided coaching sessions for our officials to ensure they are also continuing on their development pathway.

The combination of our strong referee group paired with the dedication and hard work of our Referee Administrator Melanie Franklin has meant we have been able to roster two referees across nearly every game with solo appointments being almost non-existent. This shows the strength of our program and the commitment our referees have made to the club.

Junior State Panel Representation

Our panel of referees on a Friday night has continued to grow and flourish with development opportunities for upcoming officials and a focus on pathway progression for our more experienced members. The positive feedback and glowing reviews that our officials have received this season should hold them in good stead for appointments at seasons end.

Senior State Panel Representation

This season we had ﬁve referees represent the BTBC Branch on the Big V roster with regular appointments and positive reviews across the season. Our oﬃcials on multiple occasions were appointed to 'Game of the Round" highlighting that our program is strong and our referees are capable of high-level performances in advanced situations.

National Level Representation

At a national level we had many referees represent our club. At the recent National Junior Classic we had officials ranking highly with top playoff game appointments. On top of these appointments we had 2 officials selected to referee a National Wheelchair Basketball team selection camp for the AIS and Basketball Australia. These appointments and nominations once again continue to show the strength of our program and results of our high performance planning.

The referee program would like to acknowledge and thank the BTBC Board and management for the ongoing support provided. This support and good governance has allowed the program to reach for big goals and develop with contemporary practice

Senior Domestic, Junior Domestic & Primary School 2023

Team and Participant Numbers Summary

The Junior Domestic teams play in the EDJBA Competition (Eastern Districts Junior Basketball Association). There are 2 seasons a year (Summer and Winter) with a summary of team and participant numbers above. Games are played on Saturdays and teams also train once a week.

All teams are coached and managed by volunteers which allow the teams to get on court each week and facilitate the enjoyment of Basketball for 1200+ children each season.

This year we surveyed our Winter 2023 Participants. Pleasingly we had 174 survey responses which incorporated 247 active players. In listening to this feedback we have implemented some changes to the Summer 23/24 registration and team selection process.

As we move forward with the aim of growing team and participant numbers each season, we also look to develop strategies and processes to ensure we are supporting our volunteer coaches and managers, improving team selections and player placement and building a community feel within the Junior Domestic Program.

Primary

League Team and Participant Numbers Summary – Foundation (previously Miniball)

Team and Participant Numbers Summary Yr1-6

Junior Domestic Program School

Season Total Teams Total Players Summer 22/23 149 1273 Winter 2023 148 1260 Season Total Teams Total Players Term 4 2022 20 130 Term 2 2023 17 119 Spring 2023 18 136 Season Total Teams Total Players Spring 2022 125 1206 Autumn 2023 129 1258 Spring 2023 136 1190

Senior/Junior Domestic & Primary School Report continued...

Senior Domestic League Team and Participant Numbers Summary

The Primary School League (PSL) continues to be an extremely popular introduction to basketball and acts as a feeder pathway for players to continue through the club onto Domestic and Representative levels. Running two seasons a year being Autumn (Term 1 & 2) and Spring (Terms 3 & 4)

There are currently 15 schools participating in this season’s competition with St Bede’s Primary School joining for their ﬁrst season in the League starting out with 3 teams and Beverley School Primary School joining for their debut with 1 team. The League plays games after school Monday – Friday starting at 4.10pm and ﬁnishing at 6.50pm. In the current season there is a total of 71 games per week.

The Primary School League is in the process of developing a new brand with a slight change of name form Primary School Competition to Primary School League along with a new logo.

The Primary School League (PSL) combines what was previously treated as 2 separate programs of MiniBall for the prep/founda tion children and the competition component for years 1-6. Mini ball now comes under the umbrella of PSL known as the Foundation grade following straight onto the years 1/2, 3/4 and 5/6 Competitions.

All school delegates, coaches, team managers and school committees are volunteers. Without the help from these volunteers, the competition would not be viable. Thank you to all the school volunteers, supervising staff, referees and office staff who all contribute to making this competition a success.

The Senior Domestic League comprises of self-managed teams be it from a club, a group of friends, or a work team. There is Men’s Competitions on a Sunday and Monday and an Over 35’s Men’s on Thursday, Women’s on a Wednesday, and a Mixed option on a Tuesday there’s a competition and grade to suit all who wish to participate.

The League has 50 Games played each week, Sunday – Thursday between 6:30pm – 10:30pm utilizing 3 venues East Doncaster Secondary College (EDSC), Bullen Stadium and Doncaster Indoor Sports Centre (DISC).

A survey went out in May to all participants and we received 162 responses. This feedback provided a good insight into what players like and want to see improve across the League.

The Senior Domestic League is undergoing a rebranding which sees an inaugural Spring Lighting season in 2023 acting as a bridging season to align to a new Summer and Winter season format. With a drop oﬀ in team numbers and participants, signiﬁcant development work will be planned and completed over the rest of 2023 through 2024 to revive the League.

Go Boomers!

Team and Participant Numbers Summary Yr1-6

Season Total Teams Total Players Spring 2022 127 1071 Autumn 2023 125 1027 Spring Lightning 2023 114 838 School Total Teams Ivanhoe Grammar 7 St Clements 20 Heidelberg 2 Belle Vue 7 Boroondara Park 5 Birralee 6 Doncaster Gardens 12 Our Lady of the Pines 13 Serpells 17 St Greg's 5 4 Templestowe Heights 17 Templestowe Park 13 Templestowe Valley 7 St Bede's 3 Beverley Hills 1

Emily Norgate Competitions ManagerSenior and Junior Domestic and Primary School

Community Program Report 2023

As an ongoing commitment to engaging with all members of our community, Bulleen Boomers offer several community programs which cater to all ages and abilities, with the inclusion of several new programs introduced within the last year.

Baby Boomers: Beginners aged 3-5, based on basketball skills & drills which also teaches them how to train - how to wait their turn, lining up, sharing the ball and work as a group so when they move on to Aussie Hoops, the transition will be seamless.

Aussie Hoops: Beginners aged 6-10 (guide only) for weekly skills sessions with a view to build up enough skill and conﬁdence to join a team. Most Aussie Hoopers graduate to Primary School or Junior Domestic basketball after a few terms of participation.

Junior Academy: Extra weekly training/skills sessions for players in the Primary School & Junior Domestic competition. Players are challenged with increasing skills-based drills. Games day on the ﬁnal session gives the participants a chance to utilise the skills they have learned over the term.

Ausome Hoops: Weekly training session for children aﬀected by ASD (Austism Spectrum Disorder) who are unable to participate in mainstream basketball. The coach to player ratio is 1-3, and this is a judgement free zone with a quiet room available if required. Parents are welcome to participate, however the aim is to give the participants enough conﬁdence so parents can step away and enjoy watching their child from the seating.

Walking Basketball: Weekly sessions of low impact basketball, designed for our senior community, or those returning from illness, injury or surgery. Sessions are designed to be very social and relaxed with a focus on gentle movement. We use modiﬁed rings and size 5 balls. Morning tea is provided after every session.

Introduction to Basketball: On site school clinics for Foundation classes, introducing them to basketball using skills-based, fun games. Students are gifted a Bulleen Boomers branded basketball at the end of the session.

On site primary school clinics: On school site, tailored program (depending on the request from the school) for grades 1-6. Single sessions, progressive four-week program or full term program available. Schools can pay for these sessions using the Sporting Schools Grant or some schools choose to pay directly from their program budget.

School Holiday programs: Various sessions are offered, from (but not limited to) Community camps designed for beginners, primary school & junior domestic players, Rep camps which offer our VJBL players the opportunity to refine skills and keep active over periods of down time and Masterclasses which offer an elite skills experience to VJBL players.

All Abilities basketball: TBA

Tournaments:

• U10 - we hosted our first U10 tournament during the June King’s birthday long weekend, in the absence of an U10 age group available at other tournaments run during this time. In a short timeframe, we attracted 20 teams and hosted a very successful tournament, offering a five game minimum per team.

• 3x3 - we hosted our ﬁrst 3x3 tournament in the July holidays, which was extremely successful as a pilot program, attracting 68 teams from far and wide (Werribee & Sale were represented).

• Domestic Tournament – we are hosting our ﬁrst annual domestic tournament in September, slotting into a weekend which previously has had no basketball activity - post EDJBA & VJBL ﬁnals and prior to upcoming rep try outs.

Senior/Junior Domestic & Primary School Report continued...

Junior Domestic coaching assistance: Kelvin “KB” Bowers, our Basketball Development and Domestic Oﬃcer endeavours to meet & greet, assist and support all of our Junior Domestic coaches by visiting them at training sessions, giving assistance at trainings and oﬀering game day advice. He can also provide training programs and a coach’s manual for further assistance.

KB’s Boom Squad: Weekly extra training sessions run by KB, for VJBL players to reﬁne skills and create more opportunities to improve their game.

KB’S Future Boomers Development Squad: Weekly training sessions run by KB for “double bottom aged” players with a view to develop their skills for bottom aged try outs. The program also gives U10 players the opportunity to play in and experience tournaments. The aim is for the participants to play in one tournament per term.

Coach the Coach: Sessions for coaches run by KB to learn eﬀective training, subbing and coaching techniques. Sessions are held per term for four weeks.

All of our Community programs require coaches who are

also give the opportunity to our coaches to develop and increase their coaching abilities and skills, which makes all the programs even more successful than just looking at the number of registrations. Many of these coaches who started in our beginner programs have moved through our system and on to coach at VJBL level.

Engaging with the community which previously had little to no scope for participation has been a particularly rewarding and enjoyable part of my role. Being able to provide all members of our community with an opportunity to participate in basketball is a great honour and privilege for me.

My role as Community Oﬃcer involves a lot of interaction with our members, via email, over the phone or in person. This part of my role is the most rewarding, I genuinely enjoy getting to know people and their stories and helping them to feel part of our larger basketball family.

Jen Hanrahan

General Manager’s Report 2023

It’s amazing how quickly five months has passed since my commencement in the role, and the critical aspect since my arrival has been looking to strategically and operationally assist the club in bouncing back from the post COVID phase.

Leveraging the knowledge and history of established and long-term oﬃce staﬀ and club personnel who highlighted key areas of growth and opportunity along with practical data from surveying members of our club and program participants we have begun the task of reinvigorating a historic basketball brand.

Operationally we have restructured our off-court team to have in-office hands-on staff who are responsible for programs and ensuring clear and concise messaging during business hours, particularly with the implementation of change.

Strategically we have lofty goals of returning a healthy ﬁnancial proﬁt in the coming year which has been geared around maximising canteen operations which have improved considerably in recent months, participation growth and optimising our venue

We have been fortunate to have active partnerships with established entities Bendigo Bank branches at East Doncaster and Templestowe Village, Lavrin & Lawrence Orthodontics (L&L), iAthletic, Charm Building and Construction and The Sporting Globe Doncaster which we will continue to foster, and we look forward to expanding our network in the coming year. We have recently begun a three-year partnership with Asahi Beverages ‘The Home of Schweppes’ returning an iconic brand to the BTBC. Through the work of Denice Murray we have been able to enhance our online community and connection with the wider public via our social media channels which is continually growing and reaching new followers highlighting key events and achievements which we will continue to expand on in the coming year.

On the court, attracting new members to our club and welcoming faces for new events such as 3x3, tournaments and new programs has been a highlight which has been met with enthusiasm which combined with professional delivery will continue to feature well into the future.

Thanks to my dedicated team of Teresa, Helen, Emily, Jen, Kelvin, Clare and Denice who in conjunction with the Board have made my time thoroughly enjoyable and rewarding with many great landmarks achieved already and further initiatives on the horizon.

Moving forward we have the foundation and structure to continue to build and with rigorous planning and execution it's an exciting time to see where can take the next chapter in the club's storied history.

Ryan Rogers Club General Manager