Its been 10 months since my journey with BNSW started and I thought it pertinent to share some of the things we have worked on this year and things which will be announced shortly.
Firstly, I would like to thank you for being embracing, welcoming and for sharing your challenges and providing feedback to us in an open and honest way.
We are looking forward to continue building on the work we have put in place this year and make our sport Everyone’s game in NSW! But before we do that I would like sharing some of the key parts of our journey so far.
When I started in February I walked in and met a group of people who were keenly looking to meet their new leader and also a bit nervous as to where that journey would take them. All good people and with a mix of good skill sets to support and develop our sport.
Our first two months were focused on meeting Associations and partners while building the program and deliverables for the State Conference on April 1 followed by the AGM on the 2nd.
Here is an overview of the projects and initiatives we have been working on and roll out over the last 10 months.
WEBSITE
On the 31st of March, we rolled out a new website with a new structure and much easier navigation. Everything we publish on the website is fed to our Facebook page which now has 13,000 followers. We have a goal to respond to all queries from our Website and Social Media Channels within the same day. We are also aiming at delivering value to you our members by publishing grass-roots stories, association related tools, grants and support programs, cross-market your programs via the broader BNSW channels, team trials and selections including selection criteria, tenders, and EOIs, news stories about the State and National teams and general updates.
Please subscribe to the website and like or follow our Facebook pages to receive timely and up to date information from us.
Our next step in the development of the website is to include a blog page where we can provide up to date information from each part of the business regularly. This is in final stages of development so watch this space. We will also update our staff page at the same time, so you know who to contact for what queries and questions.
STRATEGIC AND OPERATIONAL PLAN
Following the State conference, we wet internally and started doing some work with our staff and completed the Strategic plan, which will guide the business until 2020. We undertook a re-organisation and re-wrote all position descriptions and put in place an HR function as well as an internal performance management system. All functions operational plans were completed which included KPIs and targets. We also had an internal workshop and focusing on building a more customer-focused culture with all parts of the business responsible for the customer experience and resolving problems and challenges.
ROADSHOW AND BOARD PRESENTATIONS
When I started it was clear we had not been seen and visited our customers/members across the state for some time. In light of that, we have now made a commitment to visit our members more regularly face-to-face and ensure we communicate in a more timely fashion and provide opportunities for you to provide feedback to us and know your queries and questions will be answered and addressed.
In June we started our Regional Roadshows in Dubbo. Over the six week period, we visited 13 hubs and met with committees from 43 associations. Our presentations included an overview of our shared vision for Basketball and the strategic plan, which will provide us with a framework and plan to achieve that vision by 2020. We shared the new website and the navigation and how to pro-actively seek information through the website and BNSW. We also shared the sporting schools’ program funding, grants available for associations and how to apply for them and sought feedback on a new junior competition format for the country. We also re-introduced our CALMs who were re-named BDOs and they spoke to the purpose of their roles and how they would be able to support the Associations moving forward. The concept of Association health checks was introduced and a plan for the rollout was communicated. The purpose of the Health Checks are for us to truly understand the key challenges facing our members and volunteer committees, so we can provide support and programs in the areas you need it the most.
During this time we also did board presentations to all associations in Metro introducing the Strategic plan and key initiatives for 2017 and 2018. The roadshow and board presentations were concluded at the end of July just in time for the finals month in August.
FINALS
Firstly, I would like to thank the associations who hosted the finals this year. We appreciate you working with us to deliver a wonderful experience for all the players and the parents. We know it takes a significant number of volunteers for these events to run smoothly and to plan. So, to all the volunteers you are doing an enormous job and for that, we are indebted to you and very grateful you are willing to volunteer your time. This also goes to our referees; referee coaches, court supervisors, officials and statisticians without you our sport would not function. We, Thank you for your dedication and time to our sport.
During the Waratah League Finals weekend at Maitland, we for the first time live streamed every game with courtside commentators on both BNSW’s YouTube channel and Facebook. We have had over 50,000 touches of the live streams from the finals weekend and we are looking to build on that in 2018 to include advertising and promotions.
PARTNER TENDERS
In September we went to market to secure new contracts for our apparel and balls. The purpose of this was to ensure we would provide more value back to our members in both these categories and drive more sponsorship $ in to our sport for 2018 and beyond.
We have now secured our apparel partner for the next 2 years and we know this will provide us with new opportunities and funding we have not previously had. We were also seeking a partner who could introduce us to the broader corporate community in NSW. We also introduced licensing as a category for the apparel tender to provide more value back to our members. Our announcement on this will be communicated shortly.
We are also in the final stages of signing our ball partner for the next 3 years and we are very excited about the opportunity this will provide our sport in NSW. Our next step is to secure more sponsors across the league.
INFRASTRUCTURE AND PARTNERSHIPS
As we are all very acutely aware we are very short of suitable courts and venues for our sport across the state. This year we have seen a significant shift in government focus and new funding opportunities have arisen across Regional NSW under the Regional Infrastructure fund.
And Building Better Region’s funding. There are a significant number of infrastructure projects at various stages of planning across NSW we will keep you posted on these as they progress further. We have now invested in an Infrastructure and Partnership Manager who will be working closely with State government departments, Local Councils, Odium Planning Group and commercial partners to one develop a working model for new facilities as well improving on existing facilities to allow our sport to grow.
MEMBERSHIP REGISTRATION AND COMPETITION MANAGEMENT SYSTEM
When looking at what makes it easy to engage with a sport the portal that allows you to find information on where to play and to register your child or register as an adult is a part of what drives that initial experience. In our efforts to provide a unified experience for our members and our sport all states agreed in 2016 to progress and develop a Digital platform, which would allow our sport to grow. The membership registration system is the first step towards that strategy becoming a reality. We are now in the process of rolling out FSP Manager from Sports TG across NSW. It is the first step in making our sport more digital aligned to how our members interact and want to interact with sport today and in the foreseeable future. The next step on this journey is the integrated competition management system, electronic score sheet, FIBA live stats app, integrated online shop and coach and referee accreditation. This will take some time to roll out and we will only do this when we know our associations are outside major competition windows. We will continually aim to communicate with you and support you through this journey and have invested in a local resource Ash Albury who will work with our associations on a day-to-day basis and provide on the ground support to you and your staff. We also have support from Basketball Australia and our vendor Sports TG. For the rollout in December Ash and Geoff Tripp will setup all your products and competitions for you and work with to ensure you are ready to go live. Please work with us through the process and Geoff will work individually with those requiring some specific assistance in ensuring you can operate in a way that will meet and support your customers.
MEMBERSHIP MODELS AND AGREEMENT
Our Growth and Inclusion group headed up by our Director David Brettell, Graeme Reid (Norths), Steve Burke (Hills), Graeme Haney (Illawarra), Neil Goffett (Newcastle) and BNSW CEO Maria Nordstrom, GM Community Growth Geoff Tripp and BDOs Scott Balsar and Amy McGregor have worked through a number of topics during the year and finalised a new membership structure which was ratified by the board in August, 2017. We will communicate more about this shortly but it will allow more flexibility for our small association in the country who are running shorter competitions in attracting members. The Board has also agreed to freeze the fees for 2018 and will continue with the ARP payment methodology for next year as well. We would like to formally thank the Growth and Inclusion group for their participation, input, and hard work during the course of this year. Your participation has allowed us to achieve some clear outcomes, which we now can move forward with. The group will now work in an advisory capacity for BNSW to call up on from time to time in the future.
In metropolitan Sydney the Metropolitan Advisory group chaired by Steve Burke with members from Hawkesbury, St George, Norths, Hornsby, Bankstown and City, have formally agreed for all Associations in Sydney to be operating within their designated Local Council areas. BNSW will work with all Metro Associations to finalise the membership agreements to that effect shortly. This will also include growth plans and association’s support requirements from BNSW clearly laid out.
COMPETITIONS
The feedback around our competitions has been quite positive for this year. We thank you for your feedback and for being open and honest in letting us know what and where you would like to see improvements. During the last 4 months, we have been consulting with you on a proposed change for the junior competitions in the country. We are pleased to be able to roll out the new Championship format from February 2018 and thank you for working with us through the process.
HIGH PERFORMANCE
Our High-Performance team has recently undertaken a number of changes. We have for the first time undertaken an EOI process with interviews for all our State Coach positions all being conducted at the one time. We also had a couple of very experienced coaches be part of the interview panel and process. We thank Rex Nottage and Cheryl Chambers for their time and support in taking part in the interview process. We are further announcing all trials and team selection on our website and Facebook and the selection criteria for the state teams are posted under High Performance on our website. By the end of November then there will be a manual for our State Team Managers to follow for all of our events. We are into the second year of our MOU with the Regional Academies and have this year added the Western Sydney Academy and Thank Martin and the associations in the area who are have been working on making the new program a reality in western Sydney. The Regional Academies deliver the Developing Athlete Program in regional NSW and the west and south-west of Sydney. In July we signed an MOU with the 6 Sporting HS in NSW with Basketball programs. We are delighted to have them onboard and the HP coaches will work with the schools and attend a few training sessions per year, support coach selection and development and are run development days with the schools through the year. We also received allot feedback around our SPP program location. We have based on the feedback signed an MOU with the Flames and are running the girl’s SPP program at Sydney University and the Flame’s coaching staff are involved in some of the sessions throughout the year. We can also announce Sam Gruggen will be joining the team starting Monday 6th November. Sam has spent the last 4 years working in the High-Performance program in Tasmania.
ASSOCIATION SUPPORT AND SHARED SERVICES
We recognise we have not been pro-actively supporting our volunteers and staff running our associations across NSW. The role of the BDOs is to pro-actively work and support their designated associations and work to improve governance, operational and financial management, marketing, Member Protection and HR, Finance, Marketing, and branding as well as member and competition management. We are currently working through association Health Checks across the state and Thank you for your support in engaging with us through this process. The health checks will allow is to prioritise the top three areas where we can support you in developing our sport in your area. We will also start rolling out training and programs in the areas where we see skills gaps or develop a shared services model where appropriate and feasible. The areas we are currently exploring based on feedback from our Metro Advisory group are Marketing and branding support as well as Financial Management support. We will come back to you with more details in the New Year.
So what are the next steps…?
Our priorities for next year will be focused on building support for you to enable more on the ground resources and tools for both development and you are associations. We are also working on gaining more funding and sponsorships to further build programs and improve our leagues. I will report back to you in regards to this when we have completed our association health checks. We are keen to set up a President forum for next year and will seek support from a number of you in a working group to set that up. In the meantime please feel free to email or phone me with any feedback or suggestions. We hope to see you at one of the Flames or Kings game over the next couple of months.
Look out for the Basketball Festival on the 9th of December. We will run a 3×3 tournament outside QUDOS Bank arena for the full day followed by the doubleheader with the Flames vs Perth and the Kings vs Brisbane. We will also invite our award winners for the year to the games and we will have an I am a girl event running on the day as well.
All participants in the 3×3 event will have free entry to the doubleheader. Hope to see you all there!
All the best
Maria Nordstrom.