Basketball New South Wales held their annual awards on the 8th of December, 2019 at Qudos Bank Arena during the WNBL & NBL double header featuring the Sydney Uni Flames & Sydney Kings. BNSW would like to congratulate all nominees and award recipients on their achievements and for joining us to celebrate.
State Team of the Year:
Basketball New South Wales is pleased to announce that the NSW Country Ivor Burge Women side is the 2019 State Team of the Year.
NSW Country became the 2019 Australian Champions at the Ivor Burge Championships in Canberra earlier this year. This was the first time that NSW Country has won the title since the tournament’s inception in 1995. Following the team’s amazing win, three team members players were selected in the Australian National team to compete at the 2019 INAS Global Games held in Brisbane in October 2019.
George Thompson Memorial Award:
The George Thompson Memorial Award is a recognition award for outstanding contribution to women’s basketball. Open criteria to recognise the outstanding efforts of an individual and a team, and or association and/or organisation’s to women’s basketball. Fittingly, the George Thompson Memorial Award for Outstanding Contribution to Women’s basketball in NSW is named in his honor.
Congratulations to Newcastle Basketball Association on being the of the George Thompson Memorial Award.
The 2019 Newcastle women’s representative program was all conquering with the association winning state titles in the Championship Women, Youth League Women and Under-18 Girls divisions.
Newcastle’s Division 1 junior girls teams also performed brilliantly with Under-12s being crowned EJL champions, the under-14s finished 7th at the Australian Under-14 Club Championships in Ballarat and the Under-16 girls were EJL champions and finished third in CCL. Newcastle has provided a bright future for all women playing basketball in the area with an impressive 38% female participation rate for members aged 6-17 years old.
On the national stage, Newcastle’s local juniors also continued to excel with Katie-Ray Ebzery again selected for the Opals, Isabel Palmer and Chyra Evans representing Australia in junior teams and five Newcastle juniors are currently playing in the WNBL, Katie and Alison Ebzery, Hannah Young, Lara McSpadden and Maddie Allen. Of course, Newcastle is also what Suzy Bacovic called home during her junior years.
Most Improved Association:
Congratulations to the Inner West Bulls Basketball Association.
Inner West has improved their governance with a well-established committee with strong skills sets in business and finance and the association now not only debt-free but also in a position to have a staff member support the club. They have established a good relationship with the government in their local area. They have also established themselves with a strong family ethos and are growing their domestic competitions and bringing more girls to their programs with a new team of girls winning Div 3 last season in their first year playing. With their local competitions now running out of Netball Central, their numbers are growing across all age groups.
Dr. John Raschke Award:
This award acknowledges the outstanding achievements by an individual to develop the game of basketball. Basketball New South Wales would like to congratulate Lorraine Landon OAM.
Lorraine Landon has established herself as one of the outstanding administrators in Australian basketball. She played for NSW, was a long-time junior coach and administrator for the Bankstown club. Lorraine also lent her hand at the Sydney Kings, the Sydney Flames, and Basketball Australia.
Lorraine was the Australian Women’s team manager at two Olympics (1984 and 1988) and General Manager for Basketball at the Sydney 2000 Olympics. She has been a driving force behind the WNBL in Australia and women’s basketball in general. Lorraine has been the Executive director of the NBL, chair of the FIBA Women’s Commission and a member of the NSW Sports Advisory Committee. She is a Life-Member of the Bankstown club and BNSW. Her contributions to international basketball have been recognised with the IOC Women in Sports Award 2004, IOC Golden Rings 2000 and the FIBA Merit Award 2000. Lorraine Landon was awarded an OAM for services to basketball in 2011.
Chairman’s Award:
This award recognises the Association of the Year. Congratulations to Gosford City Basketball Association .
Gosford City has had many significant positive changes over the last few years in many different areas within the business side of the sport.
GOVERNANCE– Best practice approach, merging two entities into one Gosford City Basketball Association/Gosford City Sports Stadium which resulted in Central Coast Basketball Inc.
Having a Board of Directors that are not only passionate about Basketball but also have a high level of business acumen and complementary skill sets who are business orientated and strategic in their approach. All Board members are like minded and have the Associations best interest at heart. All Board members have either had Board experience or have had some governance training, provided by the Association.
FINANCE/AUDIT: LOAN– Lobbying local politicians to get the loan forgiven by State Government allowing our Association to be debt free and have a more certainty for the future.
Best practice approach to accounting/audit processes continually reviewing and improving.
EVENTS– Hosting the Kings Pre-season Camp/Game in 2018 v College team St Mary’s and hosting Waratah League Finals Weekend successfully in 2019. Regular hosts of BNSW EJL Rounds, NSW Country, State Championships with hospitality a key component of the events. Our association and the staff are known as friendly and approachable and hosts of premier events.
COMMUNITY PARTNERSHIPS: We have built many mutually beneficial strategic partnerships with local business in recent years allowing us to be financially sustainable resulting in us having the resources to provide better programs and activities for our members and visitors.
BASKETBALL PROGRAM: Strong Junior and Senior Basketball program with an established player pathway for local players. Winning the 2019 Waratah League for Championship Men with majority of players junior Rebels together and progressing to the Senior league together. We have strong domestic numbers and have outgrown our current facility which requires us to hire external facilities to meet demand. We have had an expansion plan in place for a few years and we have plans drawn up and are moving towards a Development Application in the near future.
INNOVATIVE: We are visionary in our approach to governance, recently we completed a significant upgrade to our Information Technology infrastructure with stream friendly connections including a major upgrade to computers. We are optimistic and collaborative when exploring growth opportunities.
GOVERNMENT RELATIONS: We have worked really hard to establish good relationships with all levels of Government. We have also worked hard to submit and be successful in gaining various grants to improve our resources and our ability to deliver better programs to members and visitors.
CULTURE: At our recent strategic planning day we have looked at our values to ensure they are universal to our Board, Staff and playing members. The process has involved communication with the Board, Staff and various members including players, coaches, referees and parents.
On behalf of Basketball NSW, congratulations to all our award recipients.
CLICK HERE for Photo Gallery (Credit Nigel Owen )