The Board of Directors of Newcastle Basketball would like to congratulate and welcome our new General Manager, Matt NEASON. Matt comes with a wealth of knowledge in both business and venue management, along with substantial basketball experience. Matt has previously managed Rockhampton Basketball for a number of years, implementing the introduction of Rockhampton into the QLD NBL1 competition. Matt has also had major involvement in Coaching within State and Country, and was formerly appointed to a coaching position at the Australian Institute of Sport. Matt will commence in January 2023. We are excited to have Matt on board and look forward to working with him.
The Board would also like to acknowledge the outstanding work completed by Acting General manager Elyse HICKS and her team in continuing to run our association successfully on limited staff over the last few months whilst the search for a new General Manager was occurring. The dedication of Elyse and the team during this trying time was truly remarkable. The long hours worked by our employees has seen another successful year and competitions at capacity in every facet of the game.
In relation to the Member Survey the Board have now received results and feedback from the 8% of members that replied. To those members we thank you for taking the time to reply. We also thank BNSW for their assistance with this survey and for the presentation and recommendations they provided. For our members information, there were three main areas of concern relating to this survey and the Board and Management will work to address these.
There was obviously a lot of feedback regarding the state of our current facility and the need to build a replacement stadium as soon as practicable. We can announce that the local Building Project Team, consisting of David Shanley and Larry Davidson, have now been joined by Simon HAIRE from BNSW. We thank BNSW CEO Maria Nordstrom, and Simon, for giving their time to this project. Simon has advanced experience in State Venue projects and builds, and his assistance has already been outstanding. Please be assured that this team, who will now work with our new GM, are making positive headway in moving towards the build of our new facility. The Project team are also working to ensure basketball has a substantial footprint in each of the Council areas we service. We will keep you updated with any major developments. In relation to our current facility there will be maintenance work conducted during the close of the stadium over the Xmas/New year period.
Another major concern of our members was Referee Development, Training and Performance within the Association. We are currently in the process of employing a new referees co-ordinator who will oversee this development with the assistance of an experienced team of Supervisors.
Lastly there was feedback in relation to Coaching and the development of our local club and representative coaches. With the departure of Tim Mallon, one of the Nations most experienced coaches, Newcastle Basketball has worked with Tim to implement a Committee of local head coaches. This extremely experienced and successful group will implement the coaching programs provided to our players, along with the development of our Association coaches. This Committee is led by Life Member Todd TURNER. It also consists of Anthony Foy, Cheryl Wills, Josh Morgan, Cath TURNER and Adam Lareau. In addition, with our new GM Matt Neason commencing soon, we are about to have the luxury of a former AIS Coach working within the Newcastle Basketball Association.
We thank you all for your feedback, and please be assured the Board Directors will continue to work with Management to bring the best experience possible for our members.
Kind Regards
Newcastle Board Executive
