Hi All,

Happy Easter everyone, half way through the break and I hope you are enjoying your chocolate Easter Eggs and the break.

Referees

I was watching the news in South Australia and they were talking about Referees in Basketball. Since COVID they have lost over 30% of their referees. Currently they are cancelling 9% of games a week-end which for us that would be about 15 games a week which is a lot of kids not playing. Referees do take a period of time to refine their skills and become good at being a referee so things do take time after a loss of a referee.

Being Vice President of Southwest Metro I get to see a lot of things that Referees have to handle every week and just the fact they are ridiculed at a lot of games about what they do does take a lot out of them. Imagine in your work you were told by a range of different people (mostly who would truly do not know the rules correctly) that you did not know what you were doing. How would that make you feel.

My rule is if I complain more than 3 times about anything I should do it as I must be better than them . If you continually see errors in something someone does, put your hand up to do the job.

New Rules

Some new rules in place are in regards to Tech Fouls. The new rule in that you can be ejected from the venue on your first Tech foul and there are also new rules in place for spectators. These were enforced at the recent State Championships.

I do not believe this will affect us but it is nice to know the rules and why something occurred if you see that. I think they will start to look at more "unsportsmanlike like fouls" as well. This is where you do not try to stop a player with your chest or you do not look to attack the ball and look to foul the player.

If you watch NBA they have different rules to us as Australia goes by FIBA rules so it does get a little confusing.

State Championship

Below are some pics of our Rockets players that played in the recent Boys U16 State Championships at the Gold Coast. We had 5 boys in Div 1, then 3 boys in Div 2, then 7 Boys in Div 2 boys and in Div 4. It was wonderful to see so many boys playing – these are the only photos I have received but happy to post others.

We also have 4 girls going to the U16 Girl championships and wish them well in Rockhampton.

AGM

We will send out the dates of our AGM within next weeks Newsletter with nomination forms if you would like to be more involved.

Below is some information from our Auditors report from last year.

Some other costs for 2022:

• Game fees $107,1335

• Coaching fees $45,448

Some incomes for 2022:

• Sponsorship - $18,868

• Grants -$9,000

As you can see the amount we spend on professional coaches how that would not be possible without sponsors and Grants. Our fees do not cover a lot of the things we do for our members and sponsors and grants make it possible.

This year a special thanks goes to Johnathan Flannery from Body Corporate Services, Giggs and Natasha Kudhail from AMA products and Bodyrite, Cheyne and Jimmy Nolan from Nolan Finishes, Dr Yu and Wen from JoyEdu Academy, George Yang from Ray White and Ben Ruxton from QFord.

Taiwan

We have too many boys in the 16 age group wanting to go to Taiwan so we may be looking at having trials for the U16 places. If you are super keen please tell us and you may still be able to trial. If you are not successful we can see if you can do some additional training with the team. The Taiwanese schools are looking at coming here to play so those that don't make this trip we will ensure you play in those teams.

Places still available for the13 and under.

Our flights are all organised with our sponsors China Airlines:

CI54 Brisbane to Taipei depart on 17SEP at 22:50 arrive at 05:45 next day

CI53 Taipei to Brisbane depart on 25SEP at 23:55 arrive at 10:45 next day.

In term 2 if you train at Runcorn State High school or Marsden on a Thursday afternoon your training times will change. Both schools will be playing interschool Basketball on those days at their venues.

Runcorn will be an hour later and Marsden will be 30minutes later. Please speak to your coordinator or coach if you are not sure of times.

Back to normal training and games the first week of school so another weeks rest

From holidays

Mark