Page 10 - BWA Annual Report 2020 W

THE CEO'S REPORT
Robert Clement
3 | BWA ANNUAL REPORT 2020
2020 was a very challenging year for everyone and out of adversity comes opportunity and the basketball community responded showing a great resilience and determination to get things back on track. It was again a further year of consolidation for the sport and another year of strong performance across all areas of the business, despite the challenges and uncertainty that we faced early on in the year.
In Participation, we continued to consolidate our regional delivery and 2020 saw us enter the
Goldfields partnering with Kalgoorlie Boulder Basketball Association and the Giants SBL team to place our sixth regional development officer in addition to those currently in the Kimberley, Pilbara, Midwest, Southwest and Great Southern. This is a fantastic outcome and further delivers on our commitment when the individual fee system was introduced in the metro to put back into the strong participation in the regions and help the sport grow and provide opportunity for Western Australians to get involved in the game.
Even though the COVID19 challenge forced a temporary suspension of play and a delay to starting our state leagues and our participation numbers again hovered around 50,000 registered members, with approximately 20,000 in regional areas and 30,000 affiliated in the metropolitan area. This confirms our position as one of the largest participation sports in the state. In addition our Affiliated Associations continue to grow and we now have 78 associations delivering basketball from Kunnunura to Esperence and beyond.
Our school programs and Aussie Hoops
community programs have continued to go from strength to strength even though COVID19 saw some delays to schools allowing outsiders back onto their campuses but gladly that has now changed and our School Slam Series is expanding each year.
Our reach and impact on the local community continues to grow through our 3X3 basketball with over 40 community programs delivered across the state, soon to be an Olympic and Commonwealth Games sport the modified version of the game has real street appeal and is gaining a following and momentum.
2020 was a very challenging year for the High Performance area with the under 18 and under 16 Nationals being cancelled due to travel restrictions and the challenge of not being able to see everyone face to face for extended period. The high performance and
people development team did a fantastic job in developing resources online and maintaining links with our key pathway athletes.
Our Association Development team continued to provide support and guidance to our associations in what is becoming an ever-challenging environment with legal and governance issues and expectations form the community rising all the time and making the gesture of volunteering and ever more complex art. I thank all our 78 associations for the wonderful work they do in the community being ambassadors for the sport of basketball.
Our strategic work in the facilities space is an ever-growing strategic pillar requiring liaison between Local, State and Federal governments. From regional to metropolitan areas, we are working with
a range of stakeholders to try and increase the availability of basketball facilities so our sport can meet the needs and demands of the community. There have been some very exciting conversations
regarding the growth and needs of basketball and there is great hope that more good news will come regarding expansions and developments of basketball specific venues in the near future.
During 2020 we also saw the integration of the
Perth Lynx back into the Basketball WA family and as Keith Dunlap (Chair) has pointed out in his report it was nice to see a predominance of Western Australian athletes in the team. I would like to thank the ladies in the team for taking on such a challenging schedule of 14 games in a month, in addition to being away for six weeks in a hub environment far from family and friends and being so professional and supportive, and while some of the results didn’t fall the way we may have wanted the talent in the team shows that we can look forward
to the years ahead with great optimism for the Perth Lynx.
WA is also one of the leading states in the integra- tion of the Wheelchair Basketball, with a national