Basketball England supports Girls' Basketball through Regional Associations
Regional Paper: FIBA u14 3x3 Girls Development
What is it?
Basketball England are passionate about bridging the gap between male and female participation and as such have attracted funding from FIBA to pilot a u14 girls 3x3 programme to begin addressing the gap. The programme will be split regionally with each region playing an important role in organising an opportunity to attract new girls to the game and further foster an interest by those who have perhaps only dipped their toe in so far.
What are we looking to achieve?
The project will create a minimum of 11 girls u14 3x3 basketball tournaments across England, 10 regional events and 1 national celebration. Each tournament will attract 20 teams containing 5 participants each giving a national yield of 1,000 new girls to the game.
What will it look like?
Each of the 10 regions will be commissioned by Basketball England to organise a one off 3x3 celebration event where girls are given the opportunity to experience basketball in a fun, encouraging and social environment. While the events will be geared up as tournaments in design, we are keen to ensure that the competition is pitched at an entry level that encourages those new to or just entering the game. Each region will then select 2 teams to put forward to the National Celebration – these could be existing teams or an All-Star team consisting of the most talented and those who showed the best commitment, team play or attitude.
Basketball England Investment
We are inviting each region to submit an expression of interest for £1,500 of funding to deliver the regional competition in their area.
Basketball England will be providing each region with the following equipment:
10x 3x3 Balls for use on the day (to be kept by the Region)
100x Reversible Jerseys for use on the day (to be kept the Region)
1st, 2nd and 3rd placed team medals (15 total)
1x Overall winner’s trophy
When will the project begin?
The national celebration is scheduled for 16th June 2018 and to be held at the National Basketball Performance Centre, Manchester. We would require regions to submit their teams by Monday 28th May to make arrangements for the national event. We would suggest that regional competitions take place between April and May.
What will Regions be required to do?
Venue Selection
- Select a venue suitable for hosting a medium sized event, where possible, we think a 2-court facility would work best. Things to think about include; transport accessibility, parking, spectator space, changing facilities, refreshments, breakout space. Promotion
- How will you access new markets to attract to your event? Can you forge or utilise existing partnerships with schools & Schools Games Organisers, County Sports Partnerships, club networks, non-traditional partners such as religious or community groups. Event Organisation
- The logistics on the day, everything from Safeguarding to on court stuff like refereeing and table officiating. Who can assist from your region? Can different people be appointed to cover different roles?
Financial Management
- Each region will be allocated a budget to run the event and you can get creative with income generation. You may wish to charge a nominal fee for players to get involved or may have an enthusiastic volunteer who can help run a refreshment stand for the day. The main things to think about include court hire and officials but extra things may include printing, volunteer t-shirts, sound system, giveaways and prizes etc.
Make it memorable
- How can you make your event one not to be missed? Think about things that will appeal to u14 girls. Music, opportunities to socialise and meet others, social media etc. We’ll be providing ideas together with a toolkit using the research we have around ThisGirlCan campaign.
Your event team
Basketball England will support each Region in putting on their event with a budget, toolkit, tips and advice. In terms of manpower it would be great to see each area within your region sharing their skills to ensure that as many girls hear about the opportunity to get involved. Beyond the club network, might there be a Higher Education Basketball Ambassador in your area who is keen to help? Might one of your EABL colleges want to lend a hand in the officiating as experience for their student athletes? Perhaps a handful of players, youngsters or adults, in your region are budding photographers, reporters or DJs?
Why 3x3?
Together with FIBA, we see the value in the 3x3 format of the game in that it enables more time on the ball, fewer players to arrange a game and shortened game times that allow lots of games to be played in one-time slot.
Monitoring
While we’re more interested in what’s taking place on court we will require some details from the participants to feedback to FIBA on the work we all undertake. As such, we will only be collecting basic details such as date of birth, postcode, ethnicity, and disability information. Having this information, together with participant names will assist us in tracking the long-term journeys of the girls involved.
What’s next?
As a first step we are asking that each region sends an initial expression of interest to their designated regional contact by Monday 27th November. From here Basketball England will provide all further details and an MOU to outline the roles required by both us and the yourselves as the deliverer.
For any queries please contact your regional contact
Jon: Senior Relationship & Coordination Manager – Central jon.stonebridge@basketballengland.co.uk 07508 981 242 Dave: Relationship & Coordination Manager – North dave.stott@basketballengland.co.uk 07904 029 089 Laura: Relationship & Coordination Manager – South laura.doherty@basketballengland.co.uk 07525 809 461
