Newsletter

The latest England Basketball/
Mini-Basketball England Primary School Newsletter contains information on:-

View the newsletter:-
Mini-Basketball
England newsletter

Register

Here you can register to join Mini-Basketball England and to receive more information about what we do and who we are. Download the registration form
Word document 196kb

Downloading files

There are word and pdf files available for download throughout this website. To view pdf documents you will need Adobe Acrobat:

>>Download Adobe Acrobat<<

Photos/images

Click on any photo throughout the website to view a larger version.

Mini-Basketball England News

Duston Hawks Swoop into Local Basketball

Duston Hawks are a community club, aiming to provide basketball for children of all abilities between the ages of 7-18 years. The club was established in September 2009 through links with The Duston School to create a club where young people can play, receive high quality coaching and improve all in their local area.

photo of referees

Inspirational Leadership

The inspiration for the club came from its founder, Karen Risk, School Sports Coordinator and secondary PE teacher at The Duston School. Having the opportunity to work with the primary children at Northampton Schools Partnership Take 6 Mini- Basketball and multi-sports events she could see the enthusiasm children had for the game. Always looking for school to club links in a variety of sports it turned out there was no club to link to in the locality.

^

Local Funding

With a help from start up grants from Sport Unlimited, Get Sporty and School Sports Coaching Fund a club was started at the secondary school, which benefits from 8 adjustable baskets. There had not been a strong history of basketball at the school so it initially proved difficult to recruit enough interested students to play. The competitive opportunities to play locally also seemed few and far between.

photo of mini-basketball game

Start with Mini-Basketball

We invited children of primary age to a 4.30-5.30pm time slot (a time the facilities were unused anyway) and secondary children to a 5.30-7pm slot (allowing players from other schools time to travel to us). We now have a healthy number of players of all ages with young leaders form the older group regularly helping out with the younger ones. There is a Central Venue League organised by Tony Stewart, the Northants Basketball Development Officer, once a month for each age group on a Saturday which now gives a range of appropriate competition for all abilities and ages.

Involving Parents

By the end of our first year, grants ran out but numbers had risen sufficiently to enable the club to be financially self sufficient with a small charge of £2 per session to all players and a bit of healthy fund raising by parents at the summer fete. To date The Duston School have kindly allowed us access to use their balls and basketball kit. We aim to be able to raise funds to get our own next season.

^

Using Northamptonshire Sport

photo of the basketball team

We were also fortunate to have access to the Northamptonshire Sport Coaching Agency that provided us with some really inspirational coaches.

The Future looks bright

The club has just been awarded a 2 star accredited club award from England Basketball The future of the club is very exciting with parents and players taking on responsibilities to move ahead; going on courses and being active on the committee. What we also really want is for similar clubs to start up in Northampton so the network or basketball family grows.

Amber – The Mini Player who now plays State-side

photo of amber playing basketball

Amber started basketball by playing mini-basketball. She represented England at a European Mini-Basketball Jamboree in Sicily with a party of 5 boys and 5 girls of primary school age. At the Jamboree the children were placed in mixed teams from all 8 participating countries. The event also included other sports and cultural activities.

Amber was a young ambassador as part of the London Olympic bid.

Amber played her mini-basketball and basketball at the famous Youngbloods Club in London. She is now playing at college in Tennessee.

A recent match report
The Lady Crusaders moved to a 7-14 record after defeating Toccoa Falls Eagles last night. photo of amber playing basketball The Lady Crusader were in the lead going into half-time with a score of 31-24. They maintained the lead till the end of the game, finishing strong with a final score of 66-42. The night saw a balanced effort from all the players. Tennessee Temple's Amber Charles led the Crusaders to the win with a 14 point performance. 6 rebounds and 6 steals.

^