Message from the President

Message from the President, PLBA

Before anyone expresses dissatisfaction regarding the teams or clubs they’ve been assigned to, I urge you to step back and consider the position we were in just four to five weeks ago.

At that time, we held an emergency meeting with club presidents, delegates, and the executive to discuss whether the season could even proceed. We were down to two courts, with uncertainty about whether Court 2 could be repaired/available in time. The conversation revolved around which grades might have to be cancelled … or whether we could run the season at all.

Despite those challenges, we’ve managed to proceed with the season, albeit with only two courts.

This has taken an extraordinary amount of effort and collaboration from every club. Let me remind you that while the intent-to-play form asked for your preferred club, it clearly stated that preferences were not guaranteed.

Every club, along with the executive, has poured countless hours into organizing this season, often with minimal support. Many clubs have called for committee members and volunteers, and yet the response from parents has been inadequate.

It’s also important to understand that some players have had to join other clubs. We aim to run a six-club competition across all grades, not only to keep things competitive but also to prevent one club from being overwhelmed with too many teams - while others have none.

We began this specific approach three years ago to make the workload more manageable for all PLBA clubs and it has been very successful. Other sporting codes in Port Lincoln have commended the approach taken by our association … and it has also been positively commented on from other basketball associations within country South Australia.

Additionally, Basketball Connect, the program mandated by Basketball SA, simply does not work for our competition. It’s been extremely complicated, and we are now manually inputting player's details into the system, which adds an enormous burden of work. So, yes, you’ve been waiting for your team and grade details, but we’ve been held back by the limitations of the Basketball Connect application that we are required to use.

If you want your children to be on the courts, then understand this:

• sometimes you will not get your preferred team,

• your preferred friendship group,

• or your preferred grade.

The priority was and remains ensuring that the children get the opportunity to play basketball, and we’ve succeeded in that.

Before offering criticism or negative feedback, please recognise the enormous emotional and mental effort that a very small group of people has put into making this season happen. It's easy to complain, but far harder to step up and contribute. We need understanding, not negativity.

Carly Thomson
President
Port Lincoln Basketball Association.