The Templar Warriors Newsletter

Issue Number 13

Wednesday, 14th December, 2022

Another year is coming to an end and we are finishing off with our final newsletter for 2022 and what a year it has been.

We have communicated with over 200 schools, private, public, primary and secondary. Through that, we have visited close to twenty schools and conducted FREE basketball clinics for over 5,000 students. It’s an achievement we are extremely proud of. It’s also an achievement we couldn’t have achieved without the cooperation of the schools we visited, their welcoming approach and the enormous privilege of providing our free clinics and lessons to those school’s students.

For us, it has been both an amazing and educational experience. We have seen for ourselves the enormous variety and diversity within our city and the different challenges faced by the teachers and students of the schools that we visited.

What we discovered was that even though we are a diverse society, it’s what unites us that is extremely strong and one of the things that does unite us is our love of sports. At the BMBA our goal is to go above and beyond with the services that we provide through our clinics and through that we believe we have brought significant enjoyment to so many of those 5000+ students. A big part of that has been due to the elite-level knowledge of our people and the kids having access to our two North American imports in Joe Davis and Jon Kirkman. Many of the students we visited had never been exposed to this and they loved every minute spent with us. Students at all the schools were extremely well behaved and polite and staff were welcoming, friendly and supportive which made our school visits so enjoyable.

From those school clinics, we conducted four school holiday camps, provided after-school training each week throughout 2023 at four venues and now we are entering multiple teams in domestic competitions and tournaments. After two years of covid-19 restrictions, it has been a wild ride and one which we hope has played a legitimate part in getting kids off screens and back into some positive activity. None of this is possible without the schools who have booked us in for our FREE clinics and then supported us with our programs outside school hours which is what finance these FREE clinics at the schools.

To all schools, their staff and their students we wish you and your families all the best for the festive season and hope you have an enjoyable break over the summer. We look forward to reconnecting in the new year with you all and to bigger and better things from BMBA basketball for your schools.

News, announcments and updates

FREE School Clinics a huge success in 2022!

As we said in our article above we visited close to twenty schools in 2022, some of which are pictured below, to conduct FREE clinics for over 5,000 students. This week we are conducting our last clinic for the year at Valkstone Primary School in Bentleigh East. Schools are currently booking us in for clinics for 2023 right now, so make sure your students don’t miss out and get us booked in for 2023 before the term ends via our contact details at the foot of this page.

Westall Primary School enjoy a great time with the BMBA

Recently we had our North American import Jon Kirkman spend a week at Westall Primary School, where he conducted one of our FREE clinics for the schools 300+ students.

Westall Primary School PE Teacher Emily Acklom was extremely pleased with the standard of the clinics and how it was conducted. We were extremely impressed with the school, the staff, it’s facilities and most importantly the behaviour, politeness and enthusiasm of all of the Westall Primary School students.

We look forward to visiting Westall again in 2023.

Can you help us to provide even more FREE clinics in 2023?

To continue to provide these FREE clinics at schools in 2023, we need to ensure that the various basketball programs that we conduct outside of schools hours are well supported. Anything your school can do to help us promote the below programs would be greatly appreciated. For the keener schools we can even bring these programs to your school and run them after school hours on site for your students. All we need is enough interest and enthusiasm from staff and students.

For social media and newsletter purposes, you can can right click on all the flyer images below to save them as a jpeg file, or you can click on the link provided below each flyer image to download a pdf file version.

WITH THE BMBA IN 2023

In 2023 the BMBA will be providing a wide range of programs that caters for every level of junior basketball. Check them out below.

Opportunties to join a Templar team now!

The BMBA have entered teams into the Southern Basketball Association’s Autumn Domestic competitions which commence at the start of term one 2023.

We have entered one team into the below age groups. There are spaces in these teams, but we will also look to form other teams in these age groups. If your child’s age group/gender cmpetition isn’t listed below then we would happily looking at entering a team where there is enough interest. Finally there is nothing that would make us happier than to form teams from your school’s student body to play in these competitions, so please feel free to share this far and wide.

U10 Girls – CLICK HERE U10 Boys – CLICK HERE

U12 Girls – CLICK HERE U12 Boys – CLICK HERE

U14 Boys – CLICK HERE

U16 Boys – CLICK HERE U18 Boys – CLICK HERE

This is the first time that the BMBA will be entering multiple teams into a domestic season, so we are excited about the journey that lies ahead for our junior participants. They are set to enjoy elite-level coaching at both training and now in matches as well that no other club delivers.

IT’S A GREAT TIME TO BECOME A WARRIOR!

In 2023 the BMBA will be providing a wide range of programs that caters for every level of junior basketball. Check them out below.

January 2023 school holiday camp.

Join a BMBA Team for 2023

Click here to download a PDF version of this flyer

After-School Elite level training for everybody.

Our Great Introductory program for beginners

Click here to download a PDF version of this flyer

For the more serious players, in 2023 they can join us on our AAU journey.

In 2023 the BMBA will be looking to exploreenter into AAU tournaments.

AAU stands for Amateur Athletic Union and originated in the USA to give athletes the chance to showcase their talents to potential college and pro scouts. The AAU has also brought its competitions to Australian shores and we want to give our BMBA teams a chance to participate in these AAU tournaments here. Our ultimate ambition is to travel to the USA in 2024 and beyond to participate in their elite tournaments that are conducted in various states there.

The AAU ambition is a longer-term one. We hope to play in tournaments sometime in 2023 in Australia, but we are looking further forward for our younger participants, where they can dream of bigger things with the chance of a USA tour later in their secondary college school years.

Keep an eye out for further details in online newsletters in 2023. If you would have students you think that would be interested in this amazing opportunity, please provide them with our email at the foot of this page for them to contact us to register their interest.

Why the Templars?

We chose the Templars as we believe some values are eternal.

We don’t just want our symbol/mascot to project strength and tenacity, we want it to be something that defines our culture and the values we want to embed amongst our participants and players.

While the Templar Knights were fierce Medieval Warriors, they also lived by a code of honour, respect, courage and they dedicated their lives to self-sacrifice in the pursuit of servitude towards others.

We believe that this represents the culture we want to build within our program perfectly.

Younger Kids

We do our best to group participants to match their ages and abilities as much as possible. This ensures the kids obtain as much enjoyment as possible from their time with us. Generally, for younger kids, the emphasis is as much on having some fun while being taught some new skills to use in their domestic games or programs.

In teaching these skills we do so as much as possible through drill formats with the kids in teams and engaging in competitive drills with plenty of encouragement and with more emphasis on attempting to use their newly taught skills as on winning.

Older Kids

For our older groups, we teach them more through simulated match situations and scrimmage games. Drills are still used but with the mindset of using these drills to develop skills for games situations and then putting them into those game situations.

While still focusing on enjoyment and fun, older participants are normally looking for more challenging training and coaching with a greater emphasis on competition and challenges with the skills being taught.

Girls

Our training is designed for both boys and girls. Where numbers permit we organise girls into “girl only” groups which make things more enjoyable for the girls. We also design different skills challenges for the girl’s groups.

In the unusual event (especially in the older groups) that a girl or girls would prefer to join in with the boys, we would look at that situation where capabilities permit it.

Boys

Of course, our training is open for boys as well. As with the girls, we look to form them into boys-only groups. This again is dependent on the number of enrolments we have.

These groups are sorted along both age and capability lines as well as keeping kids in their friendship groups where possible. Most importantly, as best as possible we place participants in groups where they are comfortable with their current skill level and where they can obtain the most enjoyment from their participation in the BMBA program.

For the more motivated

We also have groups for those players who are more motivated and wish to obtain more serious training to improve their game. We can either form them into a separate group or embed them in a group and simply provide them with more challenging drills and skills for them to use and learn from.

They will receive condensed high-level coaching and drills that will challenge them and help them improve their current skills considerably or learn new ones for future games and opportunities.

Our Coaches

Our Coaches are predominately players Bob has brought through with him via his caching career. They all have predominately graduated through Bob’s representative basketball programs. We also recruit coaches from Universities and schools who have either played or coached at a high level. All our coaches are trained in the drills and basketball programs that we implement and are supervised through all our sessions. Naturally, all of them will have to obtain and provide Working with Children Checks to be able to work with us, where they are old enough to have one.

Our Venues

At the moment we operate from four indoor school venues. These are at

St Michael’s Grammar in St Kilda

Wellington Secondary College in Mulgrave

McKinnon Primary School in Ormond and

Westall Primary School in Westall

If your school would like your students to have access to our coaching and training to take advantage of the wonderful programs listed in this newsletter then get in contact with us via our details below.

Book a clinic today!

We are now ready and willing to go. So book us in to visit your school to promote our sport, our program and the possibilities we can present for many of your students.

CLICK HERE to contact us today to book us into a visit to your school.

BOB MANN BASKETBALL ACADEMY (BMBA): ABN 33 497 866 231

CONTACT NAME: Bob Mann

CONTACT EMAIL: bob_mann@bmba.net.au

CONTACT MOBILE: 0490 823 400