Stadiums

Two weeks ago Ivanhoe President Tim Butler and myself met with Wayne Bird, CEO of Basketball Victoria to discuss the problems facing clubs in the EDJBA.  Tim has some very strong views about the availability and the charges for stadiums within the EDJBA.

Ivanhoe’s experience of late has been less than enjoyable.  As part of the discussion I agreed to prepare a paper for Wayne in relation to all EDJBA stadiums and the difficulties encountered by EDJBA clubs with stadium hire and use.

To assist me with this I am appealing to clubs to provide me with information that may be of use.  We would like to put to BV a paper detailing the difficulties we are all experiencing in regard to availability, cost, threats from sports such as Futsal and projected growth thus necessitating the seeking of more venues.

It would be fair to say that the stadium issue is an Australia wide problem and is a serious factor in inhibiting the growth of the sport across the country.

If you can find some time to think and put pen to paper I would appreciate it.  Tim believes, and I do also, that a unified approach by BV to the Minister for Sport and the Minister for Education may be of use and would be a useful exercise.  However without facts politicians do not listen.  Therefore this is in your own interest.

Steel Yourself for the Park Orchards Boom

Jenni James, Park Orchards President, has written to me boasting of the record number of winter teams her club will put on the court this coming winter season.  During the summer season 60 teams took to the court which in itself was a record. 31 of the 60 teams are playing this weekend in Grand Finals.  This winter season will see 55 teams, another record for Park Orchards. Jenni has good reason to feel she can boast.

In addition she reports that the club paid for and had 6 coaches qualify as level 2 Basketball Victoria coaches.  She goes on to say that they now have three competition venues on a Saturday with discussions continuing on securing another for training.  The growth into the Ringwood Heights area has been a real boon for them.

Our congratulations go to Jenni and her hardworking committee out Park Orchards way.

GST on Fines

Our hard working Treasurer, John Matthews, has been investigating with the Taxation Department whether it is necessary to charge GST on fines.  His advice indicates that there should be no GST component to a fine and therefore all fines in future will not have this component added to it. Clubs who are GST compliant will have or should have been claiming this back from the Taxation Department but there are three clubs within the EDJBA who do not submit BAS statements and therefore have been paying too much.

The Executive decided at the committee meeting last Monday night to refund the GST component accumulated from the start of the summer season to the present to the above mentioned three clubs.

Logo

At last Monday’s meeting the Executive voted to adopt a new logo.  The successful logo design was chosen after a number of designs were submitted for consideration. You can see it at the top of this update. We would like to congratulate Gavin Smith, a parent and coach at the Eltham Wildcats, on the selection of his design.  Gavin gave of his design skills and time free of charge and for this we are extremely grateful. Gavin has a company called TeePlates which specializes in website design and graphic design.   He can be contacted at gavin.smith@teeplates.com.

If you are looking for design work for business or private matters feel free to contact Gavin. We would appreciate it if you support him after his generous work for us.

Happy Hoops

Ron Carlton
President