Dear Maccabi Basketball friends,
It’s great to be able to welcome you all back to another term of basketball at Maccabi, in a year that has already seen plenty of success for our club. Maccabi Basketball continues to climb from strength to strength, as exemplified by the introduction of 7 new junior teams this term, which has been accommodated with the acquisition of a number of new junior coaches. Basketball continues to boom in and around Sydney, and it’s great to see that reflected through more players and teams at Maccabi.
As mentioned previously, 2022 has been a year that has already delivered plenty for the club. One initiative that we saw as a great success was our term 1 school holidays basketball camp. These past school holidays were the first time in a couple years we were able to run a camp, and our team of coaches was able to put on a great camp for over 70 of our juniors. Our goals for these camps are not only to provide our players with an enjoyable day but to help develop their skills in a number of facets, including ball-handling, shooting, and match simulation. It was great to receive such positive feedback from the parents of children who attended, and we hope to continue to grow and improve our school holiday programs over the course of the year. We plan to set up a camp for both term 2 and term 3 school holidays to continue its success.
Another great initiative that we brought back this year was the clubs visit to the Sydney Kings game. It’s great to see the interest our community has in Australian basketball, with all 160 of our allocated seats sold out more than a week before the game. I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to play in the celebrity match before the game and loved seeing so many Maccabi members out at the Kings. The fans were treated to an entertaining game that came right down to the wire, where the Kings, unfortunately, fell just short. Despite that, we again received plenty of great feedback from everyone who attended and we are looking forward to organising another game day at the start of the next NBL season later this year.
In a new addition to the Maccabi calendar, this year we’ve kicked off the Social Basketball Competition for seniors. The competition currently has 50 players across 8 teams in a 4v4 format and aims to engage Jewish youth in the 18-35 age range in a social, active and competitive environment. It is also a great way to capitalise on the abundance of interest in basketball from adults in our Jewish community. It was great to see a high level of interest for this competition in its first edition, and we hope to continue to grow this initiative in subsequent seasons. I was at the gym and watched some teams play and it was great quality and played in fantastic spirit.
Finally, I’d like to conclude by thanking our generous sponsors Century 21 Feller & Taylor, Chargrill Charlies, Haben, Learn and Laugh and Moore Park Supa Centa for their continuous support. They’re a key reason as to why we’re able to bring so many great initiatives into existence for our community, and I’d love to see our club return the favour by supporting these brands. They’ve also made the acquisition of our new 2022 edition uniforms possible for our junior and senior players, which have looked fantastic in term 1 on basketball courts all across Sydney.
All in all it’s been a great start to year for the Maccabi Basketball club and community and I hope to be able to continue to deliver more positive news in the future.
All the best,
Brad Rosen
