Focusing on Equality is the Way Forward for the Eagles

Being one of the top professional basketball teams in the country doesn’t mean that the Newcastle Eagles aren’t interested in grass roots participation. They see junior development as very important, appreciating the fact that young players are the professional players of the future. Three years ago the club established The Eagles Community Foundation, specifically to focus on increasing participation. So although part of the same club, the Eagles are the professional team and the Foundation concentrates on the development of community basketball.

The Club as a whole now caters for all levels of player, from the junior teams that play in local leagues, to the seven teams in the School of Excellence and through to University and National League Basketball, culminating in the professional team.

Although the Foundation had been successfully developing junior basketball, people within the Club felt that there was more they could do. Susan Hunter, the club’s Development Officer takes up the story, ‘We heard about runningsports some years ago through Tyne and Wear Sport (the local County Sports Partnership) and representatives from the Club, including myself, attended the A Club for All workshop.’

Like many people, Susan was encouraged to attend the workshop as the club was working towards its Clubmark accreditation, but she feels that she got a valuable return on her investment of three hours of her time, over and above meeting one of the requirements for accreditation. ‘There weren’t any complicated theories or principles’, she explains, ‘the workshop just made us think about things differently. For example we just used to look at our membership numbers and think they were healthy, not really taking into account the fact that we didn’t have any girls!’

After attending the runningsports workshop, the club began by creating U12 girls’ team, providing opportunities for them to develop and play matches. As these girls progressed an U14 team was established, with another round of recruitment for the U12 team so the membership numbers naturally increased from a small start. The club created strong partnerships with local schools and colleges, and Susan is rightly proud of the fact that there are now opportunities for girls from grass roots level right up to being able to represent their country, with over 100 girls involved in the programme, out of a total membership of just under 300.

‘The runningsports workshop really opened our eyes to the fact that there were other groups of people we hadn’t considered, for example wheelchair users, but equally importantly gave us practical advice on how to cater for them’, Susan continues. As a result the Club took over a wheelchair basketball team that was struggling financially, encouraged some of their coaches to undertake the relevant coaching qualifications so they were better able to support the players, and developed a partnership with a local school catering for children with disabilities. The team now plays in the top league in the country, providing inspiration for the younger members.

Of course the more members a club recruits the more volunteers are needed to run it and Newcastle Eagles is no different. They rely on their 95 volunteers across the club, aged between 13 and 70. All the junior teams have their own committees - run by volunteers, around 90% of whom have children playing within the programme. Susan is very aware of the fact that the Club needs to support its volunteers if they want to keep them. Through attending the workshop, Susan found out about the other resources that runningsports provides, many of which are available to download for free from this website when you sign up free of charge as a Network Member. ‘We try very hard to make sure each volunteer knows what they should be doing, where they can get extra help if needed and what training and resources are available to them’, she says, ‘and the runningsports Role Outlines have been really helpful to us. When everyone has their responsibilities written down you can see any potential areas of overlap and ensure people carry out the tasks they are best suited for. And because the Role Outlines are templates we have been able to easily adapt them to suit the specific requirements of Basketball.’

As a result of the Club’s efforts since attending the A Club for All workshop, membership at participation level has increased from 40 to 150 with the introduction of wheelchair and girls’ basketball, a fantastic achievement and one that means many more people in Newcastle can enjoy the benefits of playing Basketball. But Newcastle Eagles want to continue to expand, developing the wheelchair basketball further, and adding new sessions to their programme as well as new facilities. All of which illustrates that with hard work, enthusiasm, commitment, and a little support from runningsports, it is possible to make a real difference to people’s lives through sport.