November 2020
What we did
Our ‘Broncos At Home’ program (http://www.broncosbasketball.com.au/news/broncos-at-home-training/) focuses on providing weekly Zoom sessions for our members covering a range of topics to get them physically and mentally healthy.
Starting from August 2nd, we have conducted weekly Zoom sessions 3 times per week.
- Wednesday “off-court” session, either covering Mental Health and/or strength and conditioning.
- Thursday session for Junior coaches, covering planning of trainings, tips on gamedays and how to support the players.
- Sunday workout sessions (U10- U14, and U14-U18 sessions) for junior players to work on physical skills.
Prior to that, we had our School Holiday Clinics transitioned to online Zoom sessions as well (from 6th July – 8th July, as Broadmeadows was one of the first postcodes to enter into lockdown). We have then made these sessions available on our Youtube page (Hume City Broncos) and our website.
We have worked with Headspace Craigieburn and Mind Your Own Health Collective for our Mental Health Sessions, Cam Rigby from Prime Athletes for our Conditioning session, Joey Wright (ex NBL coach) for one of our Sunday junior workout sessions and have connected with some of our Senior Coaches to provide sessions.
How we designed it
We modified our program from other initiatives from ‘round 1’ of isolation (March-July approx.) from other sporting clubs: (Melbourne United Basketball, Melbourne Boomers basketball).
With the School Holiday sessions, we recorded from Greenvale Recreation Centre and streamed from Zoom. After July 8th, the sessions have been run remotely, with one staff running the logistics of the zoom and a coach talking through the session, with a player demonstrating the skills (staff, coach and player meet online prior to plan). We are lucky that all we need for this program is a camera, Zoom app and a basketball!
Why we did it
Since Broadmeadows was part of the first suburbs to be put in strict postcode lockdowns in July, we identified that our members were (at the time) missing out on basketball activities in which the majority of other clubs were allowed. We started our online clinics with the remaining of our school holiday clinics, then transitioned it to weekly sessions once the ‘school term’ had started, and have continued this every week since.
Luckily with basketball, all you need to participate is a basketball and a hoop (but a hoop is not always necessary for our sessions), and you only need yourself (so there is no need to meet up with someone else to perform the drills).
With some of our new partnerships (mentioned in previous answer), we have been able to connect our members with other organisations that can help them in a post-COVID world (i.e Headspace).
How we know it worked
Our initiative is still ongoing, and we will continue this initiative until we can get our members back into our stadium (depends on Victorian Government Restrictions).
When we started out the ‘Broncos At Home’ program, we didn’t set out a specific target of participation, but the response of our members has been pleasing.
We have had an average of at least 20 online participants per online session, with approximately 40 online participants for our recent Zoom Skill Session with Joey Wright, and in a recent survey on our Instagram Story - 75% have enjoyed the online Zoom sessions.
Upon completion of each online session, they are uploaded to our YouTube page and website for everyone to view later on – so each day the views on these videos grow each day.
