Transcript

 

So my name's Finlay Malcolm I'm the Head of Engagement at Blaze Basketball and We Play Together Charity and I also coach a lot in the charities there. 

 

Roughly how many members are in your Club? 

 

So we've got roughly 430 members, approximately a third of those are female and we're looking to grow into other spaces like additional support needs and wheelchair, but not at the moment. 

 

What age ranges do you have in the club? 

 

So we have under tens, our youngest squad in Blaze, and then we go under 12, under 14s, under 16s, and 18s, and then finally seniors, and that's male and female halfway on both sides. We also deliver sessions and camps for children as young as five. 

 

Are there separate sessions for the different age groups?

 

Yeah. So there's certain age groups, because we have so many squads, and we have multiple squads training on similar days, and we use different school venues as well as our centre, which is called the Craggs. 

 

Does your club take part in any matches against other clubs and are you part of a league?

 

Yes, so we take part in quite a few different leagues. We have at the younger age groups, our own league that we run for other clubs to come and play with and against each other, which is called the We Play Together League. So that's for under 12s, under tens and under 14s. We also take part in the regional and national leagues for under 16s and under 18s and seniors. We also play friendlies.

 

How often are these matches? 

 

I would say almost every week, we have games, whether it's one competition or another, we've got games pretty much every weekend on Saturday and Sunday. 

 

What facilities does your club use and are you happy with these facilities ? 

 

Like I said, earlier we've got our own centre but it's on court facilities so as great as it is to have our own space that we can use there's only so much time during the evening, and the week days and the weekends to get fixtures played. And then we have access to different schools through community partnerships, but again, we can't really control what happens within the school, so if there's exams in some halls, the hall can be just not available so we have to cancel sessions or find alternatives. And something like a leak in the roof or repair to the floor then means we can't use the facility and we can't control when that is. 

 

Does your club or facilities need any improvements ? 

 

Great question. We're trying to at the moment raise money for soundproofing and better acoustics in the hall. So our hall is sort of just flat surfaces so sound bells off and rings.  It can be really quite hard to hear coaches and hard to run events. It would just be quite loud. So we're trying to raise money to improve the sound quality so that we can run better events. 

 

And final question, how many coaches are there? 

 

So we have probably I believe around 20 coaches, that are either head or assisting our squads and are in sessions and we also have a pathway of apprentice coaches that are learning the trade under some of our more experience coaches.