Community

The Plymouth Raiders have been running an extremely successful community coaching programme for over 15 years. Raiders’ players and coaches have travelled as far west as Lands End, as far east as Taunton, and as far north as Bude, Barnstaple and Ilfracombe. Thousands of children of all ages throughout the South West have benefited from this top quality coaching. The club worked with more than 20,000 children last year across each of the various schemes detailed below, and it is hoped to increase this to over 30,000 in 2011/12. On the back of the schools and community coaching work that we do, the Raiders are now the 3rd largest club in the UK.

Hoops 4 Health is the Raiders’ flagship community scheme, and this will be the third consecutive year that the club have run the scheme in Plymouth. It was first rolled out in the city in 2009, and has been subject of very positive reviews and feedback, from teachers, children, head teachers and the funders - Plymouth City Council and University of Plymouth. Last year, the Raiders secured sponsorship and funding from Sport England’s Sportsmatch scheme to put the scheme into operation in the South East Cornwall area, encompassing Callington, Torpoint and Saltash. We are now seeking funding to roll the scheme out in Devon. Healthy Living roadshows are delivered to primary school children by the professional players, talking to them about No Smoking, Healthy Eating, Exercise, Not Talking to Strangers on the Internet, and basketball. The schools then receive 6 weeks of basketball coaching before tournaments are organised across the city. The winners come to a Raiders home game to play off and decide the Plymouth winner - who will then represent the city at the National Finals in Birmingham’s NIA in May. At the same time as the tournaments, community clubs are established in the city for children to play for in local league competitions.

The club launched a new scheme last year called “Behind the Scenes at the Raiders”. It’s an opportunity for school children (typically on BTEC Sports or Enterprise courses), to visit a home game, get to talk to club staff about how the club operates on a day to day basis, and learn more about the event management skills and the jobs required to run a professional sports event. The students watch the game and then get a chance to take part in a real life press conference involving the coach and players. The schools have often taken the scheme one step further and built it into the student’s coursework, establishing a piece of work that the students cantake a real sense of pride in completing.

The Raiders will again be delivering their highly successful Mentoring scheme. This has previously been run in schools that are part of the Excellence Cluster. However, with recent cuts in funding taking effect, this will now be delivered to schools across Devon and Cornwall. The scheme sees the Raiders’ professional players work in schools for 2 hours per week - the first hour sees the players as mentors for the children in the classroom, working on numeracy and literacy, and during the second hour, the players will coach basketball. As with the other schemes that the Raiders run, this is independently evaluated at the end of every year, and the feedback has been outstanding, citing increases in attendance, students’ confidence and self esteem and achievements. The programme is so unique and has been so successful, that it has been covered by both ITV and BBC news. This year will be the first year that the Raiders run a series of basketball academies in schools throughout Devon and Cornwall. Academies will be run at Callington Community College, King Edward VI Community College and Poltair School. The club is in discussions with 4 other schools about beginning academies in 2011.  Members of the team conduct School To Club coaching, where basketball coaching is delivered to a primary school for either a whole day or over a number of weeks.

On game days, the club will be running basketball coaching clinics on the Pavilions court, allowing children from schools or basketball clubs to receive coaching the Raiders’ players, to play on the Pavilions’ basketball court, meet the team and watch the BBL game later that day.

Finally, the club run very successful basketball holiday camps. These range from breakfast clubs, to basketball camps to invitational coaching camps with National League players and those with the skills and enthusiasm to be National League players. The number of  these camps will be increased as they are delivered across Devon and Cornwall.

UCP Marjon Plymouth Raiders Basketball Club, New Victoria House, Weston Park Road, Plymouth, PL3 4NU | info@plymouthraiders.com | 01752 222205
Web site run by and © Damian Pudner 2010 | webmaster@plymouthraiders.com