Midnight Basketball
Toowoomba Basketball has partnered with The Red Cross and Midnight Basketball Australia to present the Toowoomba Midnight Basketball program.
Midnight Basketball is a national social inclusion program to help youth identify and embrace positive opportunities.
Dinner, compulsory life skills workshops and tournament basketball games are run Friday nights from 7.30pm till midnight, followed by a bus home, providing a safe and motivating environment.
Toowoomba Midnight Basketball is run in terms 2 and 4 at Harristown High School, it is open to youth aged 12 to 18 years.
HOW A MIDNIGHT BASKETBALL NIGHT RUNS
Every night of each 8 Week tournament includes:
Volunteer Briefing
Tournament Manager briefs all volunteers and youth workers, professional referees, security, police, bus drivers, workshop facilitators and others (around 15 volunteers a night).
Dinner
Players arrive at 7:30pm and are fed a nutritious meal in order to stay focused and energetic for the night ahead.
Workshop
Two teams at a time attend a compulsory workshop which focuses on essential life skills, with topics that may cover:
- Nutrition, Health, Wellbeing
- Substance Misuse, Emotional, Physical Abuse, Self-Harm
- Conflict Resolution, Impulse Control, Anger Management
- Communication and Decision Making
- Confidence, Self Esteem and Making Positive Choices
- Personal Identity and Community Engagement Skills
- Cultural Development and Awareness
- Financial Literacy
- Job Readiness
In keeping with our motto NoWorkshop NoJumpshot players must attend the workshop in order to play basketball. We applaud loud and hard our Midnight Basketballers’ commitment to voluntarily participating in the whole program, including the workshops.
Basketball
Players participate in at least 3 matches of tournament basketball a night with qualified referees.
Basketball is crucial to success due to its unique inclusionary qualities as a team sport, including the opportunity to build leadership and teamwork skills, behavioural improvement, fitness and focus. Virtually anyone can play, is held indoors, and both males and females think it is cool.
Safely Home
Finally, at the end of the night, a bus takes the players safely home.
Supporters
Thanks must go to Toowoomba Regional Council, Southern Queensland Institute of TAFE, Armstrong Auto Group, Downs MicroSystems, Stonestreet Coaches and All Toowoomba Rotary Chapters for there kind Support.
Contact
For more information about the program, both in Toowoomba or Nationally, please go to http://www.midnightbasketball.org.au/Locations/toowoomba/Pages/default.aspx or email toowoomba@midnightbasketball.org.au