Only last week the basketball association paid on your behalf, just short of $13,000 to Sportz Central for October court hire, almost $6,000 to Basketball NSW in registration payments, and more than $3,000 to our referees.

In the 9 months to the end of October - remember we don't play basketball in January, the association has paid almost $73,000 in court hire to Sportz Central the facility owned by Coffs Harbour City Council.

In the 10 months (ignoring January) to the end of November, CHBA paid NSW Basketball $58,000 and in the nine months to the end of October the cost of providing referees for our games exceeded $30,000.

If the basketballers of the Coffs Coast feel they are being unfairly taxed by CHCC for their desire to play basketball, get some healthy exercise and do something socially constructive with their spare time, we can't disagree.

Unfortunately we're on track to pay council close to the more than $106,000 that we paid them in 2013. You, better than us, know where all that money comes from - out of your pockets.

We'd be interested to hear from any other sport which will pay Coffs Council more than $100,000 a year to conduct its domestic competitions - remember we're not talking the hire of the International Stadium for a World Cup Cricket game or an NRL Preseason games.

This is boys and girls, mums and dads getting a bit of healthy exercise in a socially inclusive environment.

Of course the running of basketball competitions for more than 110 teams and our 15 representative sides does not happen by itself.

Through economic constaints the Association is only able to employ two part-time staff to undertake the tasks beyond the abilities of our volunteer board members and the figures above take no account of the costs of employing these staff.

We understand that sometimes you question why it costs so much for to play basketball - when you see the sums above you will begin to understand why.
-ends-