Fiba Oceania

FIBA Oceania has supplied its 21 member federations with materials for players and coaches, referees and administrators to get 2012 off on the right note. Shortly after the return to work from the Christmas/New Year break, FIBA Oceania distributed to all federations, the souvenir DVD from the 2011 WABC/FIBA Oceania Coaching Clinics featuring the 8 national team coaches participating in the Olympic Qualifying Championships and the U-17 Continental Championships. Having watched these DVD's herself, FIBA Oceania's Development Manager (Mrs) Regan Kama was full of praise for their quality and usefulness to our member federations. She said; "It is fantastic that people such as Brett Brown, Nenad Vucinic, Carey Graf and Kennedy Karema were willing to share their passion and knowledge with the rest of the world by not only staging these clinics while their Championship was in progress, but also in allowing them to be videotaped so that their benefits could be shared with those ot able to attend the clinics in person. There is definitely content in these DVD's which can be of use to coaches in all our 21 member federations". At the same time, each federation was supplied with a flash drive/memory stick which contains a mountain of useful education material for referees, that was produced using the joint efforts of the FIBA Europe and FIBA Americas Referee programs. FIBA Oceania Secretary General Steve Smith commented; "There is a wealth of outstanding material contained in these flash drives which would prove very useful for the education and training of all referees from the domestic to the international. We can be very grateful to our colleagues in Munich and Puerto Rico for creating this resource and then making it available to us." In a note accompanying the materials Development Manager Kama, challenged all federations to make the very best use of the materials which have been produced by "friends of FIBA Oceania" and distributed free of charge. She observed; "The knowledge contained in these valuable aids will not be worth very much if the DVD and Flash Drive stay in the draw of the Federation Secretary. They need to be copied and circulated to the coaches and referees in your country who can benefit from the great work done in creating the resources." Administrators are not left out of the picture with the New Year "kick start". Late in 2011 FIBA produced a very readable and attractive summary of its 2011-2018 Strategy. FIBA Oceania Secrertary General Steve Smith has obtained copies of this document and circulated to all our member federations. "It is important that our members are aware of the direction FIBA is taking in the years ahead and what are its values and priorities. I hope that with this information in hand, each of our members will want to join in the forward movement of our sport especially where it involves new events and new disciplines. We hope that our federations will give consideration to FIBA's Mission, Values, Vision and Strategy when making their own plans for the future so that there is a joint effort to move our sport forward.