SHROPSHIRE WARRIORS BASKETBALL CLUB Our Charter for Junior Players, their Parents Guardians and their Coaches

If you have read our Club Philosophy you will realise that Shropshire Warriors Basketball Club wishes to do everything possible to maximise the positive development of it’s Junior members. You will also appreciate that we understand that that our coaches (and other volunteers) must operate in close partnership with our players and their parents.
Good relationships between the partners are essential to help the Club to function for the benefit of the youngsters. 
We expect our players, parents, coaches and other volunteers to conduct themselves in a courteous and polite manner at all times, so that they are representing the Club with pride, respect and good sportsmanship.
We expect that there will be an appreciation by all that the education of the player takes priority over basketball and that the player has the complete support of all parties in this regard.
In order to ensure that all partners are absolutely clear what is expected of them we have drawn up the following Charters.

Players’ Charter

We expect our players to give of their very best at all times when representing the Club. They are expected to:

Give total and absolute effort to the team at all times. i.e. in games, in practices and when supporting from the bench.

• Show respect towards their team-mates, coaches, referees and opposition players.
• Conduct themselves in a respectful manner at all times and never do anything, on or off the floor, to bring discredit to the Club.
• Appreciate that it is a privilege to be able to use Sport TCAT, which is one of the very the best facilities available to any Club in the country, or the other high quality facilities that we have at our disposal. Our ability to continue to use these superb facilities should never be taken for granted.

 

Parents / Guardian’s Charter

We expect parents / guardians or our Junior members to:

• Encourage their children, and all other junior members to give their very best at all times in representing the Club.
• Learn and to play by play within the rules of the game, and never to cheat to gain an advantage.
• To refrain from adverse criticism of the players, the team and the coach – it rarely has a positive effect and can do significant damage.

Coaches

We expect our Coaches to:

Be responsible for their personal behaviour and the behaviour of the members of their team whilst representing the Club.

• Maintain a professional and disciplined attitude at all times.
• Lead by example and ensure that all team members play by the rules and respect the rights of other players, coaches and officials.
• Keep uppermost in their minds that improving the basketball skills of the players and of the team, is secondary to the development of values and disciplines which will serve them for life.
• Make decisions based upon putting the interests of the youngsters first at all times.
• Be totally honest with the players at all times.
• Give all players a fair and equal opportunity to find a role within the team.  Favouritism should not be a part of our Club ethos.
• Make the health and safety of the players a priority.  Never place winning over the safety and welfare of the players.
• Show who you are, what you stand for, your values and principles.  Always remember, good values attract good people.
• Form a relationship with parents which is mutually beneficial and from which the players can only benefit.
• Remember that school and family responsibilities should be respected.
• Try to make every member of the team feel valued.
• Try to avoid harsh, public criticism of the players – it rarely helps.

  

Some Final Thoughts for Players, Coaches and Parents / Guardians.
The following messages from a parent and a former player may help coaches understand how they should think, and help parents / guardians feel assured by what we set out to do. We hope all players and parents will look back on their time within our Club as positively as the parent and former player who sent these messages obviously did.
1).        A father writes to our Club
Dear  Judith,
 My wife and I have just read your letter of Introduction / Welcome to the Club that was given to our son tonight when he attended his first Warriors training session at Sport TCAT. He loved the session and came home bubbling about it. He was clearly totally enthused by your Coach, and was over the moon to have apparently done well enough to be invited to become a Club member. He can hardly wait till his next session.
His mother and I were delighted that he had done well enough at that first session to be invited to become a member. We were also pleased that he said how strict but enjoyable the atmosphere had been and that everyone in the squad had worked with unquestionable commitment.
We were even more pleased to read what you said in your information pack. Your expectations are obviously very high and we applaud that. We have always appreciated the positive values that young people can derive from participation in sport. Sadly we have previously often been appalled at what we have seen when our son has been involved in local – supposedly high standard – football, from players coaches and from parents.
Judging from your records your Club and its Coaches must surely be able to teach your Junior members to play the game very well. However, what attracts us to your Club is that you suggest that you appreciate that your coaches need to see the bigger picture for the young people in their care.
You suggest that your Club and its coaches appreciate that you are dealing with your parents’ ’prize possessions, their impressionable children who will see the Club as their second home and more likely than not see their coach as one of the most significant people in their lives, to all intents and purposes their hero. Please ask your coaches to remember at all times just how important they are to those youngsters they lead and who probably idolise them.. Ask them to ensure that they live up to the image of a hero.
On our part we will guarantee that we will support you wholeheartedly and we look forward to being one undoubted supportive part of the partnership that you rightly advocate must exist between your players, their parents / guardians and their coaches.

2          A former member looks back at his time with our Club

Dear Tom,

As I prepare at 18 to go into the adult, or maybe I should say the semi-adult, world I feel I must write to say a massive thank you to you and all those other Club officials and coaches with who I have come into contact over the last 8 years as a member of the Warriors.

The Club has been an enormously important part of my life since I first started playing with Sean Reynolds as a mini all those years ago in the cold and damp, but still very welcoming atmospheres of Bennetts Bank.

You really have been like a second father, or a third granddad, to me. You and all the other volunteers have always us to strive to be the best we can be as players but more importantly as people..

Please pass on my thanks to everyone. I will be following the Club’s progress via the website and look forward to seeing you and everyone else when I am back at home in holiday periods.

As you always say “Take care!”.