Basketball Ballarat wins Wheelchair Grant

With the assistance of Sports Central Ballarat, Basketball Ballarat was fortunate to be awarded a $20,000 Grant from the RACV Community Foundation.

This Grant was originally written to just add five new sports wheelchairs to the supply of chairs currently housed at the Ken Kay Badminton Stadium, and when Basketball Ballarat was announced as one of just 21 awardees in 2016, we were absolutely thrilled.

But the elation only grew when it was discovered that Basketball Victoria had in the interim sourced a much cheaper supplier of chairs, and an enquiry of the RACV revealed that it was possible to vary the purchase. As such Basketball Ballarat’s supply of sports chairs has now been increased by 12 and a purpose-built trailer to transport them to other venues for games, training and visits to schools has all been achieved within the allocated amount.

During the year the regular Monday night wheelchair players decided upon a team name and they are now referred to as Ballarat Dynamite and this name has been drawn into a logo designed by Mitch Zakynthinos and will be signwritten onto the new trailer by Brendan Dodd of A1 Signs free of charge.

Wheelchair basketball is on the move in Ballarat and a series of inter-city games with Bendigo and Geelong will become a regular feature under the guidance of team organiser Ash Tonkin.