5 YEAR PLAN

We are now moving into the second year of our five year plan for development of Raiders basketball. Last year was a consolidating year, while at the same time attempting to attract a host of new players and coaches to the club. Year two will see a large expansion in the number of teams that will be wearing the green of the Raiders. Training squads for Under 10 and Under 12 boys and Under 14 girls will be joined by national league teams for Under 15 boys, and Under 16 and Under 18 girls.

2008/09 (Year 3) will see yet more teams added to the club, with national league teams playing in the boys Under 13 league and a men's team playing in Division 4. The demand for playing opportunities is there, and plentiful, the only things limiting our success are the availability of court time, new coaches and finance.

We'd like to eventually see all of our teams both host a tournament here in Plymouth, and travel to a tournament somewhere in Europe. This is important, not just for the players' development in basketball terms, but also for their development as a person. Working with various sporting partners in the area, pre season training will give the players a really good work out and the opportunity to work with coaches from other disciplines.

When you look at the number of hours that we need for training, and add to that the time needed for games at weekends, it's easy to understand our need for our own facility. Preliminary work will be undertaken soon, with a view to having our own facility in place by Year 5.

Our 5 Year Plan is available should you want a copy. If youre interested, please contact us at development@plymouthraiders.com. Of course, there's a huge amount of work to do, and it will need all the help and assistance that we can get. No one's pretending that its going to be easy, and as with the 3, 4 and 5 Star Accreditation, the setting of ambitious targets will hopefully push us to achieve them on or ahead of schedule.