A national sporting team based in Rockhampton in 2017, not an NRL one, a WNBL one!
Last week it was announced that through a collaborative initiative between Rockhampton Regional Council, CQUniversity and Rockhampton Basketball Incorporated a bid will be made to have a Rockhampton team in the 2017-18 Women’s National Basketball League season.
The necessary infrastructure is basically in place with a 2000 seat stadium at the CQUniversity’s Community Sports Centre.
The past success of the Rockets and last year’s champion team the Cyclones in the state basketball competition provides a solid platform in fielding a competitive team.
The multi-year commitment the Council and University are putting up should combined with the stadium and success in the state league make the bid a slam dunk, if Basketball Australia does want to expand the competition into regional Australia.
The key to making this bid likely to succeed is collaboration; collaboration primarily between the Council, Uni and Rockhampton Basketball.
No doubt it has been the dreams of many local basketball committee members to one day have our own team play in the national competition, but limited resources largely kept it a dream.
The collaborative effort between these entities and other sponsors that saw CQUniversity successfully host the pre-season men’s National Basketball League game between Cairns Taipans and Townsville Crocodiles, in a very short period turnaround time between agreement and game day, no doubt turned some of the dreamers into believers.
But to realise the dream they needed to share the dream and the ownership of it.
This won’t be a Rockhampton Basketball WNBL team; this will be a Rockhampton team (startup), one our community can really feel part of. Community collaboration will ultimately be the main factor in the ongoing success of the venture.
Tomorrow there is a community meetup to firmly establish Startup Capricorn.
One person indicating he will be attending is Shannon who has some great dreams that he like to develop, in doing so creating a business and jobs.
From my brief discussion with Shannon he is protective of his ideas; concerned others may pinch and develop them before he has the resources to. However he also realises that if he doesn’t share them they may stay as dreams or worse years later see someone else have the same ideas and develop them.
Collaboration is arguably required for Shannon to try realising his dreams, something research has identified is lacking in the Rockhampton region in helping develop a stronger startup ecosystem, along with networking opportunities.
Like the seeds for a WNBL team sprouted at that game between the Taipans and Croc’s, hopefully Shannon’s business can also take root from the interaction at tomorrow’s community Startup Capricorn meeting.
It’s on at 5.30pm at the Workshop, 45 East Street. Anyone interested in seeing the Rockhampton region develop a strong startup ecosystem (and the jobs that come with it) through a community group that facilitates collaboration and networking to take place is welcome to attend.
Community collaboration will ultimately be the main factor in the ongoing success of this venture also.