MIDNIGHT Basketball tournament organisers are seeking a community commitment to ensure the program for at-risk youth remains operating in Albury. A meeting has been called for Wednesday to flush out committee members and volunteers to ensure more tournaments are held. Midnight Basketball chairman Rod Bramich said he was confident the tournaments would continue, but support was needed.  “It commenced in Albury four years ago with support from Albury Council and many organisations,” he said.“At the time volunteers were not sure what to expect. “We certainly hoped to be able to engage with the kids who participated and be able to build rapport and add value to their lives. “After four years I have no doubt we have achieved this and more.” Midnight Basketball has conducted eight tournaments in Albury since 2012 and organisers need to make a commitment to holding two tournaments a year to the national governing body. Midnight Basketball Australia chief executive Tess White will attend the meeting next week at the Robert Brown Room at Albury Council. “Midnight Basketball Australia provides a lot of support, but its success is highly dependent on community involvement,” Mr Bramich said. “Communities need to demonstrate the ability to run the program locally, with two eight-week tournaments a year. “The core of running a sustainable program is finding competent committee members who want to make a difference to youth issues.” Participants aged between 12 and 18 years are provided with a nutritious dinner and compulsory life skills workshop before the basketball tournament begins. A bus takes all players home to their front door about midnight. Each session requires at least 15 volunteers to assist with serving dinner, setting up workshop rooms, coaching, scoring, refereeing, supervising and driving buses. BORDER MAIL Albury 19/06/2014

STUDENTS at Albury West Preschool will soon be playing in a new cubby house. The Rotary Club of Albury Hume helped build the cubby, which was donated by two families. Preschool director Jennie Kelly said the 130 preschool children were keen to play with the cubby, which just needs a coat of paint. “I’d like to thank the two families that have donated it and the Pierce family who are going to do the painting,” she said. “We got a larger one so we could fit more children into it and more children would have access to it. “They’re loving it so far and they can’t wait to get into it.” Albury Council has undertaken landscaping work at the site and installed a concrete slab. The cubby is expected to open next month. “We’ve got a fantastic playground,” Ms Kelly said. “But we’ve never had a cubby so we think it will add a lot to the children’s play opportunities. “We’re going to have an opening celebration down the track after it’s been painted.”

Gordon Shaw and I had a very productive meeting with the nominated representative from the Albury-Wodonga Parent and Baby Unit. It has been agreed that the resurrected Trivia Night, which will be a fundraiser for the Unit, will again be held at Thurgoona Footy Club Ground, New Community Centre on FRIDAY 2^nd MAY 2014, start 6.30pm for 7pm. There will be tables of eight(8). We will provide some nibbles and the Footy Club will manage the bar, and drinks will be at bar prices.Please start to see if you can start rustling up enough to book a table and lets have a night of fun, and at the same time assist us getting monies for a worthy cause. There will be spot prizes and a major prize. Also David Gordon has donated a lovely framed photograph which we will ‘auction’ on the night. Thank you David for your generosity. It is a beautiful picture within a lovely frame. A lot of the other prizes were collected for us by Vicki Gray, before she was forced to leave us a few weeks ago. Both Gordon and I pointed out to the Hospital representative that we are wanting a better response from them than they showed the last time we tried this and had to cancel the day before it was due to be held.