Norwood Board Directors – Chris and Andrew Webber
At the AGM on the 22nd of May, Chris Webber decided not to re-nominate for his Club President/ACBA Director position and Andrew Webber resigned as an ACBA Director.
Chris and Andrew’s legacy at the club will long be felt. They were both instrumental with the creation, development, and continued growth of the ACBA Brand and Domestic Competition.
Chris guided the club through the troubled times of COVID and he played a key role in the re-emergence of the girls’ program and the bolstering of the NBL1 Programs.
He put into place numerous mechanisms to strengthen, protect and support the club at large in many different areas; both business related, systems and processes, as well as basketball operations. Never afraid to make hard decisions, Chris always had the club at heart and has left the role with it in a much healthier position to continue to grow and improve in the future.
Having also held the position of Chairperson of Basketball Adelaide, Chris has fought hard to improve the overall landscape of basketball in South Australia.
Andrew has held his position on the board for 9 years. Playing a vital role in helping to secure our wonderful facilities at the ARC long into the foreseeable future. Andrew’s support and professionalism through his marketing business, TMD has proven invaluable to ACBA and Norwood. Revamping the club website and online appearance was an arduous task , but was a much needed project for the club.
The new Club Chairperson will be announced soon, with other new nominated board members, yet to be announced, joining the management team to bring new expertise to various departments of the club.
We wish Chris and Andrew the very best and they leave with our enormous gratitude in the time, effort and passion, they poured into our Club.
Chris and Andrew would like to share the following words on concluding their roles:
From Chris
I would like to take this opportunity to advise you all that I decided not to renominate for a Norwood Board position at the Club AGM last weekend. After 3 years as Club President, it is time for me to consider my commitments and establish a bit of work-life balance and reduce my overall stress load.
This was an extremely difficult decision to make, as for the past few years Norwood Basketball Club has been my second home and I feel truly privileged to have been able to fulfil this role and serve our wonderful basketball community. My passion and commitment to getting kids on court playing the game we all love will continue. I will continue to coach my teams and will support Kelly and the new Board members to ensure Norwood continues with its success.
My time as President was filled with the highest of highs, the lowest of lows and pretty much everything else in-between. Navigating through COVID was extremely difficult for both the Club and the staff and was not something I could have imagined facing in my first year in the role. I want to especially thank Tricia and Sue for every sacrifice they made to ensure the club survived.
I would like to thank my fellow board members who have been on this crazy ride for the past 3 years. Thank you also to Will and Eliza for keeping up with the hectic demands involved in the running of a basketball club of our size and its various associations. As a team, along with the support of the board & our basketball community, we were able to grow stronger and bounce back to being the successful club we currently are.
I am proud of what our entire team has achieved together. Their sacrifice and commitment have ensured that we finished up as the 2022 Champion Club at the recent State Championships. They are the facilitators of the largest domestic basketball competition and training programs in Adelaide and the organisers of the highly successful Easter carnival!
We have worked to ensure that our junior players are truly represented in our senior NBL1 teams and maintain pathways for our children to grow and develop in the game of basketball. Something that has brought me much happiness in my time as President is seeing our girls program back to being as strong as ever!
Finally, I would like to thank all of my friends at the club for their ongoing support and most of all, my wife and children. Volunteering 35+ hours a week to this role and coaching has meant that I have spent a lot of time away from my family and business, and I now look forward to taking a moment to slow down a little.
Thank you to everyone for allowing me to be involved in the Norwood Basketball Club, it has been a true honour and I look forward to seeing you all around the courts, albeit, not as often!
-Chris Webber
From Andrew
I want to express my gratitude to the Norwood Basketball Club board, members, players, parents and extended family for allowing me to represent them on the board for the last 9 years. It’s been an honour and privilege to be entrusted to serve the club that I’ve been a part of for the past 24 years, and now am a life member of.
I joined the Norwood Basketball Club board around 9 years ago along with Steve Murray with the primary objective of ensuring the Norwood Basketball Club would have a long term viable home. At the time we were in and out of MARS, and effectively were without a stadium to call our own.
Steve and I (along with the board) worked together for an extended period in conjunction with the Campbelltown Council to secure a long term lease for Norwood Basketball Club to become the primary anchor tenant of the redeveloped ARC. We are the first club in South Australia to have such an agreement and have such a close relationship with the local council.
I’m extremely proud to have been a part of this landmark moment for the club, and to play a part in ensuring the Norwood Basketball Club will always have somewhere to call home.
During my time on the board in recent years, Chris and I put together a new strategy to grow and legitimise our domestic league program. We implemented a complete rebrand of the ‘Norwood League’ into what is now known as Adelaide Community Basketball Association (ACBA).
We launched a new website along with a comprehensive end-to-end system designed to encourage and make it as seamless as possible for as many kids to play basketball in Adelaide.
ACBA now has over 3000 players playing in 8 stadiums in the North East of Adelaide and I’m excited to continue watching this grow over the coming years.
I want to say a special thank you to Chris and Steve in particular for serving as club President’s / Chairman’s during my time. They both have made significant contributions during extremely challenging circumstances, and both left the club in much better positions than when they found it.
It’s been a pleasure serving on the board these past 9 years, but now is the time for some new people with new ideas to drive the club forward. I’ll still be playing NBL1 for the Flames and helping out with the club websites/marketing with my company, and then no doubt into coaching in the coming years.
Thank you,
Andrew Webber
