THE Scone Basketball Association have received an early Christmas present thanks to a promotional partnership between Corteva Agriscience and Landmark Townsend Scone.
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Local managers and agronomists from Landmark, soon to be known as Nutrien Ag Solutions, had to submit their agency forecast to Corteva to get a jump on 2020 planning and explain why a club in their community deserved a $2,500 grant.
Landmark Scone's Mick Seale said he has three young boys in Scone Basketball Association, and the club are a worthy recipient.
"The club just seems to have grown and grown and they have a hardworking committee who are putting all their time into it so obviously we'd like to do our little bit," Mr Seale said.
"And with the help of Corteva, who Landmark has a fantastic relationship with, we submitted 150 words.
"You can see the number of kids involved and they come from off the land and in town so to get them together and get them energised we definitely want to be part of that."
Scone Basketball Association is one of 12 rural community sport clubs around Australia that have been successful in gaining a Corteva Community Club grant.
Corteva Agriscience Key Account Manager Jon Dadd said the company is committed to working with the communities they serve.
"As a company, Corteva Agriscience operates with farmers and consumers are at the heart of everything we do," Mr Dadd said.
"It's been a really great partnership with Landmark Townsend Scone and we're looking forward to seeing the Scone Basketball Association spend their cash and start the 2020 season off strongly."
Scone Basketball Association president Earl Burnett said the money will go towards new backboards and rims which will be installed over the Christmas period.
"That will bring us up to a new good standard for 2020," he said.
The association is currently enjoying a strong participation rate with around 200 junior players from under-8s through to under-16s and close to 100 in the senior competition.
"It's a good number of kids leading into an adult competition and this year we have really seen the continued growth and improvement with the kid's skills," Mr Burnett said.
"Just last weekend we had Tamworth's representative teams come down to visit and we hosted six trial games with 14s, 16s and 18s.
"So that's excellent, for a basketball centre like Tamworth to come down to little old Scone is awesome."
Scone was really competitive on the day, winning four out of the six games - a good indication of the local basketball talent.
Looking into 2020 the association's goal is to invigorate the court, which includes plans to replace the floor and further improvements.
"The kids got all their singlets recently instead of playing in bibs, which look great, that's again sponsors coming on board to allow some of that to happen and we couldn't be more thankful for that," Mr Burnett said.