Stratford district's young aspiring basketball players learnt some new skills these school holidays.
At the start of the school holidays, Taranaki Steelformers Mountainairs players Latrell Teka-Wall and Haize Walker, and Bankshot Academy's Willie Banks taught tamariki a number of basketball skills.
Stratford Basketball Association (SBA) president Shane Downs says close to 100 children took part in the mini-ball school holidays programme.
"We had a session on Wednesday and Thursday to ensure we were following Covid-19 rules and regulations. Parents were welcome to watch but had to wear a mask and sign-in."
Shane says the SBA was three weeks into the junior basketball programme before it was stopped due to the Covid-19 lockdown.
"We resumed the basketball session when the region moved to alert level 2, ensuring we followed covid-19 rules and regulations. We made the decision for the year 5 and 6 children to continue their session but we stopped the years one to four to maintain the 100 person limit. To make sure our young tamariki still had the opportunity to learn some new skills and have fun, we organised this mini-ball programme from them."
Toby Waite (9) and his friend Jaxon Kelbrick (9) enjoyed the Thursday session. Toby says he liked learning some new basketball skills with his friend.
"We had a lot of fun. We both really like basketball and being able to learn some new skills during the school holidays was really cool."
Jaxon liked learning some skills from the Taranaki Mountainairs players.
"They're really good and I had a lot of fun learning from them, and Willie Banks."