Season's Greetings!

As we get ready for both the basketball season and the holiday season, I and our staff here at KS want to say thank you to everyone who is a part of the KIDSPORT community! As we close out the final month of the 2010 KIDSPORTS year, the KS staff and board want to acknowledge our community for its tremendous care and consideration of our children.

The gifts we receive throughout the year from our Corporate Sponsors, our Team Sponsors, our Adopt – A – School Sponsors, and our Scholarship and General Fund sponsors, are fundamental in allowing us to meet the physical and affective needs of our children! Your contributions directly impact our ability to continue to give the gift of play and your generosity provides our organization with a sense of the Christmas spirit year round – the gift of play is always a very special gift any time of the year.

To our coaches, parents, and participants we wish you all the best for the Holiday Season and the coming New Year. We hope that participating in our KIDSPORT programs allows your child to experience the joy of physical activity, to learn the fundamentals of movement and sport specific concepts and skills, to have fun, and to enjoy and learn from the values of teamwork and team play.

The year 2011 opens with our 3 – 5th, 6th – 8th, and 6th – 8th AAAA basketball programs. The effort that our staff, coaches, participants, and parents put into cultivating an environment where participants are immersed in a positive, productive, challenging, and supportive environment is extremely crucial to the KS mission of “all kids” play! All children need and deserve the opportunity to play to learn and learn to play and thanks to you, this is KIDSPORTS 56th year in making this happen.

In this upcoming 57th year, KIDSPORTS faces the challenges and rewards of our 21st century youth sport culture. It is of extreme importance for us to provide our 1,400 volunteer coaches and 10,000+ parents with information and education about the truths and trends of what is happening on the courts and fields of play not only here in Lane County, but as well throughout North America and the world.

Our goal at KIDSPORTS in 2011 is to not only continue to provide opportunities for "all kids," to play, but as well, to support our parents and volunteer coaches by providing information and education so that they can help our children develop age appropriate fundamentals and fitness, as well as learning to play and playing to learn. KIDSPORTS beginning in January will introduce two new added value programs:

K – 5 Physical Literacy Program: is an informational and educational curriculum that will be presented to both our coaches and parents alike and will center around age appropriate movement and motor skill development, injury prevention, "double goal coaching," sport specialization, and child - coach - parent communication, collaboration, and cooperation.

Competition not Conflict Ombuds: Competition Not Conflict (CNC) a University of Oregon Law School Graduate program, promotes positive competition by empowering athletes, coaches, and community members to understand, prevent, and resolve conflict. (Check out their web-site at: www.competitionnotconflict.com)

CNC will be working with KIDSPORTS to strengthen the systems and procedures that assist youth sports organizations in dealing with conflict that occurs among participants, parents, coaches, fans and referees, while also identifying areas of potential skills trainings for individuals and youth participants. (see www.kidsports.org/aboutus/ombuds.htm for more information)

As we play our way into 2011, KIDSPORTS is both excited and honored to be a part of this community's efforts to keep our kids playing, staying safe, developing fitness, learning fundamentals, and having fun!

Happy Holidays Everyone and we will see you all on the courts of the community in 2011!

Bev