Dear Homeschool Basketball Families,

The 2007 NCHBC was my third National Tournament to be involved in behind the scenes. From my perspective it was a huge success I hope you had a similar experience from your vantage point. I have had the opportunity to meet with Tim Flatt, the Executive Director of Nationals, to discuss various ways to help the staff continue to improve the greatest Homeschool sporting event in the world. For those of you who have not participated in the years previous to Tim’s involvement, it is worthy to note that each previous tournament director lasted no more than three years before they experienced burn out. This year will be Tim’s 8 th year and I wanted to see how we could help make his task load a little more efficient and effective.

Each year as the tournament grows there are more expenses and challenges. The National Tournament has raised ten thousand dollars each year to help off set the cost of running the tournament this money has been raised from Storm Families over the last seven years. This year the staff identified things that we can do to improve things next year. Included in the changes that need to be made is the addition of a Booster Club, making it available for a few like minded partners to assist us with the progress. Additionally, the decision was made to keep Nationals the 2 nd week of March to avoid conflict with Easter week. This decision will have a significant finical impact on the tournament as the National Tournament will lose the benefits of a significant financial package from Oklahoma City.

The booster club will help us cover the cost of things that will greatly enhance the National’s experience for all who attend. The goals we have set in place will cost $20,000 a year. With our current growth rate we will be able to fully fund from the regular fees that are charged. This year we will need to raise $20,000 and then $10,000 for 2009 and we will be funded by 2010. Our goal is to raise $30,000 through the National’s Booster Club. A few of the upgrades we need to make over the next two years are as follows:

• Move Opening Ceremony to the Cox Communication Center – Cox was hosted the 2007 Big 12 Basketball Championships and has a capacity 12,000.
• Use the Sawyer Center for Championship and Semifinal Games on both Friday and Saturday.
• Video Webcast 12 games.
• Cable TV coverage of the varsity championship games.

Please allow me to make something completely clear; many families that attend Nationals make a huge financial sacrifice to participate each year. We are not looking for help from your family if you fit this category, we are very thankful you bring your family to Nationals. However, as in any program there are families of various means. For example over the seven years that Nationals has been in Oklahoma City, Storm families have contributed over $70,000 to help build Nationals to where it is today. The fact is that most Storm families have never been able to contribute financially and the majority of the funds have been contributed by five families. Our search for partners to help us in the next phase of expansion is to find these few families of a means in each program to partner with us and help us continue be a blessing to the rest of the Homeschool community. We are hoping that our partners will help us keep the team fee structure where has been for the last seven years.

Members of the National Booster Club will be:

• Listed in the National’s Program - (This year we will dedicate a page in the program to recognize and thank the families that partner with us to make this next stage of advancement a reality)
• Invited to a special booster club reception during Nationals
• Given a VIP pass that entitles them to entrance in the Coach’s and VIP Hospitality Suite.

The NBF is a non profit organization and we have filed for 501c3 tax exempt status. Our status is officially pending although our IRS case worker has informed us everything is in order and we should have the final approval with in a few weeks.

For the past seven years Oklahoma City has hosted the National Christian Homeschool Basketball Championships (NCHBC). In that time, the tournament has grown from 100 teams to 298 teams, becoming the largest single-city basketball tournament in the United States. There are many reasons for the growth of the tournament but one of the primary reasons is that people, like you, have made contributions to the tournament giving us the ability to make the Nationals a higher quality tournament before the natural progress of funding was there.

If you are able to contribute to the entire national Homeschool basketball community, we will greatly appreciate it and we thank you for your support in advance.

Sincerely,

Luke McDonald
LMP Publishing

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