Playing with Covid
The committee has been reviewing the situation on a regular basis to ensure that at the earliest, safest, opportunity club night badminton might resume.
We are aware that the school has a plan to resume access to the hall in early September and currently we are trying to establish what safeguards will be put in place to protect hall hirers and of course school users.
At the same time we have been taking guidance from Badminton England by following up on their stepped procedural plan for clubs to return to play.
It is fair to say that at this point in time there are many uncertainties and questions that still remain unanswered, but in time will become clearer.
However, for now the club's committee is committed to progressing the return to Monday night club play and will continue to push forward with this goal in mind. Thank you for your patience and understanding.
As and when we have further news to share relating to recommencing club nights and compliance with Covid restrictions we will update this page.
Please refer to this page on a regular basis.
A message from the Chair
Dear FBC member,
I very much hope that everyone is managing to navigate through these uncertain and restrictive lives we are currently having to live.
It was some time since I was last in touch regarding the next steps of the Fairford Badminton Club. I can hardly believe it’s now October and we really are no further forward in getting back to life before COVID!
The committee have had a couple of zoom/ socially distanced meetings over the last few months, and most recently, it won’t come as huge surprise to you, it was decided that now is not the time to get the club back to playing, sadly.
It was regrettably and reluctantly agreed that there will be no further play for the club until further notice. Although, when we can, we all very much want the club to be up and running again.
During September, the committee experimented with a couple of trial sessions with 1 court at the sports centre. However nice is was to be able to play again, it was not at all the same, and the COVID19 regulations really did put a dampener on it.
It was discussed that we possibly could try to work out processes and procedures in order to get up to 2 courts able to play, but the amount of management of this would be prohibitive and the “social, fun, flexible and relaxed” atmosphere that we know the members bring to the club, would be missing.
We also felt that we have to look at the bigger picture and take some social responsibility here. No one wishes to have their restricted lives last any longer than necessary and if we can do our bit by not mixing too many households in an indoor environment, we can only hope that we will come out the other side sooner rather than later.
We realise that the club has your fees, of which you have not been able to make the most of. I can assure you that a financially fair system will be sorted out when we are able to play again.
As a little bit of social interaction, and in order to see everyone one again, we did talk about the idea of a FBC Christmas Quiz (via zoom or such like). If there is any interest and enthusiasm in this from you, please let us know and we will see what we can arrange.
It just remains to wish you all the very best. We are so sorry that we can’t get back to our Monday club nights yet but fingers are crossed for some sort of change in the New Year.
Keep well and please stay in touch. All our very best wishes,
Jo, Lou, Emma, Deric, John & Rod
FBC committee
Following on from the last post we are able to report that the sport centre will be open for clubs as from 7th September 2020, in line with the school going back. However the process which would need to be followed to ensure safe play for everyone is currently not straightforward and will need a lot of planning and coordination by the committee in the first instance, and then would require a very different system of booking and play for all the members.
While the sports hall will be thoroughly cleaned at the start and end of the school day, essentially the onus will, bye and large, fall upon the club to provide a safe environment for its members.
At this stage we do not foresee how we are able to get the club nights reinstated before early October 2020, and this is still a very optimistic time scale.
…watch this space!
The committee met last week to discuss and agree the actions that could be undertaken to bring club night play closer to resuming.
It was agreed that specific questions would be put to the school to identify what procedures are to be put in place to comply with current Covid restrictions and safeguard club members.
We are currently looking to the school to respond.
