Hi Everyone,

 

As we are sure most of you are aware, Qld has just re-introduced some restrictions following the recent cases in SEQ.  We’ve reviewed these restrictions and considered how they affect Easts current activities.

 

In short, the restrictions do not require any changes to our current activities including training and Phoenix League.  Our experience so far really has been good thanks to everyone’s co-operation. However, there are a number of key requirements in our COVIDsafe implementation plan that we need to remind ourselves of and to be more vigilant in complying with.  

 

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1. Maintaining Physical Distancing when not “on court”: Whenever you are not actively involved in training or playing a game, you must maintain 1.5m distance from other people who are not from your household.  Practically this means, that when you are waiting to come into the venue, spectating, or are interacting with people before and after training you must maintain 1.5m distance from other people.  A particular issue for us is the congregation of people waiting to get into the venue - please maintain distance as you’re waiting to get in and are leaving.
    

2. Maintaining good hygiene practices at all times: Practically this means no sharing of personal equipment (water bottles, etc), no hand contact (high gives, fist bumps, etc), coughing/sneezing into your elbow, and hand sanitising/washing regularly including throughout training.
    

3. Get in, train/play, get out: Don’t arrive more than 10 minutes before your training/game/duty.  If you do, please stay in your car until the appropriate time.  When your training/game/duty is finished, you need to leave the venue as quickly as possible using the designated exits.
    

4. Restrictions on numbers: At the present time, we do not plan to stop spectators from attending.  In some instances, people need a parent/carer to attend with them in order to participate.  Some people also need to bring along kids and a carer for those kids so that they can play.  We fully understand this and don’t want to implement a requirement that will effectively prevent participation.  However, we are implementing a rule that limits the number of people on a court at any point in time to 35.  Given our experience to date we don’t think this will result in any practical change to attendance at our training or Phoenix League.  However, we thought we should flag this to everyone’s attention.

 

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We completely understand that this can be difficult, after all participating in volleyball is a very social occasion: it is a chance for us to catch up with friends, watch games, and generally engage with our community.  The times we are in, particularly given the recent events in Queensland, mean that we have to accept a “new normal” that requires us to change what we do and how we engage with volleyball.

 

We also understand that this can appear to be contradictory when, whilst playing or training, you don’t need to maintain this distance.  The rationale behind this requirement is to reduce the chances where you may infect someone else or be infected by COVID-19.  We accept the risk whilst playing and training, but we aim to remove the possible instances where transmission might occur whilst off court.

 

Most importantly, complying with these requirements, adjusting what we do, ensures that we are able to continue participating in volleyball whilst also keeping each other and our community safe.  We all hope that in the future we will be able to return to how things once were.  In the meantime, we need to accept this “new normal” and comply with these requirements.

 

One final requirement that we wanted to remind you of and we’re sure that we don’t really need to but … if you are unwell OR have been in any circumstance that may mean you have been in contact with someone who is infected or is suspected of being infected (including attending at one of the designed Queensland Health contract tracing locations) please do not attend training/games.

 

We will continue to monitor the Queensland Health and Government directives and keep everyone up to date.

 

Thanks again for your understanding and your continued co-operation.

 

 

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Trevor Hunter

President

Easts Volleyball Club