We are really pleased and excited to announce that the UK Government and the RFU have given the green light for Community Rugby to return (albeit with restrictions).
At LBRFC, we will need to carefully manage the situation in conjunction with the Vaccination Centre activity, which we feel is a vital service that will ultimately help to lead us out of further restrictions, and so we are keen to allow this to continue for the foreseeable future.
There will be changes to our normal operations, but I hope that you will support us in this stance and work with us to ensure that both facets of our activity can co-exist.
Tom Mowbray (our Head Coach) Kev Street (our MJ Chair) and I have met and discussed the guidelines and put the following plans in place:
Monday 29th March
* ‘Adapted’ contact training can resume (this means no Scrums or Mauls), with 20 minutes of contact training allowable in every hour long training session, and players sanitizing hands/gloves/equipment every 15 minutes during the session.
The U15 and U16 Age Groups will be able to train in the evening on one of the days that week, as well as the Senior’s, Men’s and Ladies Touch groups.We will inform you in due course which evenings these sessions will be.
Sunday 4th April
Sunday morning MJ training sessions can resume at the club, following the arrangements above*.
There will be 3 sessions each Sunday morning:
9am – 10am: Fledglings, U7’s & U12’s
10.30am – 11.30am: Girls, U8’s, U9’s & U10’s
12pm – 1pm: U11’s, U13’s & U14’s
N. B. We have had to split the Age Groups this way so as to manage the number of cars on site at any one time as we will only have use of the Lower Car Park (On the immediate left as you drive through the gates – capacity of approx.. 80 cars). The rest of the Car Park area is to be kept clear of Rugby Club traffic for the use of the Vaccination Centre staff and patients, who may well be Vaccinating 7 days a week from April onward.
The numbers we have used are based on the current membership kept on the RFU Game Management System (GMS) which we realise might be slightly out of date, hence Head Coaches asking you directly to get a more accurate figure. Based on these numbers we may need to change the cohorts accordingly.
Further Information:
The current Season has been extended until 31st May 2021.
- · The age grade out of season regulations are suspended for 2021 and replaced with a range of permitted non-contact and contact training & playing. The purpose of this is to support player safety, contact preparation and player retention for any out of season age grade activities.
- · All players will remain in their current Age Grade, with the relevant ‘Rules’ until 31st December, after which they will then move up to the next Age Grade and relevant ‘Rules’. This is to allow for core skills to be reintroduced and coached before players move to the next set of rules to ensure the safety of all.
- · Eligible Age Grades will be able to participate in 20 minutes of (adapted) Contact training in a 1 hour session.
- · Players and Coaches will need to stop every 15 minutes to sanitise hands/gloves/all equipment etc
- We will ensure that bins containing water and sanitizing fluid are available for the cleaning of equipment, but we would advise that all players bring their own, labelled, Hand Sanitiser for personal use.
- · All equipment at the club will be sanitized before first use on the 4th April.
N.B. Whilst the Vaccination Centre remains operational, the Clubhouse and its facilities are completely out-of-bounds.
We have, however, arranged for Portable Toilets to be located near the lower car park, a caterer will be providing Bacon Rolls and Hot Drinks throughout the Sunday sessions and a marquee will be erected at the rear of the clubhouse where a bar will be located, once regulations allow.
We are assuming that the NHS Track and Trace scheme will be in place still and so QR codes or a Registration book will be located by the entrance onto the field and we would ask for your cooperation in complying with this when arriving at the club.
Finally, we are awaiting further guidance from the RFU and so plans may need to be slightly adapted in line with these, but we think we have a process in place which covers everything. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me.
I look forward to seeing you at the start of April.
Kind Regards
Lee Beaumont
Chairman