Squash Club Reopening Saturday 25th July

I am pleased to announce we will be re-opening on Saturday 25th July in line with the SRA guidance and following a bespoke plan for our premises and facilities.

I am IOSH trained and complete Risk Assessments for my day to day job so I have completed the Risk Assessment and it is currently being reviewed by the Committee before it will be published to all before the re-opening.

I am writing to brief you on the key principles that as a Members Club with no permanent staff we have to apply if we are to make a success of this re opening. This is the first step in the process of trying to return to more normal operations and your co-operation and support will be vital in making it a success. The guidelines can never be all encompassing so there is a spirit or intention embodied within them and this is what we want you to support. We will provide all the facilities we can including the plan but we need you to implement them please. For this we rely on the goodwill and good sense of our members to ensure the health and safety of all of us.

If we become aware of any significant departures from the guidelines we will of course take appropriate action.

If you do notice something we haven’t got right or needs tweaking please speak to us. The plan is a live document and can be amended, we want this to work so good ideas are welcome. We will review it in operation and fine tune it if required.

Here are our expectations of you:-

Players are required to arrive promptly (no more than 5 mins ahead of playing) and leave immediately after playing. To facilitate social distancing please wait to play in the entry corridor behind the glass divider and not the Court lobby area to allow the players leaving space to do so.

• Use hand sanitiser on arrival and departure.
• No handshaking/physical contact and always maintain social distancing.
• Bring own water bottle and arrive at the club with it full.
• Bring own towel to wipe away sweat.
• Do not wipe hands on court walls.
• Bring your own balls and racket.
• Bring a change of shirt if you are prone to sweat a lot.
• Take your kit bag and water bottle on court.
• Players to arrive at the club in kit, ready to play and they should shower at home whenever possible.
All Courts to be booked and players names to be included on the booking log which we will use along with the door register for contact tracing in the event of an incident.
Court booking times will remain unaltered as the diametrically opposed Court times always being 20 minutes apart is the best we can do social distancing wise without entering into very complicated offsets that may cause user confusion and defeat the objective.

The use of the changing rooms and showering facilities is actively discouraged and are only available for participants with disabilities or special needs until further notice. Similarly the viewing balcony is out of bounds to players with the exception of Coaches during organised coaching sessions and parents or guardians of Juniors.

If having to use the changing facilities any used kit arising must be bagged and put away immediately and not allowed to contact any other surfaces. Additional cleaning materials will be available and any inadvertent contact must be wiped away at the time by those concerned.

We will be following the SRA guidelines on play, summarised below and the full version is on the SRA web site. Clearly for the foreseeable future there will be no inter Club Matches, Box Leagues or Club Night. These will undoubtedly follow but re introduction will take time and will be done in a controlled manner once SRA and Government guidance permits it.

A maximum of 2 players allowed on court.
Solo practice will be allowed.
2 players from the same household or bubble are allowed on court and can do routines and normal games.
2 players from different households are allowed on court but must play the socially distanced “sides” game.
A coach may supervise/coach an individual (social distancing must be observed).
A coach may supervise/coach 2 players from the same household (the coach must observe social distancing e.g. coach from the balcony).
A coach may supervise/coach 2 players from the different households (the coach must observe social distancing e.g. coach from the balcony).
A coach may supervise a group of 5 players (maximum) from different households using multiple courts but only 2 players maximum allowed on a court.

Apologies for the length of this note, there is a lot to get across at the moment.

Please come back to play as outlined above if you feel happy to do so and we will be pleased to see you.

We have installed additional hand gels, cleaning materials and disposable towels for your use.

The Courts and Changing Rooms and general circulation areas will be subject to an enhanced cleaning regime from the 25th July and we are arranging for a deep clean on Friday morning the 24th July in advance of re opening.

Regards
Richard May
07710044892