Newsletter #3 May 2020

We know this has been an unusual time for us all, we hope you are well and finding ways to keep active at home. As you may have already heard, Football SA broadly announced on Friday that training could resume as of May 11, 2020. The statement was linked to a document released by Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) on categories and stipulations of re-commencement of training. Soccer fell into the category of no more than 10 participants (including the coach) and non-contact drills.

While we are very excited that this is a step closer to the season returning, it has raised many more questions with very few answers. 

Committee members met  earlier this week to discuss logistics and map out a plan ahead. We have decided to continue the suspension of training for all teams – Miniroos, Juniors & Seniors, until the week starting May 18. This will allow for more consultation with coaches, Council, Oval Committee, etc. and provide us with the newest information to be released this coming Friday. It will also allow us to gather all of the information and guide us how to best move forward. 

While the statement from Football SA was positive and we too share this optimism, the reality of meeting specific guidelines, as well as juggling the needs of 13 teams, parents, coaches etc., requires a large amount of consideration and planning. Player, parent & volunteer safety is also a major concern. 

Until we have answered the seemingly endless list of questions such as, “How will we manage the teams entering and leaving the pitch?”, “How will parent spectators impact our numbers and social distancing requirements?”, “How will we split our larger teams to meet the maximum of 10 participants?”, “Can we source enough hand sanitiser and disinfectant for all our teams/trainings?”, “Can we use the public toilet facilities?”, “Do we have access to Mylor or other training facilities?”, we as a Club are not prepared to resume training. We are however working on the answers to get thing right.

No training at Hahndorf Soccer Club will commence before the 18th of May, 2020.

The easiest thing for us to do would be to rush a decision with incomplete information and hand ball it all to our coaches to deal with. But this is not what we are about. We are one Club, and one family who will work through this together. There is no manual or handbook on how to get through this pandemic, and we have done our very best to keep up our communications and engage with you all during this time.

Please stay tuned for more details early next week once we have more information and a plan in place. Thank you for your understanding and we look forward to getting back out there as soon as it is practical and safe to do so.

Kind Regards 
The Hahndorf Soccer Club Committee