Advice on Basketball “Return to Play” moving from Basketball England Level 3 to Level 2.
The Northumberland and Tyne & Wear Area, along with the TyneMet League Committee, have been considering what advice to give to the Basketball England Affiliated Clubs in their jurisdiction.
BE have issued a large document outlining all aspects of how the game can restart indoors.
This can be found at https://www.basketballengland.co.uk/media/12472/return-to-play-guidance-03-08-20.pdf
The advice is much more extensive than has been issued by most other sports and represents the tremendous effort that has gone in to persuade the Government to accept the processes and safeguards in the document. The advice is also flexible as the situation develops , so please make sure you check for updates.
One thing is certain. We in the Basketball community must take all this advice as MANDATORY. If we are guilty of causing an ‘outbreak’ then we will damage our sport (and our people) in many ways.
There will be many steps that Clubs need to take before even thinking about entering an Indoor court.
There are many different levels of our Sport. Professional, National League, BUCS, Local League etc . The upper echelons will have employees who will be working on the numerous tasks needed to allow their Clubs to restart some sort of Indoor Training and then eventually Competition. However, at Local League level these tasks will fall to volunteers.
No-one should underestimate the complexity of the process that BE have outlined for us to follow so that we can safely return to our sport.
The local BE Committees are therefore working through how to best advise and assist member Clubs to achieve the standards necessary to respect the “Level 2 “ requirements .Although this will happen quite soon it must also be borne in mind that the facilities that we play in ( Schools, Leisure centres, sports centres etc ) will also have their own standards to be met . Finally, but not least, the participants themselves will have their own requirements in order to feel safe.
It would be a surprise if any Local League Club meets even the basic Level 2 requirements before September. Similarly starting a League Competition feels a long way off (if at all).
Basketball England opened its website Membership Portal on 3rd August. Membership runs from September 1st for a year. Existing BE members are insured until 31st August 2020,BUT as currently there are no sanctioned competitions it is clear that any Training MUST be under the latest COVID-19 RTP regulations (whether Outdoor or Indoor) for it to apply.
Further information will be posted on ………………….
TyneMet League News page https://tynemetbasketball.co.uk/news
which also auto-posts on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/TynemetBasketballLeague
and Twitter https://twitter.com/TynemetLeague
Please will Club Officers fully acquaint themselves with the BE documentation, and identify what they need clarification or further guidance about. We will be back in touch soon.
NTWBAA + TML Committee.
5/Aug/20