Leicester Athena VC still training but ensuring they comply with 'the rule of 6'.
1. Biggest challenges
We have had to work hard with venues to ensure they are OK with us training. The result is - we are training again.
All four squads are training. We have a Junior session on Saturday mornings - we got 13 players this weekend. In terms of adults, National League, Regional and Local have also trained according to COVD restrictions. What is interesting is the support we have had from New College. They have worked with us and Volleyball England to make sure we can have sessions. They even record sessions on their CCTV and have queried one of the sessions which has meant us checking our understanding of the rules and return with clarification. So a huge thank you to them for their flexibility and support.
2. Precautions
We have a COVID-19 policy and a risk assessment. We ask everyone (including parents for juniors) to read the documents and sign the waiver. We even translated it into Greek to help one parent.
We have a COVID-19 officer at each session. They bring the hand sanitiser and wet wipes and ensure we take a break every 20-30 minutes.
We are working hard to design training that is fun and entertaining yet still meets the bubbles of 6 rule.
3. Members
Almost all of those members who were coming back have returned. We always knew we were losing a few due to people moving away and long term injuries etc. With juniors, the situation is a bit more fluid as we had got a real momentum before the lockdown with 18 players but keeping them engaged and interested has been hard during lockdown. I think we will get most of them back - though it doesn’t help when one of our really keen junior players breaks her wrist skateboarding!
I think we have 2 or 3 who will not come back due to health concerns. One of our local league players, for instance, has bad asthma and is shielding.
4. New members
We are fortunate to be still getting enquiries. We have attracted 6 or 7 juniors (and one their mum’s has joined the local league team). Each of the adult squads have had a couple of new players as well.
5. Promotion
We are looking for beginners and players who have played for 3-4 years to join the local league and regional league squads, The National League squad is doing well with lots of numbers and the juniors is doing well too.
If you do want to promote us, I think mentioning that we are looking for beginners as well as players wanting to return to the sport would be good. If you direct them to our website then they can contact us: https://athenavolleyball.weebly.com
6. Grant information on the Grant Finder page.
We will look into this. We have some reserves and we know this season will cost us a lot of money because a) we are determined to help players financially where possible, b) numbers for local and regional are down and c) we may want to invest in along net for DMU and New College.
So I will ask our Treasurer to look into those grants.