This week we spoke to Wayne Barber about his thoughts on getting back to playing volleyball and how he has managed his dual roles of Hull and East Yorkshire Volleyball Association Chairperson and Hull Thunder Volleyball Club Secretary.

As you know I have split interest almost when it comes to volleyball activities. First I’ll cover HEYVA and then fill you in regarding Hull Thunder. So with HEYVA I’ve spent the lockdown trying to ensure regular communication with our various clubs (via a messenger group, Facebook page and also via semi regular MS Teams meetings) and also helping and encouraging the clubs to utilise the time to get some of the more boring back ground tasks done such as updating club constitutions, bank accounts, safe guarding, etc...

I’ve been trying to promote a more unified and collaborative approach locally and it has helped to bring a better togetherness amongst our clubs which is nice. One example of this is that I’ve managed to develop Risk Assessments for local venues which will cover all our clubs rather than each needed to do them individually.

On the Hull Thunder VC we maintain regular communications with our members via our club Facebook pages and primarily through an App called Team App.

Team App has pretty much completely changed the way we do things within the club due to the fact that it covers the club for:m. Both mass and 1-2-1 communication, Event and match scheduling, Notifications can be sent to ensure everyone has received important updates, Emergency contact details for all members held within GDPR guidelines, Covers us for safeguarding as all juniors are register against a parent to ensure all communications can be monitored. And most importantly during this pandemic it allows us to control and register who and how many are attending session. Formerly we used to use all manner of messenger, WhatsApp and Facebook groups which made it difficult to make sure everyone was kept informed.

There is a strong interest in getting back to playing and when restriction eased last summer we saw a lot of current and former members coming down to sessions and hopefully that will be the same this time around however only time will tell.

In terms of preparation as stated before we have all our risk assessments in place as per the previous restrictions and will be able to change those to suit any new guidelines relatively quickly. We had some bad news recently regarding our venue cancelling our tenancy going forward so at the moment we are venue less. But we are working hard to remedy this although with so much uncertainty at the moment most venues are reluctant to take any long term bookings.

I think what we are most looking forward to in the next few weeks is being able to get some outdoor sessions going again, I have read the guidelines that are available at the moment and it is not clear if there are any restrictions on numbers of people that will be able to play at these sessions so I will wait for further guidance as and when it appears.

As for the Sitting Volleyball, we are in the same situation regarding a venue which is frustrating but we will aim to have something in place for when the restrictions lift in May. However I have been actively trying to engage with local disability groups in prefer to promote what we can offer and have had positive feedback thus far which is good.

I received the Sanitation package yesterday(and have attached a photo), it really is a generous package and I just want to thank you and the VE Foundation for providing this.

I must admit I have not had a great deal of chance to look into the Return to Play funding so any information you could provide would be brilliant.