It has been just over a week since we found out that the 2020/21 season has been cancelled for us, which was understandably devastating news for all of the players and coaches to hear, but something which we fully support. Whilst we are naturally disappointed to not be able to get back on the floor, our priority above all else remains the safety of our players, coaches and volunteers. As much as we’d held out hope that the recent announcement from Basketball England wouldn’t come, we have discussed and anticipated for some time that the 2020/21 season may fall victim to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
As such, as painful as it is to continue to wait on the sidelines for our sport to resume, we applaud the decision that Basketball England have come to – it’s a decision which simply puts safety first. We appreciate that there may be some questions from our members and having discussed these, we have attempted to address some of them below: I have paid for the full season – will I get a refund? This is inarguably the question we’ve faced the most, and the simple answer is “yes”… but we’d ask you to be patient with us.
As we have previously discussed, we have been attempting to change our approach regarding the club’s treasury, and subsequently we have filled the vacant position on our committee with the support of one of our club’s most staunch supporters, Gascoynes Accountants.
The process of doing this has been far from simple, and has been complicated massively by our bank. As such, some months after starting this process, we still do not have the access to the account that we require in order to gain a clear understanding of the payments made by each club member.
We continue to work with Lloyds and Gascoynes to attempt to get this access and fully understand the situation. As soon as we have done so, we will liaise with the relevant members and arrange reimbursement.
Where anyone is in financial difficulty, and can evidence an overpayment to us, please contact us directly via email, and we will look into what we can do to resolve the matter more promptly. What about my Basketball England membership, will this be refunded? Basketball England have stated that this will be considered – but not until June 2021. Will the club be running a summer camp? The club’s coaches have not yet discussed this, nor have we liaised with our facilities as to the options available to us.
At this time, until we have exited lockdown, such discussions will not happen. Furthermore, our camp is not financially viable with a maximum of 30 players/coaches on the floor and adequately serve our club – as such, we would likely need the restrictions to be lifted to pre-pandemic standards in order to consider running our summer camp.
Again, we will continue to monitor the situation, and will communicate more when we know more.
Are we planning a return to “Zoom” coaching sessions?
At this time, there’s no plan to return to running sessions on Zoom, as they were not consistently well-attended, and rely on the weather being good enough to practice outdoors – which we don’t feel is likely at this time of the year.
Where players are looking to work on their game, there’s plenty of content for fundamentals development on the Junior NBA channel on YouTube. We’d also recommend following @cmbskillztraining on Instagram for a number of ball-handling and skill development ideas.
If you have any questions which we have not addressed above, please don’t hesitate to contact us.
Kind Regards,
Ashley, Glenn, Mark, Lynne, Hayley & Arron The Management Committee Bury St. Edmunds Basketball Club www.burybasketball.com #BulldogsFamily
Comments