Following-on from our recent membership survey, we wanted to provide some feedback and share the next steps in our return to the court.
Firstly, we’d like to say thank you to everyone who took a few minutes to complete the survey – we had more than 30 responses to the survey from across our Local League sides, which represents a quite significant number of our members.
Returning to the Floor:
From a review of the survey, it’s clear that there’s a real desire to get back on the floor and playing at the earliest opportunity – with the majority of those surveyed insisting they’d be willing to get back on the floor “immediately”.
Based on the current governmental guidance, and timelines from Basketball England, the first sessions we can consider would be from week commencing 17th May, by which time over 80% of those surveyed would be prepared to return to play.
Whilst we appreciate that some people would be willing to undertake outdoor training, or training within six person bubbles, however, we’ve found that the English weather can cause havoc with the former, and training in six person bubbles simply isn’t economically viable.
Traditionally, May is the start of the off-season for us, and with competitions not scheduled to start until Autumn 2021, it’s important that we take a reasoned and measured approach to our return to the floor. That means that when we return to the floor, it will be on a pay-as-you-go basis, until the pre-season formally begins.
In terms of running social/fundraising events, whilst the majority of those surveyed were prepared to attend an event in June, we’ll continue to monitor the situation as we come out of Lockdown, before we begin planning any fundraising events.
Next Steps:
Whilst we had a very good turnout from our Local League Men’s side, we had only a handful of responses from our Senior Women’s & Get Back Into Basketball sessions.
In light of this, we need to engage with the members of those sessions to understand whether they remain viable for the 2021/22 season. If you are a member of either of the above sessions, please complete the survey by Friday 26th March at the latest, the survey can be found here.
As we have also previously highlighted, we require coaches and volunteers to support these sessions – and without them, we may not be in a position to offer Get Back Into Basketball / Senior Women’s Basketball moving forwards.
We are also in the process of engaging with venues to understand what court time is available, and hope to shortly share the training schedule for the Senior Club.
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