Lockdown 2 - FRBC Site Temporarily Closed
We have now heard from British Rowing who have said that as things stand at the moment, all rowing activity must stop when the lockdown comes into force on Thursday. The current expected return to rowing dates is 2nd December. Following their conversations with DCMS, British Rowing have highlighted that:
• Sports clubs/facilities will be required to close entirely - this includes rowing clubs and their landing stages.
• Whilst rowing in a single scull or a crew made up from a single household is not at this stage ruled out by the restrictions as personal exercise is allowed, the fact that club boating facilities will not be available means that for the vast majority of rowers this form of personal exercise will not be possible.
• Sport for juniors will only be able to take place as part of the school curriculum, i.e. during PE lessons.
• The only exemptions to the above will be for designated elite athletes - the definition of this will not be changing - in rowing, these are only those senior GB Rowing Team members currently training at the National Training Centre as agreed with UK Sport.
• Schools who operate out of community rowing clubs such as FRBC, will be out of the sport for the period of the lockdown.
I know this is disappointing news to say the least, particularly with all of the work that had gone in to keep FRBC operating in a Covid secure way but, as ever, we need to recognise the wider public health implications of not doing something to stop the spread of the virus.
I’m extremely grateful to all of our members, schools, and participants who have shown such brilliant support to FRBC when we came out of the last lockdown. I’m incredibly proud of our team for each playing their part in helping get FRBC through this crisis and above all, I know that the collective effort from everyone who comes through the doors has meant we’ve not had any reported C-19 cases on site.
Going into another lockdown means more uncertainty both for FRBC as a whole and all of us as individuals. There’s no doubt that we have some bumps left in this particular journey but I know that we have right the people involved to help us get through this next phase of adversity and back to doing what we do best, providing Rowing for All.
Steve