Coronavirus Update from Archery GB

 Dear Archery Family,

In light of the government’s announcement regarding Coronavirus, Archery GB has reviewed the latest guidance provided and has made the difficult decision to postpone all archery activity across the UK for the foreseeable future, in order to reduce all non-essential contact with others. It was not an easy decision to make but our priority is the health and safety of our members, participants, volunteers and staff.

We are here to help!

We appreciate that many of you are facing your own challenges following the new restrictions, which will inevitably have financial implications across our sport, as well as implications for your personal and family life. Please be assured that we are aware of this and while we don’t have all the answers, we are compiling frequently asked questions and guidance for our clubs, counties, regions and volunteers, which we hope to be sending out in the coming days. This is a two-way process and we encourage you to share your questions, experiences and ideas which we can collate, answer and share with the rest of the community. Please keep the lines of communication open.

Our general principle has been, and will remain, to follow the advice from the Government. We want to help ensure that as a sport we minimise the risk of any spread of the virus and minimise the risk to our members and participants. As a result, we have taken the following actions:

– We have reviewed all Archery GB -run events, workshops, seminars, courses (i.e. anything run and directly managed by Archery GB) until 30 April and taken the decision that none will go ahead as planned – further details will be communicated to the individuals involved and refunds will be offered along with the option to have credits placed on your account.

– The AGM scheduled to take place on the 18 April, in Birmingham will not be going ahead as planned, a further announcement on this will be communicated in the coming days.

– Our office in Lilleshall remains open at this stage. Our staff are being encouraged to work from home where able, something many are accustomed to doing. For those that are currently unable to work from home, we are working on solutions to minimise their contact with others and providing equipment so services can continue from home. We are advising our staff to make use of video conferencing wherever possible, including contact and meetings with our key volunteers. Office phone lines, where possible will be forwarded to work mobiles. Staff can access company email accounts from home.

– At this time, the Olympics and Paralympics are going ahead as planned, however, many of the major international archery events have been cancelled/postponed, please refer to the World Archery website for regular updates. We want to ensure that the GB Archery Team goes into the Games having had the best possible preparation and so we have put in place a number of protocols to manage the risk around the Team’s activities and Coronavirus, this allows them to continue shooting at Lilleshall. Whilst prioritising the health of the athletes and staff involved with the team, we aim to keep the programme operating as close to normal as possible and are working on contingency planning where decisions have been taken out of our hands. Again, we are constantly reviewing this scenario and will provide updates if this changes.
At this stage, we don’t know enough information to make any decisions beyond the end of April but will be constantly reviewing the situation and will keep you informed through ezines, website and social media.

– The Archery GB Big Weekend will not go ahead in the current format. We hope that clubs can take a flexible approach to running have a go’s and beginners’ courses during the summer once/if government restrictions have been lifted. We know how important the running of these events is to clubs, we will create resources to help clubs promote their events as we currently do for the Big Weekend. Further information will be communicated shortly.

Advice regarding insurance:

Following a number of enquiries regarding insurance, we have received the following guidance from our insurers Howdens:

“At the present time we can only advise you and your clubs to follow the government advice. Within any insurance policy there is a reasonable precautions condition and if the club are deliberately ignoring advice or acting recklessly this may impact on the liability indemnity being available.

All clubs should record their decisions and reasons to proceed or not with their activities, and ensure that risk assessment and risk management is considered through their process.

The health and wellbeing of everyone being of primary importance as per the governments guidance.”

Archery GB advises that all archery in the UK is postponed for the foreseeable future, in order to reduce all non-essential contact with others. Our priority is the health and safety of our members, participants, volunteers and staff.

If clubs believe they can operate within the government guidelines and ensure no social contact takes place and all social distancing measures and government hygiene measures are in place. They need to make sure they record their decisions and reasons to proceed or not with their activities, and ensure that risk assessment and risk management is considered through their process. We cannot stress strongly enough that the decision to proceed against government advice and our guidance is a risk taken by the club, continuing to shoot could invalidate your insurance and any claims made will be made to the insurers and it is their decision not Archery GB’s.

We advise you to postpone all archery activity with immediate effect.

What’s next?

We’re are working hard to review all archery activity that was scheduled to take place in the coming weeks and will be providing guidance and support to the relevant people over the coming days.

We will be issuing an email communication to all members advising them on our latest guidance that all archery activity is postponed for the foreseeable future.

We ask that you to continue to follow the government’s guidance on how to prevent the spread of Coronavirus, by reviewing the advice provided here.

We will do our best to get you back shooting as soon as possible, but in the meantime please stay safe and support each other during this hard time.

We know the archery community is good at supporting each other, it will be more important than ever that we work together to create solutions to ensure we keep our members engaged during this period. We are working on some ideas and videos we can share to keep the interest in archery alive albeit virtually through the coming weeks. Please send over any ideas you may have to Sophie.meering@archerygb.org.

Thank you for your continued support, let’s get through this together!

To read the full statement regarding Coronavirus please click here.