A message from the club to all who have completed a Junior Membership Enquiry Form since February 2020 and are on our waiting list for induction into the club.
Firstly, many apologies from Giffnock North Athletics Club for the wait you have had.
Due to COVID-19, We have been unable to offer places at the Club and organise our usual inductions for all new members. The last one was held in February 2020 . This was just before the 1st Lockdown.
We are, of course, bound by the COVID rules and restrictions set by Scottish Government, Sports Scotland and our governing body Scottish Athletics and we were only able to resume sessions in August 2020.
The restrictions have meant, for our existing club members, that we need to have small groups of athletes with allocated coaches and a pre-booking system in place for Test & Protect purposes.
We recognise fully our responsibilities to ensure safe training for all. It has been an immense organisational task as the rules and restrictions eased and group sizes changed frequently. Then the 2nd Lockdown occurred in December and a further cessation of training had to take place. We have only recently resumed training as you will know. We have been as frustrated as you and your athletes must be. If you are in receipt of this email it is confirmation that we will be looking to help when we can.
PRESENT SITUATION FOR ATHLETES U13 and Above
We have recently moved our athletes up to the next Age Groups. [ Delayed from September 2020] and are currently reviewing what spaces there are in training groups following this exercise. We hope to be able to contact you with better news as this review takes place. We will do so as soon as we can, but this will still depend on our coaching capacity and is underlined by our continuing commitment and adherence to Covid Safe practice at the club.
We thank you and your older athletes for your continuing patience. Sometimes spaces arise in training groups for older athlete and if so, we will ensure you are contacted.
SITUATION FOR ATHLETES Age 9 and who became 10 after 1/9/20
We must make you aware that it will be easier for us to immediately accept younger athletes at the present time as spaces in U11s have become available. We will be contacting you shortly to offer sessions based on age and the length of time on the waiting list. We have to emphasise that U11s in athletics terms mean those athletes age 9 and those who became 10 subsequent to the 1st September 2020.
This is difficult to understand. Some of you will be saying, but my athlete is only 10 and only turned 10 in May/ June /July /August 2020 etc and they’ve been on the list for months.. They are U13 however, for Track & Field events this summer.
We have had several offers of coaching /parental help input. Thank you. We will be following your offers up. We will need ongoing assistance if we are to develop our capacity and maintain the progress we have made at Giffnock North. If you are interested at all please let us know. Please email us here.
Otherwise, we ask you to wait to hear from us
Please bear with us as we work through this period to find solutions.