Are We Ready to Reboot Road Racing?
Earlier advices suspending Club racing until further notice, dated 16 March 2020 and 12 May 2020 refer and continue to apply.
The Committee held its monthly meeting on Tuesday last, and our Veterans Cycling Victoria (VCV) Delegates, also attended the VCV bi-monthly meeting on Wednesday evening.
As you would expect, the issue of rebooting our road racing season was high on both Agenda’s and this advice is designed to keep members appraised of developments.
Firstly there is a significant amount of information from both the Federal & State governments regarding this issue and ultimately the Club is required to adopt the Covid 19 Regulations as they stand from time to time. In addition and while our Race Director has submitted our race permit applications for the second half of this year, Victoria Police will not release the permits until such time as the regulations allow us to recommence road racing.
Notwithstanding the current situation, the Committee is in the process of building a framework to ensure we can quickly comply with any regulations, when we are cleared to recommence operations. To assist in this process, we have appointed Prof. John Stenos and Chris Shay as the Club’s Covid 19 Safety Officers, a role they are both very well equipped to fulfil.
Most of you will be familiar with some of the obligations businesses and clubs are required to meet before they can open to the public/ members and these equally apply to GSCC. Accordingly, John & Chris will be responsible for the Covid 19 safety of our members when they return to the club to race. We will of course, be calling on additional resources to help manage this process on race days, it can’t just be the Committee.
Members will be provided with very clear instructions regarding race day processes, once we are cleared to race, and we anticipate tight compliance by everyone visiting the Club.
In addition to the above, the VCV as our State Peak body have also withdrawn race sanctions until further notice, appointing a Covid 19 Co-Ordinator to assist all member Clubs adhere to the regulations. As a result of the substantial impact of Covid 19 to date, the VCV have also cancelled all Open events and Aggregate Awards, for season 2020. In order to support member Clubs meeting the costs of complying with Covid 19 requirements, they have approved a payment based on Club member numbers, with GSCC to receive $1500.
It is also timely to mention that both the VCV & GSCC will be looking into potential fee discounts for members renewing their 2020 membership in 2021. There will be more on this later in the year.
Finally, as a Club, we continue to promote the following practices
1.5m Distancing
Good Hygiene
Stay at home if Unwell
Need to maintain an average density of 4 square metres per person (Club Rooms)
In addition, the AIS Framework document “Community & Individual Sports” applies the following additional recommendations for cycling:-
Avoid cycling in slipstream of others – maintain 10m from cyclist in front
Avoid packs of greater than two
Clearly all of these conditions are designed to keep us safe, and do not provide for a resumption of road racing at this stage.
We are looking to provide an update on this topic at least every 4 weeks or more regularly if circumstances substantially change.