It was a bit of an anti-climax last week. All ready to have our opening session for the year Thursday and hosting the BKC for some inter-Club Kendo training, and the shadow of COVID came and clouded over the week.

The CBRC staff had been amazingly efficient in their deep clean of the Centre post a confirmed positive contact in the gym. However, we had decided to be cautious and “watch and wait” for a few more days before kicking off our training year.

So Take Two! We will be holding kagami biraki/keiko hajime tomorrow night (Tuesday) instead. I would love to see as many of you there as can make it, noting our current COVID framework for attendance at training:

• Be symptom free from the COVID watch list

• Full vaccination (including booster if you are due for it) OR a negative RAT up to 6 hour prior coming into the dojo

• Wearing of masks at all times save when (on a discipline-specific basis for particular plans) you are engaged in strenuous physical activity)

• Maintain social distancing outside of the immediate training zone (keiko-jo), especially being mindful of your gear set up

• Try to be as prepared as you can to start training straight away, including considering wearing most/all of your training uniform into the dojo (and leaving while still dressed in it)

• Use the hand sanitiser, foot sanitiser and check-in codes provided.

• Minimise the swapping of gear between training partners, and where you do, give them a sanitising wipe down before handing something over

• Be a little bit flexible with how (and what) we train for the next few weeks.

As I said last week, these measures are temporary and are wholly about shaving percentages off the chance of a superspreader event in the dojo. We have a number of members who work with vulnerable populations, and we simply do not wish to be foolhardy to those risks.

We will continue to monitor how things develop over the coming weeks. At this stage we are expecting that we might continue with these protocols for between 4-8 weeks. For my part, I will be partially guided by the direction taken in the Hospital service, and will be taking cues from how it is being managed there. Changes to the protocol may be sooner, and, of course, they could be extended. However, we will be taking all active steps to ensure we are doing our part.

Regardless.

I’ll very much look forward to seeing as many of you as able tomorrow night, and all of you in coming weeks. Take care everyone, be safe (as you can) and watch this space for new 2022 Zoom video links so that as much as possible, those who are away from the dojo can still participate.