Following the announcement on Monday 4th January 2021 by the Prime Minister, the Play Safe Guidelines which we negotiated as the official National Governing Body with the Government on behalf of our sport and allowing our members to play in COVID-Secure risk assessed venues are immediately suspended until further notice.
Specifically, this means:
[1] Private venues where pétanque is played and operated by clubs, social clubs or other hospitality or leisure businesses should be closed and not used to host the playing of pétanque. For the avoidance of doubt, privately owned or managed venues are not permitted even to host a game of Singles between two individuals from separate households or play within a household/linked household.
[2] You should minimise time spent outside your home.
[3] From 00.01 (today) Wednesday 6th January 2021, it is against the law to meet socially with family or friends unless they are part of your household or support bubble. You can only leave your home to exercise, and not for the purpose of recreation or leisure. This should be limited to once per day, and you should not travel outside your local area.
[4] You can only exercise in a public outdoor place:
- by yourself;
- with the people you live with;
- with your support bubble; or
- when on your own, with 1 person from another household.
It should be noted that there is no restriction on the type of activity you can do when exercising outdoors in public outdoor spaces (see below for definition), provided that you are within the permitted gathering limits. This includes both organised and informal/self-organised outdoor sport. The only exceptions are organised outdoor sport for people with disabilities, sport for educational purposes and supervised sport and physical activity for under-18s (including those who were under 18 on 31 August 2020), which can continue with any number of participants.
[5] Public outdoor places are defined by the Government as:
- parks, beaches, countryside accessible to the public, forests;
- public gardens (whether or not you pay to enter them);
- the grounds of a heritage site; and
- playgrounds.
Please note that the playing of our sport at venues that do not fall within these public outdoor spaces is not permitted. Breach of Government regulations enshrined in law can lead to penalties being issued by the police.
You can view the latest Government Guidance for grassroots sport here.
7 comments
Geoff Gallifant
6th January 2021 at 10:18 pm
My main concern is your asking members to pay membership fees for what when we are in lockdown. I think our governing body should rethink and suspend all requests for renewing membership until further notice. We are all trying to overcome a pandemic which is costing lives. I hope that common sense prevails and you reconsider your actions.
John Coomber
7th January 2021 at 6:56 am
I agree with Geoff, other organisations we belong to have either not asked or reduced their membership fees for the year, what playing we have down has been at the personal invititation of the pub landlord whose owns our piste.
GARY CARDNELL
7th January 2021 at 11:06 am
I agree 100% with Geoff Gallifants suggestion. Most other sporting venues have suspended membership due to lockdowns.
Marion Jones
7th January 2021 at 2:33 pm
Agree with above comments , very sensible.
Stephen Lewis
7th January 2021 at 2:53 pm
We have some members who wanted to rejoin PE but because of lost income due to Covid are now unable to afford to. Its not in our organisations interest to loose these members because they can no longer afford to pay the full cost this year. It would make sense to me if we could have a more flexible approach, for example, members having these financial difficulties could seek reductions if supported by their own clubs.
John Lambie
7th January 2021 at 3:40 pm
Petanque is a minority sport, valued by both the members of Petanque England and those many thousands who play unaffiliated in teams or clubs but who need the framework of the regional structure to provide background legitimacy.
The small annual charge to members is vital to not only to fund international and local competition, but to enable the organisation to pay the overheads during lockdowns so that the sport can be rapidly be readied for action when the restrictions are lifted.
£28pa (less than 8 pence per day, what do you pay for your phone/tv etc?) is a small price to pay to keep this sport’s wheels turning!!!
Lesley McCallum
24th January 2021 at 1:18 pm
Well said!!