Today we welcomed a return to our sport!
In line with the Governments Roadmap to reopening society and business we can now travel anywhere within the island of Ireland and run events, such as club leagues and open matches. Numbers are restricted with up to 200 outdoors and 50 indoors for our ROI members, and from tomorrow up to 30 oudoors for our NI members who can travel to compete in larger events in ROI.
Before your club can run an event, there are a number of requirements, namely the nomination of a Covid19 organiser for each event who should undertake awareness training, we should keep records to support Contact Tracing and upgrade our First Aid kits to include PPE on the bank. Full details can be found in the NCFFI Return to Sport Guidelines with further details which have today been sent by email to our clubs for distribution among members.
A message from our Chair;
We’re back!! NEARLY!! It’s hard not to be excited and delighted at the return of competitive and recreational angling countrywide. It is certainly more than many of us hoped to see before the end of June. In the middle of all the excitement and anticipation we are reminded to avoid the 3 C’s (Crowds, Close contact and Closed spaces). This together with hand hygiene, cough etiquette and social distancing will keep us all save. Luckily for us, with a small effort, this will have little impact on our enjoyment of fishing.
The NCFFI submitted its return to sport guidelines to the Sport Ireland ‘s Expert group last week. They have now been agreed and we publish them to help clubs develop their management plan for Covid-19 Compliance. In the coming week we will offer Zoom meetings, in the form of a webinar, to club members who want look into the issues further.
During the past week, like so many more, I spent more time challenging poachers and picking up their litter, than I did fishing. We must continue to act within the law, in this matter, but we must also work to change the law. Our freshwater wildlife deserves better from our governments. At a national committee meeting last week it was agreed that we need to make fish protection and anti-social behaviour our top priority in dealing with officials from both governments.
Despites these negativities its great to be back on the bank, enjoy it!
Der Casey
The successful return to sport, depends on individual members taking personal responsibility for the behaviours to prevent the spread of the virus. We thank our members for their support so far and ask that we continue to #BeResponsible and #BeSafe
