Geoff has spend a considerable amount of time looking into alternative training venues because of the problems with the post fixings at Loddon. There were a couple of very hopeful options for a while but these have both now evaporated.
We are on the 3rd training plan, which uses only the 1 good court at Loddon for 3hrs (plus some extra time at Kendrick on a Monday). This plan goes to the end of the season to cater for the situation that Loddon don’t actually get the court fixed (which is a possibility!) but we can revert back to normal if/when the 2nd court is fixed.
We have tried to arrange the early/late sessions to best fit with the up-coming matches for each team – generally the early slot is preferred by most people and will probably therefore be better attended than the later slot.
This works out quite neatly as NVL and BVA men have matches on alternate weekends over the next 6 weeks! And the Ladies BVA will be training Monday’s when their match is at the weekend.
While this does mean that BVA will have the early slot next week (28th of January), NVL actually get several early slots together later on (as BVA don’t have any matches during that period).
Note that there is a suggestion to have an ‘All Ladies’ session for the early slot on 17th March (with Men on the late slot) as no one has a match that weekend, however we could revert back to straight BVA/NVL if necessary.
Here is the schedule:
We have also negotiated with Laura at Loddon that, as well as the 8:30-9:30 warmup time/area, we can warmup from 7pm in the space occupied by the 2 badminton courts that are immediately adjacent to the good net (they keep badminton off these 2 courts for 1/2hr before our 7:30 start so they can get the volleyball net up (in theory!). So when you have the early slot if you can get there for 7ish you should get a 2 hour session!
There was an issue with putting the net up late on Tuesday and that the martial arts people took a significant time to clear away after our 7:30 start time and Loddon is going to sort that out as well.
We understand that this isn’t ideal and won’t suit all people all of the time however we think its the best we can do with the facilities available. Geoff had some negative feedback when trying to organise these sessions which has made this task less pleasent but thanks to those of you who have shown your appreciation for the time you have had to dedicate to do this.
If there is anyone out there who would like to help with this type of task then please let me know as I’m sure we’ll have some problem or other in the future that will require a big effort from someone to resolve!
Cheers, Geoff
