Email received

[nats]

From Rob Farnworth via Martyn

Hello All,

This is the essence of CSFTA’s announcement today. There’s not enough clubs prepared or able to accept visitors or host rounds. This applies to HFT which CSFTA also runs in the region.

The issues are numerous, but essentially the amount of work to be done and the amount of people to do it means for some clubs it’s not possible. Some have key people shielding/vulnerable, some have too many members to cope with, some have not enough demand to justify it.

We have a couple of seeds of interest in a couple of FT clubs but it is early days and I doubt we will be seeing anything like a regional open within a couple of months at least.

As Dev Officer I would say there are significant dangers ahead that would should take care to navigate (virus aside), one of which is an ageing demographic, and another is having the critical mass to support a national structure. I think we can remedy both of them but it might require some adaptation of how we go about things to achieve it. I think the winter may present challenges that we will need to adapt to, but my hope is that towards the end of it we’ll have a clearer picture of where the sport is around the country. Until then I think it’s probably useful that regions concentrate on creating an environment that people are safe and promoting the sport with that aspect in mind.

All the best
Rob