BFA Committee VIPER Update 21^st September 2020

The BFA committee has been closely following updates regarding national and local guidance relating to COVID-19.

The decision has been made that there will be no BFA sanctioned tournaments held during November and December 2020.

We have supported teams to host competitive unsanctioned events, but due to recent changes in government guidance these plans have had to be postponed.

BFA Committee VIPER Update 24th August 2020

The BFA committee has been closely following updates from the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) and we have consulted with tournament organisers who are scheduled to host BFA sanctioned events in  October.

Following this consultation, the decision has been made that there will be no BFA sanctioned tournaments held during October 2020.

The BFA Committee is committed to the safety and welfare of our membership and their dogs, and we will carefully manage the return of flyball activities with safety as our top priority. We continue to be led by UK Government advice and will continue to update our guidance depending on how the national COVID-19 situation develops.

Following our release of the BFA Roadmap we have done some further work on Step 4 and how flyball activities may be allowed to proceed in accordance with new changes on social distancing and recreational sporting activities announced by the government. Published below is a comprehensive BFA Action Plan for COVID-19 Adapted Flyball, which provides advice and guidance on conducting flyball activities safely before we get to Step 5.

BFA Committee VIPER Update 20th July 2020

The BFA committee has been closely following updates from the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) and we have consulted with tournament organisers who are scheduled to host BFA sanctioned events in September and October.

Following this consultation, the decision has been made that there will be no BFA sanctioned tournaments held during September 2020.

Attached are the minutes from this year's AGM held on Saturday 25th April via Zoom webinar.

The BFA Committee is committed to the safety and welfare of our membership and their dogs, and we will carefully manage the return of flyball activities with safety as our top priority. We continue to be led by UK Government advice and will continue to update our guidance depending on how the national COVID-19 situation develops. To make it clear how we will manage this, we have devised a BFA Roadmap which mirrors the Government Roadmap for the recovery out of COVID-19 lockdown.

The BFA Committee have published a revised version of the BFA Constitution and Rules of Flyball Racing.

The minor amendment is the removal of a sentence in brackets in section B4 1.1 i (Ring Party).  This sentence made reference to the breakout rule being 1/2 second faster than a declared time.  The new rule, voted on by the membership, changed this to 1/4 second faster than a declared time, therefore this reference has been removed as there is no requirement for it to be mentioned in this section.

Please see attached 2 documents that teams may wish to use for returning to Flyball training.

These documents are here to be used as a template and provide some guidance. Each Team needs to assess their own circumstances and amend accordingly. The Government guidance will keep changing as things hopefully continue to improve, so the documents will need review and updating.  The documents Sarah Smythe of Western Flyball Teams shared with us all have been used to create this, thank you Sarah.

If anyone needs further assistance please get in touch.

The committee have been closely monitoring the COVID-19 developments and the variable changes to government restrictions throughout the UK. Easing of the restrictions are further ahead in some regions than others but as a national association we need to consider the circumstances throughout the country as a whole.