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July 10th, 2020 Newsletter

2020-07-10 16:55 | Anonymous

Dear Member - click the newsletter title to read articles on:

Personal Space & Sanitizing

Session Arrival and Sign-In Procedure: NEW

New Signs: Could Be Fines!

Being Good Citizens At Alpine: 30 Minute Rule For Public Play

Your Membership Record: Some Profile Details

Have You Been Rated Elsewhere?

Shootouts In The Calendar

Calendaring Our Sessions

Rain? What Rain?

Captains Needed: 2.5, 3.0, All Play, 4.0

Tools For Captains & Team Lists

Accidents May Happen: Report Head Injuries

Opportunities To Serve


Personal Space & Sanitizing

It is important for members to continue to practice social distancing within the walkway. This is the one area where congestion is NOT currently in compliance with social distancing.  The club is working with the city about the gate issue (as members who have sanitized their hands and pickleballs, then have to touch the handles of the gates to enter the courts!)

By all means, bring your sanitizing sprays or gels into the courts if you’d like to re-sanitize often.  Your hands won’t shrink much and will recover.

Let’s please be mindful of our wandering digits..our fingers, and what they grab, brush by, lean on etc. You’d probably be surprised how much of everything we touch in our surroundings. Let’s keep our hands to ourselves (always good advice), limit our touches to our stuff and thereby reduce our “fingerpainting footprint.”

Session Arrival and Sign-In Procedure: NEW

The purpose of the following new actions is to help captains manage everyone for Covid Safety. It is all very choreographed to enable Captains to clearly know who is playing in their session, and then to communicate the new protocols each time, with everyone.

Please enjoy playing your part in this new orchestra of “in?, then back out, and return” movements for our sessions. Ready?

1.       If you have arrived early (for a warm-up) before a scheduled session…
Or you were already there playing and whether you intend on joining the new session or not…
Or, if you are on the courts but at the end of your scheduled session…
YOU MUST ALL LEAVE the courts via the EXIT when the captain rings a bell. (Yes, this may interrupt and will terminate a highlight-reel unfinished game)
If you are starting or resuming play, make your way to the ENTRANCE. The captain of the new session will then lead all club players into the courts.
2.       If you are arriving for a session, you must WAIT OUTSIDE THE COURTS until the captain leads you in.  Yes, you may sing as you stroll in together.
3.       If you are confused or don’t notice the bell, please respect the efforts of the captain to tell you where to march, where to wait, when to re-enter etc.

We recognize that waiting outside will mean some loong wandering lines and scattered (yet socially distancing) bunches.  Take courage. We can do this, unless you’d like to hold knotted ropes like in Kindergarten.

Note that if there are public (non club) people freely playing on the non-club courts during these orderly session transitions, they will not need to participate in these “departure & arrival marches” since we are just being responsible for managing club members’ activities.

As well and most importantly to many of us,  here's something that all members will need to do in helping efforts for safe play sessions: On each sign-up sheet you will notice the following:

By signing this sign-in sheet you confirm that: to your knowledge you are COVID free; you have not spent more than 15 minutes within 6 ft of anyone testing COVID-19 positive in the past 14 days; you take reasonable steps not to be exposed to COVID-19; you take the sole responsibility for the risks of participating in Club activities; and you understand that the St Albert Pickleball Club reserves the right to remove you from the facilities or programs for any reason.

New Signs: Could Be Fines!

The City put up new signage about facility hours – 8 am – 9:30 pm daily. Please avoid the unfortunate sting of fines for playing before or after these posted hours. If you really must be there before 8am- enjoy a stretch. If you’re dueling at sunset, make peace before 9:30pm.

Being Good Citizens At Alpine: 30 Minute Rule For Public Play

Reminder for Alpine regarding Club time. We have been allocated plenty of time by the City for our programs (isn’t it fabulous!). We have also worked hard on behalf of our membership to appropriately schedule time for each level. That said, there are times when scheduled Club play does not require all the courts provided to us. When this occurs, the club will “give up” it’s unused courts to the general public.

Club members not playing in a scheduled Club session can also certainly use the unused court(s), and when they do- please observe the City’s guidelines regarding “30 minute play” at Alpine.

It can be intimidating for a family with young children or others new to the sport to ask to rotate in, so as stewards of the sport it’s up to all of us to be mindful of others that may be waiting. Afterall, the courts are for the enjoyment of all (not just a few focused foursomes).

The City does not have staff resources to monitor Alpine, and the Club isn’t interested in extending ourselves to monitoring private play on its unused courts, so please let’s all be good neighbors and share the courts.

Your Membership Record: Some Profile Details

For those who have re-joined (after letting their membership lapse), here is some info about what you may need to do. Because our system does not automatically add you back to your rating group, please email info@pickleballstalbert.ca , requesting to get added back to your group and (we will do it manually..because even awesome computer programs still need humans now and then).

Getting added to the right rating group means you will not miss out on targeted invitations about rating clinics or shootout registrations!

As well, as some of you have discovered when re-joining, you must also request to rejoin the club Facebook group ( where we post social information and notices referring you to the SAPC website for official stuff).

Lastly, if you have opted not to get most club emails (which is an option and your choice) may we say that you may miss out on targeted fun, useful and even important emails (such as our recent Covid post). For this reason, we suggest to not opt out, and to continue receiving club emails so that your life can be more fully inundated with all things PickleballJ.

Have You Been Rated Elsewhere?

Just a reminder that if you have received a rating elsewhere, other than from our club-arranged rating clinics (for example from in the States, or the one you may have bribed Julio for in Huatulco J),  you need to send that signed and dated form to Gerry Gartner's email to have it entered on your membership record.

Shootouts In The Calendar

If you are interested in joining this type of play, here is how to register.

You will see weekly 3.5+ and, 3.0 Shootout Pool Preregistration “banner events” in the Alpine calendar. Click on that banner event and you will be directed to a page with details and a “REGISTER” button if there is room (and you will get an email to complete your registration), or a WAITLIST button if you’d like to be automatically moved in when there’s an opening for that week.

When you are successfully registered, the event will show in your calendar (like magic). If you are not registered, that Shootout evening will look open on the calendar (but it’s actually not).  This is the way our new system works (and we just wanted you to know so you don't see an apparently empty spot in the Alpine calendar on some evenings of the week, and erroneously conclude that Alpine is wide open on that night).

Calendaring Our Sessions

Please note that the Alpine Calendar is fluid, as we are always trying to use the courts efficiently. It is important then that you check the Calendar daily. The data from every two weeks will be examined and changes made on an ongoing basis.

For example, at the moment we have courts split between 2.5 and ALL play only. If the courts assigned to other levels are not consistently used, then the sessions for each levels  will also be split.

Special thanks (and patience please), to those captains who could be managing two levels of play! They will let each group know where they need to place their paddles.  With two levels of play, there will need to be two placements of paddles outside the courts to avoid congestion within the walkway...(quite the feat!)

Also, with many members belonging to some cohorts and other clubs with strict rules, and some members waiting to return at Stage 3, these ongoing Calendar changes are how we can achieve the best utilization of the courts assigned to the club. 

Rain? What Rain?

This may totally sound like a “liability” statement (ok, it is)… that when a captain makes the call and ends a session (due to whatever: dense pollen?, locusts? or rain etc.) players who remain- do so at their own risk.

Captains Needed: 2.5, 3.0, All Play, 4.0

Thanks to our current roster of volunteer Captains, we have been enjoying organized play sessions all thru the weeks. That mesmerizing multi-coloured Alpine Calendar fills us with both and anticipation and anxiety at how we need to find time to mow lawns, do groceries (and ahem- stop neglecting our Honey-Do lists) so we can play and play…and play!

Help us continue our enjoyment by volunteering as a Captain for any of these sessions. Training is provided. Your service is greatly appreciated! 

Tools For Captains & Team Lists

The club is now making it easier for captains to contact each other to arrange for cover-off and for teams to get organized. In particular, we have started to publish captains lists and teams lists on our website. To view this Captains list, go to the SAPC Website and along the main banner see “ CLUB MGMT”, roll your cursor over that heading and see “CAPTAINS”, roll over that and see “Alpine Captains”, and take a look at that easy-view list!

There is also a complete Volunteers list on this page, with all our Committees, Venues, Tournament, Social and Board members etc.

Note: if you are a venue coordinator or team lead and would like your list published, please email Ray at Treasurer@pickleballstalbert.ca.  We will adjust the format of your list to whatever you need. The objective here is to have one list that meets all your team's needs (eliminating any separate lists anywhere else).  We can also publish other material your team may need and locate it on our SAPC website for easy access.

We commit to maintaining these lists for you. If you spot a list that is out of date, please let one of the following people know:

  • for a Captains list, contact the Venue Coordinator listed on the top of the list or on the Teams and Committees page on our website,
  • for a Team list, contact the Team Lead.

Team leads can choose to send list updates to Ray or can choose to maintain their list themselves in a club Google Drive. Changes made in that location are automatically reflected in our published web pages.

We also hope that the publication of captains and team lists will attract more people to these teams. If you'd like to meet a few more people, have more fun, or help in any way, contact a team lead or venue coordinator.

As with other club confidential materials, these lists can only be viewed online by members, and should not be distributed outside our club."

Accidents May Happen: Report Head Injuries

There’s probably a few of us nursing a tweak, an overuse injury or a gash (did you hear about Ron G’s “nasty one from the fence ties?) And sure, lots of us may just shake off those inconvenient reminders of age. However, when it’s a head bump, we always need to inform the Captain (for precaution’s sake). There’s also an ice pack and a First Aid kit at every session for your safety (so you don’t have to rely on hockey tape and KleenexJ).

Opportunities To Serve

Web Coordinator: we would like a tech- willing volunteer to serve on the team helping with coordinating our website. Have a look at the job description and send us a note!

Facilities Task Force: this is not just some committee for meetings, planning and discussion. It’s a “task force!” (Sorry we can’t afford crested shirts) St. Albert has a big shiny vision for its Active Communities and we have a wondrous group of passionate players that will depend on this high-performance advance team to help position our City with more and better playing facilities. If you have some experience with big ideas (and sure, dreams count too) and capital projects perhaps, let us know!


   Contacts


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