The UK Government has issued rules and guidance on what activities may take place under the current restrictions. It is imperative that u3a Group Conveners and members adhere to Government Rules.
Rules for Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland may vary. Please do check regularly on the national website to keep up to date with any changes.
See the latest Government guidance and NHS guidance.
Re-Starting Groups Guidance
The St Austell u3a committee met on Friday 21st August at 10am with a view to helping getting groups started as soon as possible.
Initially this is what we have agreed:
- No group can physically re-start without committee approval, as trustees we are responsible for your safety. Our next meeting is on September 9th when we can look at who is planning to re-start.
- Any group meeting must have all their up to date details on Beacon – this will be our start point for track and trace. Sally Haywood, the new Groups Co-ordinator, will be helping with this.
- The group can only meet if they comply with the required current guidance, as follows:
- A personal assessment completed by the individual and confirmed verbally to the group leader
- A general risk assessment
- A Covid Safe venue assessment, if a venue is being used (e.g. a pub on a walk)
- An activity risk assessment by the group leader
- A plan produced by the group leader to ensure that safety is maintained.
- No shared lifts
- No meetings in individuals homes.
- Only outdoor meetings or those in Covid Secure premises will be considered.
Please read the newsletter produced by the National U3A dated 7.8.2020 which will be on our website. There’s a useful Q & A on it. There’s also a synopsis of the National U3A Covid 19 Advice on U3A Activities on our website to help with what you may have questions about and it is attached to this newsletter.
Group Leaders
You will need to complete the paperwork that we will be putting on the website this week in the Covid Guidelines section (they do change regularly so please be careful when reusing documents that you have the current one)
The Group Leader should pre-book people into their group activity, produce a list for attendance and confirm that a personal assessment has been completed. This list then needs to be held for 21 days for track and trace. If a group member falls ill in the 21 days a committee member needs informing immediately.
All members need to show their membership card confirming their number when you meet.
Masks
Wherever masks are required they are to be worn, unless you are medically exempt. Even if masks are not required they should be carried in case of an emergency or the inability to maintain social distance.
Venues
As the Arts theatre is not Covid Safe or accessible to all members we still need to look for alternatives.
Currently we hope to start monthly meetings in January at St Johns. There will be Zoom monthly meetings in October and November and, a possible Christmas event at Eden in December. We are open to suggestions and appreciate that parking charges have been raised by many of you as a concern when using St Johns. However as a venue St Johns ticks lots of boxes, continual heating, good audio visual, its easily accessible and has good facilities (toilets etc). In order to meet again this is where we will be going in the absence of anywhere else.
Please let us have any alternative suggestions if you have them. Extensive research was undertaken in looking for a venue but there may be something that was overlooked.
Volunteers
The committee are volunteers, you may love or hate us, but please bear with us if you feel that things are happening too slowly; we have our lives, families and responsibilities to consider too.
