To the Gippsland Community Sport & Active Recreation sector and our partners,
Re: Covid-19 & GippSport programs and service delivery
In line with the changing expert medical & health advice, GippSport has been slowly adjusting and winding back our service delivery, community programs & capacity building activities for the past week. We recognise that as a community sport community and a lead organisation within that we have a role to play to help reduce the transmission and spread of Covid-19.
Considering the most recent developments in relation to Covid-19, we are advising of specific adjustments that we’ve implemented across our suite of programs effective as of 5:00pm March 19 2020. These are:
- All community sport & active recreation programs are cancelled until further notice;
- All group capacity building activities – workshops, training courses etc will be postponed and rescheduled
- All other business & service delivery activities are under constant review and will be adjusted as needed based on the expert medical & health advice.
As a whole community we are working through a very unique and challenging situation, much of what we’re trying to plan for and respond to as a community is uncertain which brings with it a level of anxiety which is understandable. Ultimately we need to be guided by the expert medical & health advice and implement actions for the benefit of our community’s health & wellbeing.
As an organisation, in collaboration with our Regional Sport Victoria colleagues, our two priorities through this period are:
- Supporting the Gippsland Sport & Active Recreation sector to ensure it comes through this period in as strong as a position as possible; and,
- Doing everything we can to encourage Gippslanders to stay active, wherever possible, which we think is more important than ever.
For each of our programs and business areas, the implications of this are:
- Postpone & reschedule all workshops & training programs (RSA courses etc)
- 1:1 club support, wherever possible utilise technology
- All Access for All Abilities programming for People with Disability to be cancelled until further notice
- All Special Olympics activities with the Gippsland Specialist Schools to be cancelled until further notice
- All sport & active recreation programs to be cancelled until further notice, including
- Gippy Girls Can programming
- Programming in partnership with Gippsland schools
- community based programming in partnership with sport clubs
- Older adults programs
- Where possible we will utilise technology for sport club accreditations
- All community based programming to be cancelled until further notice
- All skate club activities to be cancelled until further notice
- All community based programming to be cancelled until further notice
- All workplace programming & activities to cancelled until further notice
- All community based filming & storytelling to be completed in line with social distancing guidelines.
- Social marketing activities will be continuing as normal
- We will work with our clients & stakeholders to implement appropriate actions to ensure the projects can be delivered with minimum disruption.
- We will be utilising technology for stakeholder reference group meetings & other activities wherever possible.
Collectively as a GippSport team we are looking at other options of delivery and are reviewing the situation daily. We will keep our Gippsland Sporting Community as well as our project partners informed as the situation changes.
Please contact our team with any questions that you may have. We will be publishing a community sport information page shortly which we will endeavour to keep up to date with the relevant community sport recommendations that are both sport specific, and relevant to our six Gippsland Local Government Areas.
I hope everyone stays well during this period, and thank you in anticipation of your continued support with our programs and services.
Kind Regards,
Dan Poynton
Executive Officer | GippSport
