COVID-19 Update: 12 January 2021

To Our Members,
 
After considerable consultation and feedback from our membership, Baseball NSW is advising that we will be lifting the restriction on those suspended Senior competitions and the scheduled inter-regional programming BNSW were looking to host as noted in the January 7th announcement. This will be effective immediately which will allow games to be played across the Greater Sydney Region and NSW right away. As we hope that you can appreciate, we are in a very unique and dynamic situation where much of the government advice provided has been left open to the discretion of the governing sporting bodies.
 
Although no travel restrictions had been enforced, Baseball NSW initially felt it was important to minimize “non-essential travel” to ensure everyone was doing their best to assist NSW in avoiding potential season ending consequences. Since the January 7th announcement Baseball NSW have been in constant contact with the Office of Sport and the NSW Health Department and are now comfortable that the resumption of community competitions will not result in an elevated risk of an outbreak in the communities across NSW.
 
Our initial decision to suspend competitions was made with the understanding that there were a range of factors that needed to be considered. Such as;

• the significant number of cases throughout the Greater Sydney Basin that were occurring
• the number of people in self-isolation throughout our membership
• the potential impact on teams unable to take the field due to members in 14-day isolation
• the time lag while awaiting test results

 
Consequently, BNSW felt that suspending play in those limited Sydney competitions for one round subject to the upcoming NSW Health Department update due on 18-01-2021 was in the best interests of all Baseball NSW members, players, umpires, scorers, officials, volunteers & spectators.
 
We also wish to clarify that organizations independent of Baseball NSW jurisdiction, such as the Sydney Blue Sox, are a separate entity accountable to the Australian Baseball League. They are not a member of, or affiliated with, BNSW and are therefore not governed by BNSW. The Sydney Blue Sox continue to train at BISP, however, due to border closures are not able to play games at this time either at home or away.
 
To assist BNSW, and the NSW authorities, all Clubs are required to provide an updated COVID safe plan including their Service NSW QR code (https://bddy.me/xxxxxx) in line with the recent NSW Health changes to allow for more consistent and effective contact tracing. 
 
The plans are to be sent to COVID@baseballnsw.com.au no later than Friday 15th January 2021. State League clubs are to provide their updated plans by 12pm tomorrow (13 January 2021) at the latest.
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