As the weather is turning colder, the Kingdom Earl Marshal has granted us the ability to approve indoor practices in areas where local health guidelines allow for indoor sports.
It will require some careful judgement to determine whether that’s safe in your local area, but I’m glad to help you work through this if you’d like to explore it.
Attached below are the notes I shared on this subject back in September describing the process:
Given that conditions vary from one end of our kingdom to the other, there’s no one-size-fits-all answer, and different areas are going to need to move forward at their own pace.
Full-scale events continue to be shut down Kingdom wide through January, but local in-person practices may be able to begin again depending on local conditions, following the approval of a plan by each of the relevant officers.
If you would like to resume in-person practices, please send me an email at youthcombat@eastkingdom.org with a detailed proposal — when you would like to start, where do you plan to hold your practices, will you have to move if the weather changes, are there other activities scheduled at the same venue, how many people can you accommodate, what safety precautions you have in mind both for the actual practice session and for the setup/cleanup period and parents on the sidelines, etc.
I’ll review your proposal, check the conditions in your area, and confer with the kingdom marshal and seneschal, then get back to you with approval to proceed, proposed adjustments to your plan, or a request to wait for conditions to improve before resuming.
I apologize for the red tape here, and I personally can’t wait to get back out on the field — I was putting some things away the other day and came across our stash of youth combat weapons parked in a corner, and was super bummed out to see them gathering dust as they haven’t gotten any action since Birka — but we have to weigh that against the small but real risk of someone getting seriously ill at one of our events, so some deliberate caution here is warranted.
If you think you’re ready to start moving forward, write something up and send it my way!
— Mathghamhain Ua Ruadháin
— East Kingdom Marshal of Youth Combat
