Hi All,

As most of you will have now seen, the NZ Government has maintained the current Alert Level 2 settings until at least 11.59pm on Wednesday 16^th September. With our season originally scheduled to finish within the next couple of weeks, venue availability and Term 3 School Holidays approaching, we have made the decision to not continue with any netball for the 2020 winter season. This decision has been based on: the health and safety of players, administrators and officials which for us is paramount; we cannot meet the terms and conditions of Level 2 playing netball as we know it and; as a board and a centre we would not want to be responsible for endangering anyone associated with netball.

We would like our community to understand that this decision wasn’t an easy one. As a centre, there is nothing more that we love than seeing all our netballers out on court enjoying the game that we are all so passionate about and our main focus was to get more netball played this season. Covid-19 Alert Level 2 provided a raft of challenges and when we weighed the requirements up against the ongoing Health & Safety of our community, the risks were too high. This was further confirmed by the need for physical distancing which just wasn’t practical within our netball centre, nor on a netball court.

We know that many of you have missed opportunities this year to get out onto the netball court so once we are in a more stable environment we will look again at what we can provide. Everything is still on the table and we will work closely with our Clubs and Schools to see what can be achieved throughout Term 4 and into the start of 2021. Our normal Twilight Competition will kick off again in Term 4 possibly with added days and grades so keep an eye on Facebook and our website for updates there. We will also look closely at additional Junior netball programmes that can be offered in the traditional ‘off-season’ to fill some of the gap left by the 2020 season.

Nelson Netball is currently working through a financial analysis for our year and will be in touch regarding refunds/credits. Rest assured we have your best interests in mind and Nelson Netball is in the fortunate position where we will make this process fair, reasonable and easy for everyone.

I would just like to take this opportunity to thank everyone for their ongoing support. We have received many positive messages around our decision making and while we are just as gutted as everyone that the season has ended this way, we feel that Nelson Netball can only build from here. We look forward to the extra netball opportunities coming soon and an AMAZING 2021 season.  

Take Care

Nelson Netball Centre