Rule of Six

crickleymal

New member
No. Sports are allowed to continue.  Besides it's ok to break the law in a specific and limited way. The government have said so.
 

Bob Mehew

Well-known member
I am looking into it and so far have found: Reg 5 (1)  "During the emergency period, no person may participate in a gathering which consists of more than six people unless ... paragraph (3) applies".  Para 3 at (c) includes "the gathering is reasonably necessary ... (ii) for the purposes of education or training..." and at (j) "the gathering is a sports gathering and the person concerned is taking part in that gathering...".  A sports gathering is defined in Para 5D as a ?sports gathering? is a gathering which is organised for the purposes for allowing persons who are not elite sportspersons to take part in any sport or other fitness related activity..." and goes onto lay down some conditions.

So training and sport gatherings can take place with more than 6 persons.  I am currently trying to identify what those conditions are (mostly Reg 5(5G)) and will submit my findings to BCA for publication in the next week or so.

I will add that I think businesses taking people caving are covered by other parts of the regulation [Reg 5(3)(c)(i)].  But understanding that is a lower priority.   
 

Ed

Active member
there are also no limits on the number of groups of six or fewer at a venue - as long as social distancing is followed.

So a family / bubble of upto six in one dormitory, similar in another etc..

Then just not in communal areas at the same time - unless more than 2m distancing can be maintained.

 

mikem

Well-known member
Caving is one of the activities allowed to exceed the number (link just takes you to BCA website):
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-outbreak-faqs-what-you-can-and-cant-do/coronavirus-outbreak-faqs-what-you-can-and-cant-do
 

Badlad

Administrator
Staff member
I think that over the years the CroW campaign has drawn attention to caving in gov/defra/NE circles and that is why it is now listed.
 

prahja

Member
So confusing !!

I could go shooting with 100 others (if I was a murderer), I could play cricket with 21 others, play football with 21 others+referee etc, play polo, go caving etc with 20+ people but not go cycling on an organised club run with five others in England !!! (See cycling UK and British Cycling advice !!!) But I could ride five miles across to Wales and then we could all meet up to ride together until we head back to England....

This is just b*llocks !
 

ZombieCake

Well-known member
And don't forget the Home Secretary said if two groups known to each other passed each other in the street and spoke that amounted to more than six people that would count as 'mingling' and so be illegal.  Presumably the Covid Nazis the government is recruiting would then be allowed to shoot you.  I can see the scenario now:
"Oh hello Fred, fancy bumping into you. Where are you lot going today?  We're off to Goatchurch."
"Hi, Janet, just a quick bimble down Swildons to Sump1 and back."
"Achtung, papers!!"

The whole thing is a utter farce.
Given all the money being made from vested interests can't see this ending anytime soon.
3,000 cases (by cases I guess they mean positive tests, and the tests seem variable in quality for both positive and negative results) a day in a population of 66million plus is a rate of about 0.004 percent.  Then given that the vast majority don't go on to present any real problems the unfortunately bad cases are much lower.  If it's endemic and most people have in reality been exposed since 2019 then what?
Meanwhile 695,000 more people are unemployed as a result, and who knows what sort of bow wave of other problems are building up. 
 

Jenny P

Active member
I am still trying to disentangle the governmemt advice as it refers to Club Huts and note the advice from BMC, which refers to the government advice:

HMG Advice on the use of ?Hostels? as it affects club huts

The current recommendation is still:

Closing other shared facilities:

? communal kitchens, where guests prepare their own food

? other communal areas (e.g. TV rooms) where social distancing can?t be managed within current government guidelines.


This is the advice on the government website for the use of ?hostels?, i.e. bunkhouses, privately owned hostels (such as Club Huts), etc.

There is also advice on the use of toilets, showers, etc. being allocated to one group only if groups are sharing the accommodation.  So if more than one group is present, each separate group must have their own toilet/washroom/shower allocated to them - there must be no sharing of these facilities between groups.

This is from the detailed BMC Guidelines on re-opening Club Huts which links to the government website giving advice on ?accommodation?.

How this can be managed depends on the layout of the facilities at the Hut, so it may be possible to have more than one group in at a time but most Club Huts only have one kitchen.  So you can allow your own members to stay if they are pre-booked and there are not more than 6 in the group and provided that there are suitable sanitizing and disinfectant supplies available.  Most clubs can't afford to bring in professional cleaning services so have to rely on their members to clean properly after their stay but if they also allow 72 hours between bookings this seems to work OK.

The rules keep changing and it's very difficult to keep up, plus the risk of a regional lock-down now looms, but we do want to get our Club Huts open as much as we can so that people who don't live in a caving area at least have a chance to go caving in a small group.  It would be good if we had some definitive advice on allowing visitors to use the Club Hut as well.
 

pwhole

Well-known member
I think unless a club hut is the size and layout of a small hotel, expecting more than one group of six to be able to share all the facilities, whilst maintaining social distancing between all members of all separate groups of six at all times is a mathematical problem only a supercomputer could solve. And that's without anyone drinking beer, which would probably cripple even a supercomputer's capabilities. I think one group of six in most huts in most contexts will be the maximum practical number.

But our hut has a lot of short visits by members just popping in to 'do something' - like paint a wall, or wash some ropes or whatever. That would suddenly get rather difficult if there were a group of six booked in already and they needed to use the same facilities. I'm finding that despite best intentions, many people are really not very good at social distancing. That's entirely normal, and I'm not blaming anyone, but it's almost certainly why the numbers are going up again. I've stopped going into my local supermarket because of their total refusal to enforce mask-wearing due to misplaced machismo, so hardly anyone does wear one in there now. It's a Covid Spreading Centre.
 

RobinGriffiths

Well-known member
pwhole said:
I've stopped going into my local supermarket because of their total refusal to enforce mask-wearing due to misplaced machismo, so hardly anyone does wear one in there now. It's a Covid Spreading Centre.

That's interesting. Face masks only came in in Wales on Monday, and I've yet to see anyone in a store/garage/ etc. not wearing them. Even staff (altough not in supermarkets), and I thought it was optional for them. Maybe it'll all fall apart in a few weeks.
 

mikem

Well-known member
Very much depends where you are - inner cities in North are not very compliant at all (hence the rise in cases)
 

ZombieCake

Well-known member
I guess you shouldn't look back in anger at people's views  https://uk.yahoo.com/news/coronavirus-noel-gallagher-refuses-wear-171600146.html

Thinking about it I haven't been to the local town centre since early March. I've a medical exemption due to the drugs I take for respiratory issues (tried a mask few times and it was kinda bad), and it has generally not been much of a problem, a couple of places ask about it but show them the form and they're OK, most don't bother though, and I haven't been shot by the Nazis yet.
Btw I don't go out much anyway, 'cos I'm miserable, and also have been working from home for ages and no longer use public transport.
 

cap n chris

Well-known member
Lots of replies!! Re clubs and Rule of six, I was thinking more in terms of members' weekends, Christmas meals etc., the kinds of event where many people normally socialise, the latter reason being a major draw why people join a club at all.

I suspect the RoS could negatively impact re-upping for 2021.
 

A_Northerner

Active member
mikem said:
Very much depends where you are - inner cities in North are not very compliant at all (hence the rise in cases)

The whole country got locked down to save London and now those living in the North are exhausted by restrictions put into place before they'd even seen significant cases.

Now the cases are rising there they're getting singled out for lockdowns but it isn't enforced as much as the Nation-wide one so people are more open to breaking the rules.

It was always going to be inevitable with such a blinkered, blunt-force London-centric approach to lockdown.
 
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