Thursday 24th September
We wanted to provide you with some more information following the new government guidance released on Tuesday evening (22nd September).
A number of new restrictions have been put in place which the government has outlined will likely be until March 2021. Some of these restrictions and new guidance applies to our leisure facilities and cafes.
Therefore, we hope the below provides clarity on the rules when visiting your local Everybody Leisure Centre and Taste for Life café.
We would like to reassure all our customers that we have been following and adapting our services to maintain a ‘covid-secure’ business and have received positive feedback from our members rating us 4.8/5 stars for our cleanliness and hygiene and measures in place.
It is a mark of the work done by the leisure sector in ensuring facilities are safe that Covid-19 prevalence remains extremely low across the physical activity sector, and as such the sector is able to continue to operate.
This new guidance is to help us remain a safe environment for both our staff and customers whilst still providing you with a great experience to stay active and healthy.
Guidance that applies to Everybody Sport and Recreation including Taste for Life Cafes:
- Customers visiting our cafes from 24th September must wear face coverings, except when seated at a table to eat or drink or they are exempt.
- Customers visiting our leisure centre must wear a face covering (unless exempt) from 1st October except when exercising in our gym, classes or pools. All spectators of swimming lessons and sports must maintain social distancing measures and wear a face covering especially where the 2m distancing is not able to be met. We do have face coverings available to purchase at our receptions if you have forgotten yours.
- Our café staff will now also be required to wear face coverings from 24th Our leisure centre staff will also from 1st October wear face coverings/face shields in public areas (with reasonable exceptions when instructing or where a reception screen is in place).
- We are seeking further guidance from our governing bodies but as of 24th September we will be closing all our facilities by 10pm including our gyms, outdoor and indoor sports facilities, pools and cafes. We will be keeping this under review and you can find out the new opening and closing times on our website: everybody.org.uk
- For visitors to our Taste for Life cafes all food and drink must be ordered from, and served at, a table. We will ask that you wait to be seated and you must provide contact details on entry for track and trace either by scanning the NHS QR code posters or leaving your details with a member of our staff.
- All café customers must eat and drink at a table in our cafes unless using our takeaway service – takeaway items must be consumed outside of our leisure centre and cafe premises.
- We will be displaying the official NHS QR code posters in our reception areas, pool viewing galleries, cafes and sports facilities so that customers can ‘check-in’ using the NHS app. All pre-bookings for gym, swim and classes should be done online and you should always check-in your attendance at our self-service kiosks or reception desk.
Rule of 6:
- Indoor organised sport for over 18s will no longer be exempt from the rule of six. This means we will not be re-introducing casual bookings for adult indoor football, netball or other indoor team sports until the government guidance changes. We will be contacting all users affected as soon as possible and liaising with our local clubs. Other individual indoor sports will remain under review due to the repurposing of our facilities for group exercise.
- Our group fitness classes are still allowed to go ahead, as well as organised club affiliated outdoor sports. We must remind customers to follow the rule of 6 and always maintain social distancing and adhere to our covid-secure etiquette when accessing our services.
- With weddings and civil partnership ceremonies and receptions being restricted to a maximum of 15 people (down from 30) and other significant standalone life events being subject to the ‘rule of six’ limits we will be reviewing all facility hire requests including catering events for Taste for Life.
- The spread of the virus is also affecting the ability to reopen business conferences, exhibition halls and large sporting events; therefore we have made the decision to post-pone our Everybody Awards and Junior Awards until 2021. We will also remain in contact with local sporting clubs on events scheduled at our venues which may fall under this category.
- Office workers who can work from home should do so – we will continue to apply this rule to all our support staff that are able to work from home. We will also be providing customers who are working from home and employers on our corporate membership scheme with ways to remain active and healthy both in body and mind during this time. We will also be continuing to offer at home live and on demand workouts for Everybody members who cannot return to our leisure facilities.
We hope the above explains clearly how these new restrictions apply to your local leisure centre.
It is now more important than ever that we are supporting each other, as a local health and wellbeing charity, dependent on the support of our local community we are doing our best to help you stay active and healthy.
We all understand the importance of exercise and leading a healthy lifestyle, it contributes to many health benefits including boosting our immune systems and fighting infection and disease. Exercise is also a great way to recover from illness and we have experts in our teams to help people of all ages to remain active.
You will see the benefits of visiting our centres both physically and mentally, it is a way for you to keep in contact with friends, colleagues and family (in a safe and socially distanced way) whilst having fun at the same time!
From all of us at Everybody…
We are here for you at every stage of your life, with lots of activities to choose from and are enjoying having everybody back together!