Welcome to CLAC Season 20/21! Here’s some details to keep you informed and help Meet 1 to run smoothly.

Our FIRST MEET will be held this Thursday (22nd October) at the DOMAIN ATHLETICS CENTRE and will start at 2pm. Unregistered athletes / families and visiting athletes / families MUST SIGN IN ON ENTRY. All registered athletes can go directly to warm ups.

**ALL ATHLETES please identify yourself by using the masking tape and marker to display your name and valid age group on your top** Pre prepare this at home for less hassle or we will have masking tape and markers available at the sign in table. This ID makes all things easier throughout the Meet.

Meet 1 will be PROGRAM 1 remember this is a guide only and subject to change.

COME AND TRY FOR NEW ATHLETES & REGISTRATION: If you are a new athlete you are entitled to two ‘Come and Try’ Meets to see if Little Athletics is for you (your child). You must sign in at the gate, advise you are a new family, and would like to take your first ‘Try’. If you are a returning athlete please REGISTER HERE before Thursday using last Seasons details, this way your CLAC history stays the same and you can go directly to warm ups.

COVID SAFE PLAN: Please be aware we must adhere to the Little Athletics Australia Covid Safe Plan to ensure we keep everyone safe and healthy. IF YOU HAVE NOT REGISTERED or ARE A VISITING ATHLETE YOU MUST SIGN IN UPON ENTRY TO THE TRACK. This ensures we have information for Covid tracking should the need arise. Please practice Social Distancing at all times and listen to and obey orders from our COVID Officer. Sanitiser will be available.

TINY TOTS; Listen out for a call for Tiny Tots around 3.15pm for their session, they will also be taking part in a 70m Sprint. Tiny Tots must register after two meets please and must have turned 3yrs before joining. Siblings who are under 3yrs can join the TODDLERS RACE – listen out for this one to be called.

UNIFORM; Sales will be available from 1.45pm – 3pm outside the shed near the end of the track, EFTPOS and Cash.

CANTEEN; Also outside the shed we will have a very limited number of snacks and drinks available while at the Domain.

YOU’VE ARRIVED AND SIGNED IN, HAVE A NAME TAG, NOW WHAT? Head to the grand stand where our President Chris Kennedy will be having a chat to you all regarding the Meet at about 2.15pm. First he will invite all athletes to meet in the centre grass area of the track for warm ups run by our older athletes, that frees up parents to listen to Chris. Each age group traditionally has an Age Group Coordinator, this is usually someone who has experienced Little Athletics for a few years and knows the routine. All you need to do now is LISTEN OUT FOR YOUR CHILDS AGE GROUP and what event they will be doing first. Each age group assembles together at the end of the 100 track (right hand end) for FIELD EVENTS (Discus, High Jump, Long Jump, Turbo Jav, Shot Put etc) to have their name recorded and then the AGC takes them and parents to their site to start the event. ALL CHILDREN MUST HAVE A PARENT/CARER AT THE TRACK AT ALL TIMES, please do not leave children unattended. It would be great if you could help as events need many hands to work, even if you have no idea what you’re doing, that’s what your AGC is for and you’ll pick it up really quick. The kids also love to see Mum/Dad etc being involved in their activity and it helps to keep the event moving along quickly. If your child has been called to a TRACK EVENT (70m or 200m) please assemble near the START of the 200m track (the left hand end) where you will be put into lanes for your races. Parents can then watch from the grand stand. If you have any queries please ask the coordinator at the track.

Our Meets usually run for around 2.5 – 3hrs depending on many things, number of athletes, amount of volunteer help to run events quickly and smoothly, weather etc.

Our Committee will be setting up and packing up for Meet 1, anyone available to help is ALWAYS appreciated. From Meet 2 we will be publishing a list of families to help each week in this duty.

A HUGE THANK YOU to Hobart Districts Little Athletics Centre and President Nic Burns for the use of their equipment while we have to compete at the Domain. I know our athletes and parents will treat their equipment with the utmost of care.

Check out the rest of our webpage and keep an eye on Facebook for any further information and please don’t hesitate to ask if you’re unsure on the day – we know it’s a lot to take in all at once and want you and your family to enjoy it!

GO CLAC!

The Committee and I have been busy with lots of behind the scenes work getting ready for the season. We must follow the COVID Plan as distributed by Little Athletics Tasmania (LATAS) as part of the ‘Return to Little Athletics Framework’. The framework provides a guide for how athletics activity should resume in a cautious and considered way because our priority is maintaining public health and minimising the risk of community transmission. We all play a role in helping to slow the spread of COVID-19. This framework provides a minimum standard of practice and is based on the best available evidence and advice to ensure the health and safety of those involved in our sport. This is a requirement in the terms of our ground hire and our Liability Insurance, at the Domain track and Clarence High.

PLEASE ensure you follow the RULES REGARDING COVID RESTRICTIONS, this will include all adults signing in when you attend each Meet and please STAY HOME if you are unwell and get tested if you have respiratory symptoms. Signing in at each Meet is primarily in case someone who attends a Meet returns a positive test within 14 days and it also helps public health tracing COVID related cases and us to pass on advice about testing/isolation/quarantine if needed to the Centre and its Members. We ask that you also comply with SOCIAL DISTANCING for non-family-household groups; and this will include competing athletes while awaiting marshaling or for their turn at an event. Yes, we know this may be difficult and your help is MUCH appreciated!

We have received a grant from the State Government for extra equipment to enable us to comply with our COVID responsibilities. You will notice a few extra cleaning events will occur throughout our Meets, this may also include some extra stops for hand sanitizing etc.

There are no requirements to wear a face mask, however, this is a personal choice. We strictly advise that anyone who does wear a mask should not be subjected to negative comments from those who attend. Be aware, we are required to follow advise from LATAS as the parent group and advice issued by Public Health about COVID rules and these may change during the season.

COVID Safety Officer; we are required to have a COVID Safety Officer for each Meet. You must follow the advice of instructions issued by the COVID Safety Officer, no matter how silly they may seem. Their role will be to ensure we can keep our Meets running. We are expecting that COVID Inspectors will randomly attend our Meets throughout the season and if they find significant or repeated breaches we may be required to abandon our season.

LATAS BOARD; Our previous president Shane Cox stood for election on the LATAS Board at the recent State Conference and was elected to the Board. CONGRATULATIONS to Shane on his appointment.

Age Group Coordinators; We still need some volunteers to be our Age Group Coordinators (AGC) this season. This role is quite flexible and can be shared with other parents in the group. The first job is simply taking role call for the event and, as the season develops, giving out badges to your athletes etc. You do not need to know how to chief all of the events to do this role. The Committee will be more than willing to help get you started, so please let us know if you can assist to help us in planning for our first Meet.

Registration Portal; you can now register via the portal HERE. Returning families please use the same login from last season, use the ‘send me an email’ option if you have forgotten your password etc. Keeping the same login email keeps all your details the same, including athlete registration numbers etc. This saves the Committee a lot of work behind the scenes as we have to manually merge system records etc if an athlete has two reg numbers. Please get your registrations done ASAP as this helps with our planning. All returning athletes must be registered by 14th November at the latest.

‘Ticket to Play”; can be used for those who qualify. Please register for this before completing our Centre registration. See more info HERE.

Payment Plans; we know some families are suffering in these difficult times, if you need a payment plan organised, please contact me directly at president.clac.ltas@gmail.com .

Season 20/21 – Current Committee; Our Centre is run by volunteers just like you, we won’t survive without people stepping up and doing all the little things required at each Meet and each Season. This includes simple things such as cooking the BBQ, an hour in the Canteen or transporting event equipment. Currently we have a small, hard working Committee with a variety of skills BUT WE DO NEED MORE! At the moment we have Committee members filling more than one role. We still have Sub-Committee vacancies for the End of Year Presentations. If you have some organisation skills and could bring together three or so people to help PLEASE let us know. We also require some parents to help out at Training afternoons once we are back at Clarence High on Tuesdays from 4.30pm. If you are interested in a more formal role or have some time and/or skills to donate, please email me or ask to join our next Meeting (Monday 19th October at 7.30pm via Zoom). You can familiarise yourself with our Committee and their roles HERE.

Committee Meetings; We meet on the 3rd Monday of every Month, our normal venue is Rosny McDonalds meeting room at 7.30pm, the last few meetings however have been over Zoom, so this may well continue on in the future. The meetings last around 90 minutes, any parent of any registered athlete can attend the meetings and we encourage you to do so if able.

New Season; by now most people will have seen our draft CALENDAR for the coming season starting Thursday 22nd October at 2pm (Show Day holiday). Our first 3 Meets will be at the Domain Athletics Centre due to our normal grounds at Clarence High School. TRAINING will not be available until we receive clearance from Clarence City Council to use our grounds. Training will be on TUESDAYS 4.30 – 5.30pm – if you are a parent who can help out, please let us know as at the moment we do not have a volunteer for this role.

NEW UNIFORM & LOGO; you may have noticed our new logo starting to appear on our website and facebook page. This is going to be our new look uniforms. The rules require a change over to our new uniform in full by Season 22/23 (two seasons away), so old tops are ok for athletes to wear, including in State competitions etc until then. However, we have ordered stock in the new look and a quantity of this will be available for purchase at our first Meet. We do still have previous CLAC stock will be available also at reduced prices until gone. We are also introducing a CLAC BEANIE – these will be in hot demand so be sure to grab one next Thursday! Our new uniform and pricing etc will be updated on the website very soon. A BIG THANK YOU to Committee members Sam and Eleanor for sorting out the transition to the new look uniforms.

EFTPOS; many of you will be ecstatic to hear that we NOW HAVE EFTPOS AVAILABLE! This will be up and running at our first meet so you can buy uniform on the day. We’ll continue this on to our usual meets including Canteen purchases. $5 minimum purchase to use EFTPOS please. Thank you to Committee member Dan for all his work on making this happen.

Come & Try; Clarence Little Athletics Centre (CLAC) welcome athletes 5yrs to 15yrs to come and try Little Athletics for 2 meets to see if you love it. Please ensure you let our Committee know upon sign in that you are not registered and are coming along for your first OR second ‘try’. By your third meet you MUST be registered or can not compete. Please wear athletic clothing and footwear. We will supply your athlete with masking tape to write their name and age group on and stick on their t-shirt for the meet. We’d love to see new members, so why not bring along a friend?!

CHILDREN MUST BE SUPERVISED BY A PARENT AT ALL TIMES DURING LITTLE ATHLETICS MEETS – YOU MUST NOT LEAVE YOUR CHILD AT THE VENUE. If this occurs your child will not be able to compete.

Feedback; we welcome your feedback, this can be done through facebook or via the emails to the Committee members or myself. These contacts are via our website HERE. Please be respectful with your feedback and remember we are all volunteers and we’d love for you to join us if you have ideas.

More information; Please ensure you keep an eye on our website and facebook for updates and latest information shared from LATAS etc. This will include changes to our COVID Plan, Meets, State Competition registration closing dates etc and not all information will be sent via email. On that note: please be sure the email you have supplied for registration is an email you access regularly as this is where the monthly newsletter with lots of important information will be sent. If you have any questions please refer to our website first to see if we have already answered your query there. We are working on a FAQs page that will be up on the website soon to also help with your questions. WET WEATHER cancellations will be notified as soon as possible on facebook and our website.

THANK YOU; for wading through all of this information. Hopefully this has answered a few questions for returning and new athletes and I look forward to seeing you all next Thursday for a brand new season!

Regards;

Hi everyone, just to keep you in the loop we are still planning on having a little athletics season this year, but there will be a few changes, including an extra focus on social distancing and cleaning/hygiene.

The Committee and I are still working through all the issues and the things we know now will no doubt be different by the time the season starts.

We have applied for a government grant to help us manage changes, including providing wipes and hand sanitizer etc.

We have been told by the council that we are unlikely to get access to our regular sports field until mid November 2020, because winter sports have changed their timelines (particularly the football codes).

As I write this update it is likely our season will start on Show Day (afternoon) at the Athletics Centre on the Domain. It is also be likely that we will lose at least 3 meetings compared to last season mostly because of venue availability.

The Little Athletics Tasmania conference is on this weekend, we will attempt to update you with more information when it is known.

So the good news is, we are still planning on going ahead with our 20/21 season!

Chris Kennedy
CLAC President

What an amazing way to finish off the 2019/20 Season with a CLAC guard of honour for our U15 athlete (with U14s accompanying him) for the final 100m. From the look of the PBs it seems that our U6s also enjoyed the extra attention – thank you to every member for putting on such a display for our athletes.

Among the huge amount of PBs there were also 2 final Local Records for the Season. Congratulations to:
U14 Boys 200m – Blake H 26.5s (his own previous 26.7s)
U12 Girls Triple Jump – Maighan A 9.27m (previous 8.98m set just the jump before by Mackenzie G)

THANK YOU once again for everyone who stepped up to volunteer at our last Champs Meet. It ran like clockwork – well done!