As winter falls.....Bad Weather Guidance 2023 Edition

As its December soon and it appears the weather has finally turned, the East Comms officer looked at the weather app on his phone for Saturday and realised it was probably a good idea to send out the annual "its going to be cold at the weekend" guidance. 

This has been emailed to everyone listed as a Club or Team admin for an East Adult League team or club, posted on the facebook group and linked to on the twitter page, if you think you should have received it through one of these channels let us know. 

On Saturday its looking like large parts of the region are going to be struggling to get above freezing which means games are likely to be postponed, or at the very least questionable first thing on Saturday morning. As such please think ahead and if possible to the following:

1. You all know your own pitches better than your league managers do, have a look at your fixture lists and decide where the risks are, if you've a 10am on the pitch in the shadow of the sports hall, its probably more of a problem than 2pm on the one next door that gets the sun.

2. Have a look at where your opposition are travelling from, reach out to them and figure out what time a decision needs to be made, obviously long distances need more warning than local derbies. If you can't agree reach out to your division managers for a bit of help of mediation. Its actually in the regulations its the home teams job to reach out to the opposition, but if you haven't heard anything, be proactive. 

3. Agree communications protocols and get these out to your opposition, check your normal fixture secretry isn't on holiday in California where its 2am when you need to make a decision or playing / umpiring when they are likely to get a phone call. Get phone numbers, speaking to someone is a confirmable medium, e-mail is not. Make sure all you admins details are visible on GMS, if they aren't and there is a row about who should have contacted who, the first thing we will check is can someone actually find a phone number. 

4. If a game is postponed, start the process for re-arranging it immediately, there is a slip week on the 16th December for a lot of teams, if it can be used please go ahead.  If the 16th can't be used, Clubs should use the 6th January slip date prior to the re-start. The league match takes preference over any previously arranged friendlies. We are expecting a bad winter so we need to aim to keep the February slip dates clear for any games, sundays can be used as well but please do not switch straight to the February dates without consulting your league manager. (and yes, we do understand if it snows on Jan 6th then you will have to use the February date, but we'd look daft if we told you to use February and it snowed then and was gloriously sunny on the 6th Jan). Also, remember games must be re-arranged within 7 days, we'll give a bit of float to 8 so its done by the end of the following weekend, but no more, if you haven't even attempted to reach out to your opposition by that point the game may just get awarded. 

5. Remember your umpires, club umpires might be on the team whatsapp, or they might not, but appointed umpires definitely aren't. Please remember to keep them in the loop on what's going on, again a phone call is better than an email. All the appointed umpires details are visible on GMS, but please check you can find them before Saturday.

As always, if you have questions please reach out to your league managers or opposite numbers at other Clubs. 

Regards

Phil