Canoe Polo Hawkes Bay have resolved that we will be following the guidelines as set out by our national board New Zealand Canoe Polo Assn with regards to our own local competitions and leagues. Please find below that statement released by our national board:

“The Board resolves in principle that all Association and inter-club competitions use vaccine certificates when the Government’s COVID-19 Protection Framework (“traffic light system”) is introduced. This will require all participants (including coaches, managers, other team associates, spectators and competition organisers) to produce a valid COVID-19 certificate in order to participate in an event.
Club and Regional bodies are also encouraged to use vaccine certificates for local events, but may run as the club/regional body deems appropriate in accordance with Government requirements.
The above resolution is made with regard to Government advice and aims to ensure a higher degree of certainty with Association and inter-club competitions, reduce pressures on competition organisers, and to protect the welfare of participants.
The Board further encourages all Association members to become vaccinated if they are eligible. “

The key points here is that currently we are waiting for the government and Sport New Zealand to roll-out all the support material associated with this. For example:

• National implementation of the COVID-19 Protection Framework (“traffic light system”).
• Vaccine certificates (and age groups these apply too)
• Apps and readers to manage Vaccine certificates for events.

Clear instructions on how exemptions and exceptions are being administered. It is understood that this will automatically flow into the vaccine certificates (there will be no need for organisers to be involved in this process).

This will come into effect under the new ‘traffic light system’ and under the guidance the government has set with their protection framework.

At this stage the government is set to announce their position on this the week of Monday 29^th November. And is likely to move quite quickly on implementing the countries change to this framework. Therefore, we as a club need to be prepared to move with this change immediately. Upon further investigation we have found it noted that no region in the country will move straight to the greenlight system and therefore are preparing to work under an orange or red light system.

Yes this may affect our current spring/summer league competition that we are running. Due to the fantastic number of teams competing in our spring league and the number of people this brings together each evening at the sports park we will not be able to run spring league without vaccine certificates within the new traffic light system. Without using vaccine passports the risk to the Canoe Polo community is too high especially with so much gear being shared throughout the evening. Your players, managers, coaches and spectator will need to be vaccinated to attend our summer/spring league competition. They will need to show their vaccination pass as they enter the facility. Therefore we request that you look to have a notice out to your teams as soon as you can to ensure a smooth transition here.

We are here to support you through this change, and are happy to take any questions you may have, field any concerns you may have and will try and help in any way that we can.

For further discussion please don’t hesitate to contact me should you need.

Kind Regards

Kelly Walters
Chairperson
Hawkes Bay Canoe Polo Assn

Article added: Saturday 20 November 2021