Nearly on the other side…

Nearly on the other side…

We hope that you are all OK and have survived the break without too many problems. There lots of places to go for help – Braintree District Council (https://www.braintree.gov.uk), Essex Map (https://www.essexmap.co.uk) etc. if you need it.

The government have suggested that leisure organisations, such as Braintree Community Centre, can reopen from 1st July 2020. As the Management Committee of the Centre, we shall be taking a cautious approach to reopening from that date.

Our staff have all been on furlough, so if you have been trying to contact us, please bear with us as we start to get going again. We are planning and installing various measures to ensure that we can be Covid-safe.

Groups : Starting back

We are not expecting every group to start back straight away – indeed, we do not want the Centre to get very busy too quickly, whilst we get used to having social distancing measures in place here, to ensure maximum safety.

Covid-safe may mean that in order to avoid very busy periods developing, we will be looking at staggered starts to classes and even changing days, in order to avoid having lots of people moving around at the same time. Equally, we will be expecting people to arrive on time for their meetings – we will be discouraging people being in the Centre waiting for start times. Chairs may be made available in the rear garden where necessary. We will be asking for your support as users, as well!

Every independent group is invited to contact us to discuss their own requirements. Please email to info@braintreecommunitycentre.org.uk. We are aware that many groups are still thinking about what to do – do please let us know if you want to continue or not in the long term. We will not be treating this Covid break as a break for affiliation status purposes, so don’t feel you must start back straight away.

Classes

Our own classes will be starting back in conjunction with our tutors wishes and attendees needs. Each group will be dealt with separately and students will probably be contacted by their own tutor. No group will start back before 1st July and some may be left until September. Information will be published here and will be available by phone (01376 323280) from mid July.

If you have prepaid classes outstanding from before we closed down, these will all be carried forward and will start again whenever you choose to rejoin your class – you’re not under any pressure to come back as soon as the class starts up again if you are continuing to isolate.

Please note that there is an NHS Health group which is going to be starting back in the next few days. No other people will be allowed in the Centre before 1st July.

We are looking forward to getting restarted and welcoming you back to the Centre; in the meantime, stay safe, keep well, and keep your chin up!

Agnes, Brenda, Lesley, James, David
Management Committe

Debbie, Yaz, Kelvin
Community Centre staff