“The ones that stayed saved the club from closing”
AFTER three months of lockdown, Bushido MA Clondalkin is finally seeing light towards the end of a long dark tunnel as it plans to reopen its doors later this month.
The club is set to return to limited action from June 29 under Phase Three of the Government's steps to reopen the country.
BMA Clondalkin is poised to make a return later this month
Since the first day of lockdown, the BMA Clondalkin club continued with all its classes on-line in an effort to help retain its membership and to continue to provide training as best as possible during the crises.
"Half of the members left immediately once the lockdown was announced unfortunately” said club Head Coach Ilija Salerno.
“Most had to cancel due to losing jobs, so any extracurricular activities had to be minimised, some cancelled because online training just didn’t suit them or their children and some left for various other reasons.
“The ones that stayed practically saved the club from closing for good. The membership fees that came in, barely just covered the rent, but it was enough. These members saved BMA Clondalkin and for that I am extremely grateful” he said.
While looking forward to getting back to some limited activity, Salerno has stressed that the club will be taking tentative steps towards normality.
“For the first three weeks of opening, classes will be strictly non-contact, with social distancing in place and all students will have to adhere to all our protocols that we have put in place” he explained.
The national governing body for kickboxing in Ireland (KBI) and the Irish Martial Arts Commission (IMAC) have put in place a risk assessment for all affiliated martial arts clubs in the country.
If they can sign off to and follow that, they can be given the green light to reopen at the close of June.
“The planning of the reopening was not an easy one” added Salerno,
“We have had to modify our reception, purchase a lot of PPE equipment and new special Covid-19 signage so that our members and coaching team will feel safe when training and teaching in our club.”
“Our reception unit now has a screen/spit guard. We have sanitising stations at the entrance of the studio, in the reception area itself and at the entrance of our training area.
“Our toilet cubicles are modified that only one person at a time can enter (including using the wash hand basin). Changing rooms are out of bounds and our reception is practically used for a drop off and collection point with no waiting area”.
“We want to be ready to welcome our students back and make them feel safe and not be a place to worry about anything else, but to only enjoy their training once again with us” he insisted.
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