NAFA events suspended through the end of June

[Diana Murphy]

Morning Folks,

I hope this email finds you all well and successful in learning to navigate our new normal.

NAFA announced this week the suspension of events through the end of June.

In addition, the Board will be meeting the beginning of May to start discussions on how to return to competitions amid the pandemic. Other topics discussed will include how Iron Dogs and Judging assignments are affected by the loss of events. They welcome your comments, thoughts or suggestions.

Please see the actual NAFA posts below.

Stay safe and sane,

-- 

Diana Murphy

NAFA, Region 10 RD

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All,

I hope everyone in our flyball family is doing as well as could be expected in these difficult times. First, I hope you and your families are healthy, and I also hope you are able to navigate these difficult economic environments as well. As promised, I wanted to provide our hosts and competitors as much notice as possible for the month of June. So far, most of the data has shown very positive results with respect to social distancing and shutting down of non-essential services. However, most of the professional projections and models presented have shown that we will not be out the woods through June and we want our competitors to be as safe as possible. Therefore we will extend NAFAs suspension of events through the end of June, 2020. I know this may be disappointing for many of us, however our competitors safety is our top priority.

Also, as a reminder, the Board will be meeting on the weekend of May 2nd. One of the topics of discussion will be bringing flyball back from this pandemic. If you have comments, thoughts or suggestions, don’t hesitate to email me.

Sincerely,

Neil Flood

North American Flyball Association, Executive Director

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Hi Everyone,



The NAFA Board of Directors and I have received a number of similar questions on items that will be discussed at the upcoming Board meeting on the May 2nd weekend. So I thought I would share a little perspective. A couple of related topics we have been asked about are Iron Dogs and minimum required Judging assignments as both could be impacted by a loss of events. Both topics are being discussed at the Board Meeting. We have a number of thoughts on how to address these topics but we need to think through the pros & cons and potential pitfalls of all the options, but rest assured we will do right by both the dogs and judges. Another subject that will get a lot of discussion is how we approach lifting the suspension of competitive events. The Board will certainly discuss this in depth and there will be lots of issues to consider. For all the three of these topics, I do want to level set that we may not leave the meeting with a concrete solution for each issue, as the circumstances around all of them will be impacted by the constantly evolving health crisis. We can’t be certain when social gathering restrictions will be lifted, or if they will be lifted uniformly. We also need to consider the possibility that they also get put back in place within the next 12-24 months. I bring this up just to emphasize that we may not leave the meeting with final answers in place, but hopefully we leave with a template on how we would expect to handle the various scenarios and situations that could unfold.

As always, take care and be safe,

Neil Flood

North American Flyball Association, Executive Director