Ocean Sports Centre COVID-19 Pledge

Issued June 2020.

The Ocean Sports Centre is acknowledged as a COVID-19 secure activity centre, accredited by the ASI (Academy of Surfing Instructors), an international awarding body.

The Ocean Sports Centre (OSC) has an overriding duty of care to safeguard you, our staff and general public by reducing risk of transfer of COVID-19 (C19). The following provides an overarching policy and sets in place procedures that follow current guidelines and best practice identified by the UK Government and drawing upon good practice from our awarding body, ASI, relevant national governing body’s (NGB’s) more directly associated with our activities, British Canoeing (BC), good practice from alternative NGB’s for example the Royal Yachting Association (RYA) and national governing organisations (NGO’s), Life Jacket Association (LJA) as well as guidance from the Adventurous Activities Licensing Service (AALS), Public Health England (PHE) and UK Active (UKA).

We welcome the opportunity to share with you our good practice and have provided a pdf document which gives a more detailed overview of our protocols and procedures.

Adapted OSC Offering

In light of government guidance and relevant restrictions placed upon activity providers like ourselves the OSC will be able to provide the following activities:

• Lessons on a one to one basis or small group (maximum six people)
• Tours will be restricted to SUP and kayak only
• Hire of stand up paddleboards, single and double kayaks
• Hire of wetsuits and wooden belly boards
• Beach hire of windbreaks and deck chairs

Booking Activities with us

To ensure the welfare of you, our staff and, the general public we have minimised contact with multitouch surfaces, developed social distancing measures and streamlined all of our bookings to contactless processes.

What this means for you: Online

• All bookings will be made online prior to arriving at the OSC
• Payment & completion of our Acknowledgment of Risk Waiver (ARW) must be made electronically prior to your arrival (this is an automated process sent direct to you and is a simple tick box form) – please ensure that your email address is correct and accessible to be able to complete this task.

What this means for you: On the beach

It is possible to book directly on the beach however, we are now paperless.

•  ARW must be made electronically (our devices can be used if necessary)
• Contactless payment only

Meeting us at the Ocean Sports Centre

To enable us to carry out good practice, consistently ensure the welfare you and our staff we must adhere to a more structured running of the Centre this will impact upon how we manage social distancing and disinfection of equipment. Thoroughly sanitising our equipment takes time and we will be running lessons and hire on specific slots; this also enables us to maintain social distancing between groups and individuals.

What this means for you

• Arrive 15mins before your time slot
• You will need to change outside – unfortunately, we will be unable to take any items from you.
• Prior to touching anything at the Centre we require you to sanitise your hands using provided antiviral hand gel
• If you are late, even if the hire, lesson or tour slot has not left, we cannot guarantee that you will be able to join in with that session
• If you are late or miss your slot, we will endeavour to reschedule your booking to the most immediate time slot – there is no guarantee that it will be the very next one
• To avoid disappointment please arrive early!

Maintaining Social Distancing

When on the beach we require you to follow our clearly marked social distancing measures, this entails;

• Maintain 2m exclusion zones
• Following our one way traffic system
• Remain in our briefing zone until prior to your safety briefing

During your activity

Ultimately while out on the water we expect you to maintain social distancing and expect the following behaviour during lessons, tours, and hire:

• Respect social distancing with people outside of your group and our staff when hiring our water sports equipment
• Follow your instructors’ directions to maintain a two-meter separation between paddlers when out on the water

It is important to understand that while minor infringements can occur due to control of your craft during a lesson or tour, however, if the instructor feels that their welfare is consistently compromised, they have the right to withdraw the group to the beach and suspend the session.

After the Activity

To help ensure the wellbeing of future customers and staff we require customers to adhere to the following:

• Used equipment will be deposited in our drop off zone
• Use hand sanitising gel before leaving us
• Let us know if you show signs or test positive for COVID-19 within a 14 day period after visiting the Ocean Sports Centre using the following email: thebeach@oceansportscentre.co.uk