Policy Statement:

The Ottawa Fusion Volleyball Club (OFVC) puts the safety of its players, coaches, parents/guardians and family members as a top priority. When driving/travel conditions are poor and/or when there are forecasted weather watches or travel advisories, the OFVC wants coaches, players and parents/guardians and family members to make safe decisions for their own individual safety based on the information they might need to make the decision to travel and attend a tournament or not.

Procedure:

All coaches will send out the following email message (see below/attached), between the OFVC president and Ontario Volleyball Association (OVA) staff, to all parents and players on their team at least 3 days before an upcoming tournament or at the beginning of the season to ensure that all families are aware of the clarification from OVA regarding teams cancelling from a tournament event.

Coaches will ensure that there is clear messaging from them that parents/guardians will need to make their own individual decisions regarding attending a tournament, where travel conditions may not be optimal, based on the Ontario Volleyball Organization’s clarification below.

Coaches will ensure that there is clear messaging to parents/guardians and players that their individual decision to attend or not attend a tournament based on travel conditions WILL NOT affect a player’s standing on the team or a player’s future standing on the team the following year or any year after that.

Coaches always have the right to make the decision for the entire team to cancel based on their own personal decision to travel in the specific conditions or not. The OFVC wants to ensure that coaches do not feel any pressure to risk their personal safety either.

Ontario Volleyball Organization Clarification

-------- Original Message --------

Subject: RE: Notice about Tournament Cancellations

From: "Mark" <mwiersma@ontariovolleyball.org>

Date: Fri, December 16, 2016 11:24 am

To: <president@ottawafusion.ca>, "'Ryan Mercado'"

<ryanmercado@ontariovolleyball.org>

Cc: <registrar@ottawafusion.ca>

Hey Shaun,

I appreciate your email and update from your club.

I just wanted to clarify one thing in that your teams have the right to cancel from an event even if it is still running and you will not be penalized at all in regards to standings and promotion/relegation and your team will get a full refund. I will say it is very rare that we cancel events due to weather as we will still run an event with 6 teams if 3 don’t show up as an example.

I do ask that if you do have teams that are cancelling, please send myself or Ryan (depending on age group) an email so we are aware as soon as possible.