News

NAGVA Response to COVID-19 Update

Mar 12, 2020

Good evening NAGVA Membership,

On behalf of the NAGVA Board, I would like to give every active Member an update as to where NAGVA is currently and what our next steps are as it relates to the COVID-19 virus. Out of an abundance of caution, the decision was made to remove sanctioning for tournaments during the next three weeks (Cincinnati, Omaha, Vancouver, Denver, and New York). What this means is that these tournaments will be removed from the NAGVA calendar and are no longer classified as a NAGVA-sanctioned event. As individuals and local organizations are the ones that sign contracts with facilities and vendors for their local tournaments, NAGVA does not have the authority to require them to cancel their tournaments. In a discussion with those Tournament Directors earlier today, we are leaving it to the tournaments to decide whether they would like to hold an unofficial tournament or cancel their event. NAGVA is committed to working with our local tournament organizers to see how we can help to ensure local organizations are not financially in danger due to the fallout of the cancelations.

In the event that one of the canceled tournaments was to be your first event of the season, we will be offering refunds of your individual and season team dues to those players. Please contact the NAGVA Treasurer, Rich Sucre, at treasurer@nagva.org in order to request a refund. As you can imagine, there may be a lot of requests, so please be patient as he works through the queue of requests.

Regarding the other five remaining events (Houston, Champaign, Baltimore, Cleveland, and San Diego), Champaign has officially canceled their event. The Executive Leadership team has made a commitment to monitor developments, including news reports from reputable sources, state and local travel warnings, and any states of emergency in an ongoing (and at least weekly) basis. We are also actively communicating with those tournament directors as they progress through these tough decisions on their own. Please be patient with them, and with each other, as no one could have imagined this was coming when these tournaments were sanctioned. While we all are hoping for the best, we must be preparing for all contingencies.

As for Championships, our current plan is to still hold the event. We are in contact with the Flamingo and the Las Vegas Convention Center and have a meeting with the city tomorrow. We will be monitoring the situation in Las Vegas carefully and will make a decision as to the future of Championships 2020 as we learn more. In the meantime, the NAGVA Board will be meeting on Tuesday to discuss Championships, including any waivers for teams/players that were using any of the canceled tournaments in March/April as qualifiers for Championships. Please be on the lookout for additional information from us in the coming week regarding By-Laws/Rules & Regulations amendments, information about NAGVA Officer elections, and the Annual Meeting.

Your health and safety, as well as that of your family’s, co-worker’s, neighbor’s is the most important to us. We do not make any of these decisions lightly. We do not make them flippantly. We may also not get it right in everyone’s opinion. That’s ok. We will not all agree on a proper course of action but please know that we are making it with the best of available information and the best of intentions. We all have a passion for volleyball, but more importantly, we are a community, and it’s the community we need to look after.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me or any other NAGVA Board member. Our emails can be found on www.nagva.org/officers.

 

Warmly,

Lew Smith

President

NAGVA

president@nagva.org