Huntsville Gymnastics Center

Check here for class schedules for:

Huntsville

Madison

 Hampton Cove

Huntsville, Madison and Hampton Cove Gymnastics

*NEW 10/23/20 It's been a while since our last update, as we all started to adjust to our new routines. We have kept you informed if we have received information of COVID-19 infections that might have affected any of our students. Please continue calling to let us know if you or anyone in your family has been exposed, or may have been exposed. Each case is different, and we want to continue to do everything we can to err on the side of caution.

If you have been following the national updates, you will know that the country is in the middle of a significant uptick in cases, and our area is no exception. Hospitalizations have remained steady, instead of the decreases we had been expecting.

We will continue to monitor developments. We ask for your cooperation if we should need to change procedures or even to suspend classes again. In particular, we ask everyone to help us out by staying out of the lobby and viewing areas as much as possible. Staying in one place inside for more than 15 minutes has been shown to have a high association with transmission of the virus, so we want as few people congregating as possible. We are permitting family members to stay, subject to space limitations, but must insist on only one family member at this time. Please remain in your cars if at all possible.

We also need to remind everyone that masks must be worn by adults at all times when in the building, and must be worn with mouth AND nose fully covered at all times.

Thank you for all of your assistance with this. We have all heard horror stories of conflicts over these policies at other places, and we are very grateful for how supportive and helpful all of you have been. Our philosophy is to always take more precautions, rather than less, and we know that will sometimes feel excessive, but we want to be as careful as our most careful customers would want us to be. Your response to all of this has been fantastic. We are very grateful.

ARCHIVED NOTES

We plan to continue with our "even smaller" class sizes for now. When it becomes safe to do so, we will look at going back to our regular (still small!) sizes, and that may open additional spaces. So if you find a time you like, but the class is full and you have signed up in another time, be sure to ask us to waitlist you for your preferred time and as soon as a space is available we can move you over.

When you come for class we will be asking your child if they have experienced any symptoms relating to COVID-19, such as shortness of breath, coughing, fever, dizziness, or loss of appetite or sense of smell. Please assist us by checking this yourself at home before coming to the gym and if you are unsure, please stay home and schedule a make-up when you know everything is ok.

We have received a couple of reports from parents along the lines of, "My spouse has a work colleague who may have COVID-19, although we have seen no symptoms in our home." Please call us with anything like this that we might need to know. Often we will simply ask you to wait until test results come back, but sometimes we will need to ask that you stay away for a period of 5 days (the usual infection period) or even 14 days if we feel it is warranted under the circumstances. And, of course, if anyone in the household develops symptoms or tests positive, we must require a waiting period of 14 days after testing negative before returning. We really appreciate all of you keeping us informed: if we look out for one another, we can get through this! We will inform you if someone who has been in the gym at the same time as you or your child becomes a suspected source of infection.

As you have seen, we have adjusted the classes, working with smaller numbers and fewer classes going on at the same time, to keep the numbers down in the gym and to allow time for sanitizing. These are the protocols we have been running all Summer, though we are ready to change if needed and trust you will be flexible if, for example, new shut-down orders are issued. We plan on running all classes via Zoom if that happens, but we do not think it likely. If you have not signed back up, don't wait - "spaces are limited" has a new urgency now: once we have reached our new limit, we will not be able to open more classes!

We have set up protocols to reduce risk, and details are set out in the next slide.

No-one should feel any obligation whatsoever to start back yet. We believe we can continue this tentative step in a safe manner if our numbers are very small and we only take families who are not at heightened risk. Although we have not reached the point of overloading our local healthcare system (we may be getting close!), the virus itself is no less of a threat than before. Until there is treatment or a vaccine, any exposure will be a risk, and we must be ready to close down again if needed for the sake of our community. Obviously we hope that an accurate antibody test with an indication of immunity will come soon, but we are not there yet.

Please feel free to call me to share your thoughts or concerns. Once again, I and all my staff truly appreciate the support you have shown us, and we hope to be able to continue to earn your trust.

James Linderholm

HGC/MGC/HCG

We have posted a number of activities and challenges online, through our Facebook Group and our YouTube Channel. Have you joined in yet? Look for more content daily and check back here for news of another free online opportunity coming soon. We want to keep everyone as active as possible!

We appreciate the generosity and support of all those who have reached out to us. I can assure you we are all doing fine. Thank you! We especially thank those of you who have committed to support us financially through this. We love our gym family!

• Anyone with a family member who may have been in contact with COVID-19 must inform us immediately and wait 14 days before coming to class, even if they have tested negative. In this situation we will, of course, provide as many make-up's as necessary.
• No-one with symptoms of fever, coughing, loss of smell, dizziness, or shortness of breath will be permitted to enter: staff, athletes, parents or family members. Anyone who exhibits these symptoms while here will be asked to leave until their status can be confirmed safe.
• Every person who enters must wash their hands at the doorway and again on leaving: no exceptions - staff, athletes, and parents.
• Only 1 family member per athlete will be permitted to remain in the facility during classes.
• All adults entering the facilities must maintain physical distancing of 6' and are required to wear a mask: mouth AND nose covered..

For our athletes, we will conduct a wellness check (temp. screening and a series of questions), hand-washing before, during and after class, physical distancing, separate training stations, sanitizing, and keep much more room in the gym itself (fewer classes at a time right now). This will keep our occupancy at 20% of normal or less. We are encouraging parents to drop and go, or wait in their vehicles whenever possible (we will get athletes to and from their class, just as in school), since the regular viewing area, even if distancing could be maintained, is simply not a good risk. Even with appropriate distance, more time in the same place equals more risk. That's not to say you cannot stay: 1 person per family will be permitted, but we do not encourage it, and if we cannot maintain distancing, people will have to leave. Hopefully, only running 2 or 3 classes at once there should never be too many people there. All staff will wear masks and all adults entering the facilities must wear a mask.

Please click here to download the Covid-19 Waiver. Please fill it out and bring it to your first class.