On 4/5/23 there was an incident at training. Some committee members were present, and immediately informed the other committee members of the nature of the incident. For the sake of transparency, the committee wanted to let you know how the incident was managed.

We quickly agreed to have an emergency committee meeting on 8/5/23. There was some debate about whether this incident should be managed solely by the two co-chairs, or by the whole committee. Ultimately, it was decided that diversity of thought from the whole committee would be helpful.

Before the meeting, the committee asked for written accounts of the incident from the main parties involved, and from people considered to be neutral witnesses. A number of people also provided a statement of their own volition. These were read by the committee before the meeting, in addition to the club constitution and the FA coaches code of conduct. It was clear that there were many different perspectives to what happened.

The committee met for 90 minutes on 8/5/23. Present were: Hannah (co-chair), Sensi (co-chair), Peta (vice chair), Lizzie (secretary), Isy (treasurer), Ev (social sec), Rona (social sec), Jo (social sec). We discussed that while many people were involved in the incident, two were close to a physical altercation, and therefore this was the main focus of the meeting. We tried our utmost to keep every single persons’ wellbeing at the heart of the conversation, but also acknowledged that we as a committee have a duty of care to ensure that training is a safe space for everyone, and therefore felt it was important to treat this incident as a serious matter.

After much discussion, the committee agreed that the two main parties would be asked to take a 2 week “cooling off period” in which they would not attend training or games. In that period, they would have the opportunity to discuss the incident with the co-chairs, and also were given a contact within the committee to reach out to for support. Additionally, we recommended that both parties meet to clear the air if they were comfortable to do so.

The committee agree unanimously that the conduct on 4/5/23 was unacceptable, and not within the ethos of our club. However, it became clear that there had been some brewing tensions that fed into this incident. This has highlighted the need for a more clear method for members to communicate concerns and feedback with the committee, and a more thorough process for feedback and concerns to be addressed. This will be discussed at the upcoming QGM.

The Committee.