Government guidance about outdoor activity has changed in all four home nations since our last update on 13th May.  To be absolutely clear, the changes do not permit team sports like Ultimate due to the close contact between participants.  Announcements on 30th May that referred to “competitive sport” were applicable only to a very specific definition of “elite athlete” and do not affect Ultimate.

You will be aware that the changes generally have in common some increased flexibility regarding the number of individuals from different households that can meet outdoors, provided they continue to follow social-distancing guidelines.  The rules vary in different parts of the UK, and it seems likely that the trend towards local or regional variation will continue.  For this reason, this announcement will not attempt to list out all of those variations.  You must take personal responsibility for understanding the general guidance to the public as it applies to your location and your personal circumstances.

The coach forums have remained very popular through May, so we are continuing with further sessions in June - see below.  At this stage we're beginning to think we'll continue this programme for several months to come, although we are reducing the frequency a little.

To sign up to either of these events please click on the links below.

In case you weren't aware of this already, through UK Coaching, you can access the online course ‘Mental Health Awareness for Sport & Physical Activity’ – usually £18 – for free!

All you need to do is head to ukcoaching.org where you will be able to purchase the course for free.

On 27th April, the European Ultimate Federation announced that European Ultimate Championship Regionals (EUCRs) would not happen in 2020, but that they are making plans for a larger Finals event (xEUCF) if it is possible.

In the UK, we combine the West region EUCR with UKU Nationals.  For now, UKU Regionals and UKU Nationals are still in the calendar as per our original plan.  If it is possible to run those events, we will go ahead, but Nationals 2020 will not be a qualification event to EUCF.

The UKU Competitions Committee is reviewing this change to EUCS and will confirm how the UK bids to xEUCF will be allocated teams in due course. 

We have a small group of teachers and coaches looking at the need for new resources to help teachers deliver PE and sports competitions when schools reopen for everyone.  The idea is to share simple information about how frisbees can be used in activities, games and competitions that meet constraints that are likely to affect school sports in the coming year.  

We are hoping to find one or more volunteers who have the skills and experience to help with the graphic design and editing aspects of this project.  If you think you could help, please get in touch.

For the competition part, which will probably include teams competing and scoring remotely from each other, we would ideally build some smart-looking, slick scoring-spreadsheets.  If you feel you could volunteer to help with that part, please let us know.

Finally, if you have brilliant ideas for frisbee games you believe would fit the brief, then of course we’d love to hear about them too.  Please feel free to send them over.

If you are available to help, please get in touch: admin@ukultimate.com.

We’re extremely grateful to all of our event partners who have been so supportive throughout the last few weeks and we wanted to send a quick shout-out to to some of them below.  Our venues, our medical support teams and VC Lookfly were all very directly affected when we had to cancel our events.  We also wanted to pass on messages we received from Tokay and the Youth Sport Trust.

We are really pleased to be able to publish new concussion information and guidance prepared by Dr Kenny Duffy.  The document is designed to educate all UKU members about concussion: if in doubt sit them out.  Please read the document and share the link with your club mates.