Dear Members, Parents and Carers,

I am sure you have all been watching the news very intently over the past few weeks, and know how our own country is now in the grip of the coronavirus outbreak.

Many of our members have underlying health conditions which could affect them adversely should they catch the virus, and half of our staff are in the over 70’s age bracket, whom the government have told to self-isolate at home.

As of Monday, 16 March, the Coton Centre is closing all weekday activities in an effort to stop the virus from spreading.

After much discussion, we have decided that it is in all our interests to suspend SPIN on both Mondays and Wednesdays for the time being, starting tomorrow. This means that there will be no SPIN until at least after Easter.

Once Easter is over you will be contacted again to inform you as to whether or not we will be starting up again. The date of resuming SPIN will depend on whether the number of coronavirus cases in the UK are subsiding. If they are not, we may have to delay starting up, but we will keep you informed.

The SPIN Prom is due to take place on 8 May. A third of you have already bought tickets. At this point in time we are working on the assumption that we can still go ahead, but obviously, as SPIN is now closed, you will not be able to buy a ticket before the original deadline date of 1 April.

For those of you who still wish to come to the Prom, but have not yet bought tickets, please email me or telephone me (01827 64391) and let me know that you wish to come, so that we have an idea of numbers for catering. If we go ahead you will then be able to buy a ticket as soon as SPIN starts up again.

However, if the coronavirus outbreak gets worse, it is likely that Hopwas Club will suspend all bookings, and we are not able to hold the Prom, in which case, we will either move the date to the autumn, or cancel it altogether. All who have paid will then be given a full refund.

Some of our members are not on email or the Internet. If you have friends, neighbours, college or school friends who come to SPIN, please contact them and let them know about the above.

Finally, we do hope that you all understand why we feel we have had to take these measures, and look forward to seeing you again as soon as this disease subsides.

In the meantime, do look after yourselves and keep safe.