At DC Touch we support our home town MLR team, Old Glory DC. It’s been a challenging season so far and our friends at OG DC want to help fill the stands to bring some home team spirit.
Old Glory has offered us group ticket pricing of $30, and a price break if we can get at least 30 tickets purchased. If you don’t already have a ticket, send a comment or email and we’ll hook you up. This is a great chance to hang with people outside of touch and support the sport.
It’s going to be a hot one tomorrow, so we’ll need to cool down after touch with some cold beverages and snacks. No need to get crazy, but feel free to bring a small dish or snack (orange slices?) to share. Hang out with people you know, or get to know someone you don’t. We’ll be bringing the A-game on the tidal basin pitch at 9:30
Obviously, no one playing touch is obligated to picnic, but the more the merrier.
We’ll be on the Tidal Basin pitch at 5:30pm sharp. Anyone late has to run sprints, or bring orange slices. Joking aside, the weather will be beautiful and I can’t wait to run around
Since it will be soggy conditions, we don’t want to tear up the freshly seeded tidal basin pitch. We’ll play on the mall just outside of Smithsonian metro stop tomorrow. No one is enforcing permits, but there is a chance the park rangers will enforce the “no cleats” rule and we’ll have a fun barefoot run.
It’s going to be a little chilly and wet. Hopefully not too wet. Prepare yourself
There should be an early afternoon thunderstorm, but it’s forecast to break from 5:30 to 7:30 on account of our rugby. We’ll play at the WW2 fields again. I expect the ground to be wet and temperature to be hot, but 100% fun
Everything has been happening so quickly the last couple weeks. As most people saw, the CDC issued new guidance for vaccinated people. Our DC mayor made an announcement that most restrictions will be relaxed starting May 21. Best of all, an informal poll revealed that our touch community is head and shoulders above the average regarding vaccination. You could say the safest place you’d be is to play with us all day every day.
With all this good news we’re opening back up, no limits. I encourage vaccination. But more importantly I encourage everyone to review their individual situation and risk before coming to play. We will play Wednesdays at 5:30 and Saturdays at 9:30. I’ll post the day before on this site to confirm, but with summer knocking on the door I don’t see any cancellation due to weather. Our current favorite field is undergoing some rejuvenation, so the field choice may rotate a little each week. I’ll post that here as well.
There are some old faces I’m looking forward to seeing soon, and we’re always excited to make new friends. Play on!
What a long strange year it’s been. Although in many ways it doesn’t seem that long ago that this whole pandemic started.
Last year around this time we took a well-considered hiatus from play. As the months passed, we understood more about who was most at risk and how to prevent spreading the virus. We decided to start playing again on a more limited basis. The goal was to still get some fun and exercise without anyone succumbing to the virus. The best system we devised was to play with limited numbers, and use a sign-up sheet so that we could track and trace in the event anyone did contract COVID. Sadly, to keep numbers down we determined it was best not to widely advertise this revival. The downside of this was that we couldn’t actively recruit new involvement, and we couldn’t always accommodate everyone that wanted to play on any given Saturday. With all the uncertainty and the limited play, the website updates essentially went away.
As I look around it seems like there are more and more indications of life getting back to normal. I myself have just gotten vaccinated, as have many others. Current official reports say about 30% of DC residents have at least one shot. On the other hand, the outbreak is not entirely under control. In the District alone there are currently about 17 cases per 100,000 people per day, and accompanying deaths.
With all this in mind, I want to put this notice out for all those that are exploring DC touch for the first time, as well as all the old-timers that have been waiting for “official” news. Our position right now is trying to balance opening up with being responsible. Things are changing week by week, and we are trying to keep this balance the best we can. There are still restrictions on sports and gathering size in the District, so for the time being we will still proceed with limited numbers by sign up in the short term. As more people within the touch community are vaccinated, I envision we can move to wide open play without sign up in the near future.
I anticipate some restriction changes soon, and as always we’ll continue to take cues from the departments of health. With everyone’s diligence hopefully we can put this pandemic well behind us. Stay safe. Have fun. See you on the field.
In the meantime, stay tuned for more updates. Feel free to message through the website for any specific questions.
Ian “The-Ref” Reinert is great at bringing new people into the game. His patience in explaining the rules & giving demonstrations to newcomers really helps get them involved.
This is such an important part of DC Touch as we’re open to people of all abilities – everyone is welcome & should feel included.
Under Ian’s wing I’m sure the group will continue to grow and bring together rugby enthusiasts & novices from around the world who now call DC home.
DC Touch Rugby 