I saw something recently saying that Covid-19 is the new GDPR - everyone making a statement about it - so if seeing this makes you roll your eyes, hey, I’m sorry… 
But if we don’t talk about it, it’s just possible that some of you might think we’re not thinking about you, about our responsibilities, about how this impacts on all of us - so even if it makes you roll your eyes, we need to let you know that we’re thinking about you, about our staff, about the whole community.
I’ve told our staff that I’d be very glad to see them self-isolating for the next couple of weeks - I’d rather they were a bit more careful than necessary right now, and able to roll their eyes about it later, than to be wishing later on that they’d responded faster.
I presume that a lot of you are feeling nervous and worried at the moment.
We know how you feel - Beuno has had a nasty bout of bronchitis recently, which clearly raises a few questions about the current state of his immune system - so we’re self-isolating at the moment, and making sure that we’ve got support structures in place for other vulnerable members of our family.
But I don’t want to add to your feelings of worry - it’s clearly important that we all remain calm and think clearly.
This forum is a very special community - and communities are clearly going to be a very important part of how we deal with this challenge.
So please - if you need to talk (in Welsh or English!), if you fancy hopping on a video call for some company, if you need help locally - please treat this community as one of your support networks. There are SSiW learners All Over The World, and they’re some of the kindest and most supportive people any of us could hope to meet - so they will, I’m absolutely certain, want to reach out and help each other.
Bootcamps
The April bootcampers have expressed a general desire to go ahead if possible. We’re talking this through - on the one hand, the numbers aren’t enormous, but on the other hand the continued exposure is a risk factor. The group agreement to wait and see seems reasonable to me - but it’s important that you all know that if we have to postpone, we will bust a gut to schedule the future bootcamp on dates which work for all of you - and if we can’t do that, we’ll create spaces for you on other bootcamps.
June seems more high risk to me - it’s clear that the numbers are very likely to be more challenging by then - but we will of course offer the same arrangements if we need to postpone.
If you decide you can’t come to April or June, we’ll consider you to have a transferring bootcamp ticket and the right to take a place on whichever future bootcamps work for you.
If you decide that you’d like a refund instead, we will of course honour that - we might ask you to let us refund on a gradual basis, if you don’t mind that, because this looks like being a fairly tough time for small businesses - but we will NOT use that as an excuse to delay unreasonably.
It seems reasonable to put a pause on announcing further bootcamps for the time being.
Meet-ups
Obviously, local meet-ups are run by local organisers, and we don’t have the right to tell them what to do.
I do think that it would be a very good idea for meet-ups to run virtually for a while - perhaps helping people who aren’t very familiar with joining video meetings to get used to how to do it - we’d be happy to help point organisers in the direction of video group tools, so please don’t hesitate to ask.
Talking about it
Not everyone agrees on the best way to respond to the current situation. Not everyone is happy with decisions being made by other people.
Here on the forum, we will as ever maintain a friendly and respectful attitude to our different points of view - so please feel free to ask any questions you have, or look for support and friendship, in the certain knowledge that all our staff and all our community members will give you as much support as possible.
No one on this forum will be making negative or personal comments about other people’s decisions. 
If you have any questions, fire away.
If there’s anything else you’d find helpful from us, let us know.
If there’s anything you think we’re missing, let us know.
And take care. We care about you. I personally would be very glad indeed to see you practising as much social distancing as is possible for you.
And if you’re self-isolating, and want company, and bad jokes… we’ll be here. 
