POLICY FOR THE GRADING OF EMERGENCY PLAYERS

When playing an emergency, any disadvantage should be to your team and not to the opposition.

An emergency player (except Pool Emergencies) must be a financial member of your club in order to be eligible to play for your team (see by-law 7a).

If you use an emergency who is not a financial member of your club, that emergency will be deemed an ineligible player and each set in which she played will be awarded to your opposition 8-0.

The following points outline the Association’s policy on the playing of emergencies. This policy, except point (a), does not apply to Section 1 as it is deemed an open section.

1. When registering a player, all details must be entered on the score sheet and online (Match Centre) in the match comments box. In the column “Grade to be Registered”, a lower section can be requested by the Club. If this area is not filled in, the emergency will be graded for the remainder of the season to the level of the team she played in.
2. A team’s emergency player should not strengthen the team when replacing any team member and therefore should play at number 3 or 4.
3. The fact that an emergency may play with some team members in another association does not mean she is a suitable emergency—she may be one of the strongest members of the other team.
4. It is the aim and the responsibility of the Record Secretary to protect all teams from being disadvantaged because of a strong opposing emergency.
5. In consultation, the Record Secretaries make an assessment of an emergency’s standard after taking into consideration her results, her position in the team, her opposition, any relevant information on the online score sheet and also any other information sought from other associations, clubs or teams, to enable an informed and fair decision to be made.
6. If for any reason there is doubt about an emergency’s standard, she may be permitted to play again before a decision is made and may be upgraded after several matches.
7. If she appears to be too strong, but it is considered the club could have been justified in playing her, she may be upgraded only.
8. If it is considered that an emergency’s standard should have been known by the club to have been too high for the team in which she played, she may be deemed to be ineligible, and the team would lose all the games she won in that match.
9. Regardless how many times an emergency plays for your team during a season, she is still considered an emergency, not a team member, and this policy applies to her for the entire season.

If you are still not sure, contact the Record Secretary.