Aksarben Curling’s Board of Directors recently voted to create two new policies: a head injury policy and a new code of conduct policy. We want to share more details about these policies, which can be found on our website’s Policy Center page.
Head Injury Policy
Following national trends, our Board of Directors recently voted to adopt a new Head Injury Policy.
The health and safety of our members is of utmost importance. Head strikes can be deceptive. What feels like a minor hit could have more of an impact than realized, and remaining on the ice could lead to further injury.
If a curler falls and hits her or his head while curling, she or he will be asked to leave the ice for the day. We ask that individuals remain at Baxter Arena for 30 minutes to make sure that you're safe to drive and that you fill out an incident report.
Injury incident reports can be found on our website’s Policy Center, at this direct link, or on site in Holland Ice in Aksarben Curling's supply cabinet near the freezers.
Code of Conduct Policy & Reporting Process
In the fall of 2022, our Board of Directors revisited our organization’s code of conduct and reporting policies to ensure that our policies and practice matched our values of kindness, respect, and a goal of building a welcoming and inclusive community through the spirit of curling.
We undertook this in light of the lack of transparency last year from USA Curling regarding their investigation into CEO Jeff Plush’s role in the reports of systemic abuse against athletes under his prior leadership of the National Women’s Soccer League.
Aksarben Curling joined many curling clubs calling for greater transparency and accountability from Jeff Plush, who ultimately resigned in October of 2022. We also recognized that we are responsible for ensuring a safe environment for everyone within our own organization and curling community.
To that end, our board explored model policies and adopted a new Code of Conduct and Reporting policy based on that of the Silicon Valley Curling Club, which they kindly allowed us to adapt for our organization.
The policy serves as a guide to make it easier to ensure that our organization’s activities remain welcoming to everyone and help all of us become more self-aware of how our actions impact those around us.
The policy includes guidelines for reporting incidents of abuse, harassment, intimidation, and threats of violence. It also creates a new Code of Conduct Committee composed of Aksarben Curling members to assess reports and make recommendations to our Board of Directors.
We created this policy because we think our curling community is awesome. We know that the Aksarben Curling community is transparent, friendly, and welcoming.We want to make sure everyone else knows that, too.
Adopting this policy doesn’t mean large changes.We think that the text does a really good job of describing the way members of Aksarben Curling already conduct themselves. We expect that most people will simply continue to behave in the awesome way they have for years.
We invite you to read the Code of Conduct Policy and Reporting guidelines here.
If you have questions about any of our policies we welcome inquiries and feedback at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
From all of us at Aksarben Curling, thank you for being part of our curling community!
