Hertford Swimming Club
Text Box: Hertford Swimming Club Occasional Newsletter Autumn 2009 First of all many apologies for the gap in newsletters. Somehow the summer and spring crept by without me getting round to doing one. Anyway summer is over and we enter a new season of swimming. The autumn is traditionally the time when the club enters a number of friendly galas and encourages swimmers to take part in the various Open Meets held locally both to gain experience and to try and achieve qualifying times for next years counties and even Regions. This year the Hitchin Open Meet on 29th Nov is a L3 licensed meet enabling swimmers to try and achieve RQT’s. Closing date for entries to Paul Fitzsimmons is almost here so if you want to compete make sure you have completed a form and returned it to Paul. We have won plenty of medals in the Counties and the Open Meets so far this year – congratulations to everyone who has taken part. Spring seems a long time ago but we retained our Div1 status in both the Major League and the Peanuts League which is no mean achievement for a small club like Hertford. Friendly galas in the spring and summer produced 2nd place finishes for Hertford in the George Edwards Gala, The Mercury Gala and the Wallace Cooper Gala. Autumn has started with an exciting win in the Brock’s Trophy Gala and an excellent 2nd in the Isabel Gala. If you are selected for a gala please make every attempt to attend. If for any reason you can not compete at the last moment make sure you telephone Paul and let him know. Please also make sure you wear your Hertford hat. Club Championships this year produced 16 event best times (including Sam Halston who broke Jim Sands longest standing club record from 1991 in the boys 12/13 100 free). There were also 4 Club and 4 Junior records. Talking of Club Records, the Club has added in records for 200 in all strokes plus the 400 & 800 Free and the 400 IM. Once again we were able to utilise the Hy-Tek system the Club has purchased which really helps with the smooth running of the event. Hy-Tek enables the club to keep an up to date record of every swimmer’s performance. We can use it to directly import Open Meet information into our data base thus saving huge amounts of time and giving us valuable information on our swimmers. Congratulations to our swimmers who qualified for the Regions in Norwich this year. We had 6 swimmers who qualified for the Championships , twice the number we had last year. They were Ben Ransome, Luke Plant, Katie Burr, Ashley Ransome, Sophie Thomson & Joe Cook. Congratulations also to Jade Abernethy, Harriet Cook and Emma Lythaby who qualified for the regional Youth Championships. There have been some changes in staffing over the past few months. After more than 20 years, Gill Chapman decided to hang up her goggles and retire. A presentation was made to Gill at the AGM and we are very grateful to her for all she has done for the club. Our assistant coach, Joshua Neuloh has also left us. In the teaching department welcome to Rachael Lashmar, Sheila Harding, Lakshmi Turner & Tim Somers who are all teaching regularly and to Caroline Moore and Anthony Collier who have been helping out with the coaching. Caroline will be taking over the Friday evening coaching slot. We will need a “parent rota” to support her on Fridays so if you would be prepared to sit on poolside for the odd Friday Paul Fitzsimmons would be delighted to hear from you. The Committee has welcomed 3 new members: Paul Fitzsimmons, John O’Brien and Tim Somers. Thanks to Kay Murphy who has departed. We are still urgently looking for a new Chairman. We urgently need someone who would be prepared to take over from Margaret. No experience necessary – you’ll soon learn and be supported by the current committee. This would be an ideal opportunity for the parent of one of our younger swimmers to get involved with the club. Presentation Night will be on Sat 10th October at Wheatcroft School (6.30 for 7.00). This year we are making a nominal charge of £2 per adult (children free) to help cover costs. This will include drinks and nibbles. Do come along and watch our young swimmers receive their hard earned cups and medals. On the subject of fees, older members will be aware that the club were criticised a couple of years ago for holding too big a reserve and as such we have not increased fees for 3 years and have also subsidised ASA registration fees. We have also had increased costs through using Haileybury (a nicer but more expensive pool), additional water time, rising pool hire costs and employing an assistant coach. The committee have therefore decided that this year we will need to raise our fees although we have kept costs as low as possible and we still believe they represent excellent value for money. No other local club offers up to 6 evening sessions in the water per week to its swimmers. Following a question raised at the AGM, we have had a web based consultation on Club Championships running. We received only 3 (suggesting most people are happy with the status quo) and they were 2:1 in favour of keeping the status quo.. The committee has therefore decided that for now we will leave things as they are. Don’t forget the Club has an adult section who swim at Hartham from 8 until 9 on a Thursday evening. If any parents have been inspired by their children to get back into the water, this is the place for you! A session schedule is available for the more ambitious or you can just swim up and down if you prefer. If you are interested talk to Margaret or Lee. Finally a reminder that the club website has everything you need to know about the club. You can now access all sorts of reference documents including our constitution and assorted policies relating to club champs, records, open meets, nutrition, risk assessment, code of conduct and squad entry criteria. The web address is www.hertfordsc.co.uk. Paula Moore Sept 2009 On behalf of the Committee