Hertford Swimming Club
Text Box: Hertford Swimming Club Newsletter (Winter 2010) As we all shiver in the snow we thought it was time to update everyone on all the latest news at the Club particularly as we are making a number of changes to our Swimming Programme. The first change is the move from Simon Balle to Hartham on Fridays. The club have been aware for some time that Simon Balle is a less popular option with our swimmers and we have now been able to secure pooltime at Hartham on Friday evenings. From Friday 7th January swimming will move to Hartham with times remaining the same (Juniors/Development 18.00 and Age Group Seniors 19.00 to 20.30). The next change affects swimming on Sundays. We always intended to swap Sharks and Development Squad as we feel it is fairer to our younger swimmers for them to swim earlier. When swimming restarts at Haileybury on 9th January Sharks will swim17.15 to 17.45 and Development from 17.45 to 19.15. Finally we are reviewing our Tuesday session at Simon Balle which has a low attendance and we may open the session up to other swimmers. Simon Balle restarts on 4th January. Over the Christmas period we will be holding 2 sessions for the Major League Squad on Wednesday 29th & Friday 31st January 10.00 to 11.30 at Hartham. The first round of the Major League is on Saturday 8th January at The Venue Borehamwood 18.15 warm up. If you have been selected in the squad including reserves and are available to swim in the first round please make every effort to attend these additional sessions and to be available for the galas (R2 is on 5th February and the Final Round on 26th March). We currently only have 4 girls for our forthcoming rounds of Peanuts league galas commencing in April. We are looking to strengthen our team of girls born between 30th June 2001 and 29th June 2002- those who will be 9 by the 30th June 2011. If you know of anyone who would wish to come along for a trial, please contact Kay Murphy or Steve. We have been very fortunate to benefit from 3 sources of funding. The Club was given a donation of £1,000 on behalf of Directors and Staff of Taylor Fuel Control, working partners with the Royal National Lifeboat Institution and was awarded a grant of £1,000 from Active East Herts. We were then awarded £2,000 from GSK (many thanks to Steve Hood and all the other parent employees who applied for the funding). We are intending to purchase a new PA system and are looking into acquiring a Sharkeye underwater camera. We have not held as many home galas this season as we would like to mainly due to problems booking the pools however we hope next season to be able to stage all our home galas again. We retained our Div 1 status in both the Peanuts and the Major League. In friendly galas we won the Isobel Gala and the Hartham Bowl/George Hornsby Trophy, finished 2nd in the Jim Savory Gala and the Ware Christmas Gala and 3rd in the CoStA Peanuts Gala. Our Under 14 boys team finished in 3rd place in the Daplyn Trophy (which involves all the Clubs in Herts) and the girls finished a creditable 7th. We have had some problems with entries to Open Meets, particularly Hitchin which filled up long before the closing date and we apologise to those of you who were unable to enter. In future it is really important to ensure Paul has entries AND entry fees for Open Meets as early as possible. Nevertheless we had a good entry at the Hoddesdon and Cheshunt Open Meets, The Herts Development Meet and the Hatfield Winter Wonderland Meet and our swimmers returned with plenty of medals. We also have lots of entrants in the Open Meets at Watford and Biggleswade in January. Don’t forget that entry times for the Counties in March MUST now be obtained at a licensed meet. Financially the Club is now in a much healthier position. we are pleased to announce that we will only be increasing fees by a modest amount which will be below the rate of inflation to try and keep in line with our annual pool hire increases. As we are a competitive Club and we expect all our swimmers to take part in galas and open meets we will be registering all swimmers as ASA Category 2. We also intend to Licence our Club Championships which will again require all swimmers to be ASA Category 2. This means the ASA membership fee is a little higher (about £12.50) but it enables swimmers to compete in all galas. The Club is delighted that Margaret Carrier and Caroline Moore have now qualified as Level 2 Coaches and Freya Rymer has completed her L1 Teaching course. Tim Somers has completed his level 2 Teachers and we are now also fortunate to have Liz Hourican who has also nearly completed her Level 2 teachers helping out. Paul Smith and John Charles are doing their Judge L1a course and along with Cath Miller, Kay Murphy, Richard Rawlinson, Steve Hood and Paul Fitzsimmons hope to complete the full L1 in January. 7 teachers attended the Safeguarding Children update in October. The Club are always pleased to support any parents who would like to undertake training as teachers, coaches or officials. Courses are held throughout the year (there are several coming up at John Warner next year) and we can usually obtain 75% funding for these. Please contact John, Margaret or any committee member if you are interested. The Club has also welcomed John Charles, Freya Rymer and Sara Loveday who have joined the Committee and we are very grateful to Kirsten Caress for taking over as Membership Secretary. However we are still in urgent need of a Welfare Officer. Cath has kindly continued to fulfil the roll (as it is a statutory requirement that we have a Welfare Officer) but she would dearly love to hand over the reins. Ideally our Welfare Officer would be a parent who is usually at Hartham/Haileybury on a Wednesday and a Sunday and who is approachable. Any training will be organised by the club. If you could help out please speak to Cath, John or any committee member Congratulations to our Club Secretary Vicki Barker. Vicki qualified for the World Masters Swimming Championships held in Stockholm coming home with a medal then swam at the English National Masters winning 2 bronze medals . Just a few other points. Please make sure you have a drink on poolside with you (in a plastic containers). Even though swimmers are in the water they still get dehydrated! The club also suggests that swimmers pack their belongings into kit bags and bring them on poolside as the changing rooms are not supervised. Don’t forget to check the club website www.hertfordsc.co.uk Finally the Committee would like to wish all members a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Paula Moore