Chairman's Report

I would like to welcome everyone to this year’s AGM and take this opportunity to review the past 12 months in what has been a very good year for the club in many different ways.

BASC is a swimming club that prides itself on the ability to teach our children to swim correctly and this is and remains the focus of the club. We believe that if a child is taught the right way to swim then as they develop within the club the other aspects of swimming such as speed and endurance will follow.

Over the past year the teaching staff have made great strides in putting in a structure for teaching. We have seen 4 new teachers join us this year, (along with new time keepers), all are now involved in running their own classes, we also have a number of our senior teachers who continue to contribute a great deal of their own time also.

During the first part of the year, we competed in the Herts Major League and have maintained our position in the Herts Div 2, this was an excellent achievement in light of the gaps we had in the team at the older age groups. This meant we needed to call upon the younger members of the gala squad to swim up to fill the spaces. (I am happy to report that in the 2005 we have completed round 1 and are sitting a respectable 3^rd.)

Our younger swimmers had a baptism of fire swimming in the Premier Peanuts Junior Herts League; we had some great swims but unfortunately were relegated in the final round. However it shows that we have the strength at the younger age groups to compete with the other top clubs in the county, this only helps to improve our youngsters.

Internal club competitions were well attended with approx. 80 swimmers competing in each of the club champs through out the year and had a number of old established club records broken.

The badge section is doing very well and it is nice to see swimmers from all levels completing and receiving certificates and badges at all standards. This is a particularly important part of the young swimmers development. You will have noticed in the later part of the year we introduced some new swimming gear; this has been received well by the swimmers.

In terms of club membership we continue to see both the membership grow (app 20%), along with a healthy waiting list. I believe this is a reflection on the club and the efforts, which have been made to ensure that the local community know who we are and where we swim. We are very aware of the spaces we have within the swimming club and have been able to fast track some swimmers into the club where appropriate. I would like to thank Adrian Edwards for managing membership over the past 2 yrs, he will be handing over to Eve Beesley for 2005.

Our club finances are in good shape, and this has been bolstered by a donation from Kodak of $2500, which will be used to further develop the teaching side of the club. We are already putting this money to good use with an adult member already having started the teacher’s course in Jan05.

In terms of social events, we have had the club BBQ, Quiz night, Christmas Panto, AGM and Dinner Dance but to name a few. All had excellent turn out and were well supported by you. These events are intended to bring club members together away from the swimming pool, it gives us all an opportunity to relax and meet.

During this year we also held a charity swim in support of Sport Aid, the club raised over £1300, 40 swimmers took part, each swimmer swam distances suitable to their ability that ranged from 50m to 1.5 miles. My thanks and the credit for an inspirational email goes to Grace Cain.

I would like to draw your attention to two special people who continue to support our club. First, Dick who has since I can recall taken the Saturday morning swimming class, the second person is Dave who maintains and updates our web site, both no longer have children at the club, a special thanks to them both.

Finally, a big thanks to all involved in the running of the club, as for 2005, we will continue to develop the club based on the clubs constitution. It is worth remembering that without the parents’ involvement this club will not flourish and grow. I leave you with one thought, what can you do to help.

Gary Raw