Chairman's Report

I would first like to welcome everyone to this year’s AGM. As the outgoing Chairman, I would like to take this opportunity to review the previous year, what we have achieved and more importantly, where we plan to take the club over the coming years.

As I am sure you will all know, volunteers run the club, many are parents of current swimmers, some no longer have children swimming, while others choose to teach because of who and what we are about.  BASC prides itself on the ability to teach our children to swim in accordance with the national standards; this will remain the focus of the club.

We started the year with an increase in membership numbers over the previous year, with teams competing in the Herts Major (Jan-Apr), the Junior Peanuts (May-Jul) and the Chiltern League (Jan-Mar), and additional swimming times. The club has grown from strength to strength and this does put a greater burden on the few who help in the running of the club.

We are keen to give everyone the opportunity to develop and reach their full potential; we challenge ourselves to ensure the club continues to move forward, does not stagnate and meets the needs of the wide ability range we cater for. We have introduced new swimming times for our width swimmers, extended the Sunday evening session and added a new 7pm swim on Tuesdays at Habs. We expect over the coming year to see the benefit of this as everyone in the club has the opportunity to swim twice a week if they choose. We have reorganised the Thursday swim and opened this up to more swimmers.

Once again, our badge club is as always in great demand.  It is encouraging to see many of our younger swimmers drag mums and dads along to choose which badge to do.  I see this as an important part of a young swimmers development, giving them confidence in the water and reward for achievement.

Membership has grown again this year, and this has allowed Baz (Poolside Manager) to extend the number of gala teams we run.  I am pleased to report that this year (2006), we have entered two teams into the Herts Major League (not sure this has ever been done before), along with a Chiltern League team, over the first 4 months, and this will give many swimmers who would not normally get to swim for the club the opportunity to do so. At the same time, we wait to see if we can enter a second team in the Herts Junior Peanuts League, which starts in May. I can also report that we have entered a significant number of club galas throughout the year.

The club championships, held during the year provided some excellent swims with a number of old club records being broken, I was particularly pleased to see more U8 boys and girls enter for the first time. Entries into the style, 1500 and 200m events were again high, I see no reason why this should not continue, and your support of these events should be part of your reason for swimming at BASC.

During the year, we have introduced new swim gear; it is good to see so many swimmers wearing the club colours, club kits sales are at an all time high, with all the money going back into the club. We will look to add more choice where possible. A source of information on the club is the club web site, detail of contacts and updates on events are all available, usually updated within a few days. Over the last 12 months, we have added new information; open events, vacancies within the club and more.

During the year we had a number of social events organised, 2 trips to the theatre, 10 pin bowling, Summer BBQ and Quiz night to name but a few, all were well attended. We had two personal financial donations from parents in the club which went towards the Club Champs.

One area with which I am concerned is parental involvement; I would argue that this is possibly the weakest link in the club, we are currently reliant on a few parents and families to ensure we all benefit from the swimming club. I see this as the most important part of the ongoing success and survival of the club. Bringing new parents in to help run the club has a number of benefits; we lighten the load on the few involved already, new ideas and suggestion come forward, together with energy and enthusiasm, and it makes it easier for people to move out of a role. People are more willing to take on a role if they can see a way of leaving once they have done their part for the club.

We have a number of people leaving the club, which is always a sad moment for me. These people have all contributed to the club in so many ways: Dave Thompson, who developed the club web site from scratch, Allan Macdonald who has taught many swimmers and was my predecessor as Chairman, both were involved for many years, with their own children swimming at the club. A person who deserves a special tribute is Dick Earley, who is moving out of the area has for as long as I can remember, taught the Saturday morning gala squad.  Rumour has it Dick has been involved in the club for over 30 years.  On behalf of the club, I would like to thank all of them for their commitment and time, and wish them well.

Within the committee, we have people who will be stepping down from there current position, I would like to say thank you to Sian Edwards for running membership and Louise Henson for Secretary, 100 Club and Social Secretary. We are fortunate to have Janet & John Woods taking over Membership, Gillian Wertheim 100 Club and Paul Scott as Deputy Chairman. A new position “New Members Rep” has been created, we would like to see a parent who has recently joined the club come forward to sit on the committee!

Over the coming 12 months, we are engaged in an aggressive timetable:

·        To review Swim21 and its suitability for BASC

·        Enter 2 teams in the Herts Majors, 1 team in the Chiltern League, 2 team in the Peanuts

·        19 club gala swims

·        Maintain the level of swimming time

·        Increase parental involvement in the club. 

To all of you who help, I would like to take this opportunity, on behalf of all the swimmers and parents of BASC to say thank you, and wish all the swimmers a great year at the club.

Gary Raw