Chairman's Report

A very warm welcome to everyone to the 2009 AGM and what is one of the most exciting awards evenings for many years. Bushey Amateur Swimming Club has an enormous amount to be celebrating following the massive efforts and achievements of 2008. Tonight is the night we can all reflect on both the glory of the swimmers and the huge contributions of parents and helpers, so to all of you – thank you so much… you have earned my respect and admiration.

Of course we have no intention of standing still as a club and with our ambitious goals there was a great deal to do. I am delighted to report that we have achieved everything we set out to do in our 3 year plan and plenty more. We wanted to:

• Gain promotion                                   ü
• Maintain membership levels             ü
• Maintain badges and awards           ü
• Increase pool-time                              ü
• Improve communication                     ü

Not only did we achieve all these with promotion to Division 1 of the Herts Majors League, increasing membership and badges, adding a Wednesday session and completely revamp the web site (winning an award along the way) with its many features, we made a great many improvements to the back-room running of the club to provide the platform for the new 3 year plan which you can see on the web site.

Perhaps the biggest single project of all, however, was the decision to aim for a Swim 21 accreditation. This is effectively a sort of kite mark for swimming clubs which, although not yet mandatory, is a demonstration of standards across the whole spectrum of running a club. Our licence arrives in March – the culmination of over a year’s intense work and you will start to see the Swim 21 logo appearing next to our name from then. So what does it mean to us? Well, there are many benefits to the administration of the club, lending more structure and solidarity, but perhaps more noticeably, we will have access to training courses and support from ASA and British Swimming that we otherwise would not. I would like to take this opportunity to express my deep gratitude to Derek Swannick, who in his role as Vice Chair and Development Co-ordinator, has driven this monstrous admin truck on its very long journey. Derek your reward is that little logo in a couple of months’ time!

In the water, Baz Long steered our Gold Squad to promotion and kept that momentum going throughout the year with both the Gold and Black squads in the Herts Majors and the Chiltern League. Phill Holpin and Adrian Edwards also put in the nautical miles with the junior squad in the Peanuts League for swimmers under 13. We then continued to hold our head high in the prestigious Speedo League in the autumn with a liberal sprinkling of friendly galas. Thank you gentlemen for your efforts and thank you to some 115 of you who swam in the galas – you certainly responded to the call in the biggest way – Well done!

Our internal competitions also grew, steered by Howard Willis and Caroline Cliffiord. Simply huge turnouts for the 3 Club Champs were rewarded with so many personal bests and club records with the addition of the 200m Individual medley as an event to accompany the 200m and the 1500m.

Badges continue to be oversubscribed and under the direction of Jane Willis, so many swimmers of all ages and abilities went on to achieve and receive recognition of their swimming skills.

During the year, you have probably seen more shuffling of classes than in any other year. This is because Jon and Janet Wood have tirelessly worked to administer our capacity membership levels and ensure that as many swimmers as possible may benefit from the excellent teaching. Richard Henson has been infectiously enthusiastic developing both his excellent band of teachers (to which he has added new blood) and the swimming plans for all our swimmers. Congratulations are also due to Richard as he achieved a level 2 teaching certificate – nice job!!

Please indulge me here while I take a moment to express my sincere thanks to every one of you who have helped out during the year. We welcomed Caroline Holt on to the committee as Secretary – great to have you on board! – and were lucky enough to keep Marilyn Lawless as Treasurer who ensures we manage our finances properly. Kevin Binns has ensured we have the best swimming club website with so many cool new features like gala squad confirmations, forums and news and Alan Brown has given us an enviable profile in the local press with his marketing and PR, along with the helpful leaflets at Club Champs. Caroline Shermer ensures our swimmers are kitted out and Jackie Summerfield has organised our social calendar, whilst Richard Jones has now become Chairman of the Hertfordshire Swimming League which run both Major & Peanuts Leagues. Julie Rose and Lisa Hawes assumed new posts this year, Julie as Welfare Officer and Lisa as Disability Coordinator and both have already been producing some great results. There are so many more of you that contribute and help out and I know that swimmers and parents really do appreciate everything you all do … the evidence is the obvious joy on the face of every swimmer who keeps achieving and the proud parents who share in that.

Finally, after several really happy years on the committee, it is now my turn to step down as Chairman. My pride in us achieving our 3 year plan ranks right up there with some of the very best and it is because of the wonderful people who make this club that I am still going to be involved in some way. Right now though, it is time for me to make way for the new Chair and committee to steer BASC through to the next stage. I am really excited about the new 3 year plan and I know it is all achievable.

I wish you all the very best for 2009 and enjoy the evening!

Paul Scott

Chairman