Poolside Report

On behalf of the club, I would like to thank our team of teachers and coaches, past and present, who have worked so hard and given up their time this year to teach and train our swimmers. Bruce and Julie Rice, Neil Fraser, Lisa Taverner and Darren Watts have decided to take up alternative challenges outside the pool. Bruce and Julie left in April 2012, having given a number of years to

teaching our younger swimmers. Neil worked with our Peanuts squad, giving up a lot of time to coach them, and the squad performed consistently well throughout his time as coach. Lisa worked with our younger swimmers both at the widths sessions and also assisted Neil with the Peanuts squad. Work unfortunately took Darren away to The States. We wish them all well with whatever they decide to

undertake in their free time! I would especially like to thank Robin Willis, our senior teacher, for his never ending support and guidance.

We welcome Ray Tang, Claire de Gidlow, Karen Jones and Becky Wood to our teaching team. We still need to recruit new teachers to enable us to continue with the current weekly sessions. Many hands make light work! As our teachers/coaches are unpaid, it is the club’s policy to pay for all training courses in return for a commitment to working within the club. If you or anyone you know is interested in becoming a coach/teacher, please speak to any of the teaching team to find out more information.

On behalf of all of the teaching team and the swimmers I would like to thank the army of officials, committee members and other parents for their efforts in supporting the club in every way throughout the year.

This year we have had a fair amount of upheaval having started the year by changing pools from Watford Central to St Margaret’s. I feel that this change has brought about huge benefits to the club, allowing us to incorporate all the skills into the Sunday sessions. This means that we no longer need to hold diving courses as this skill is practiced within the normal swim sessions. More swimmers are being passed for diving as soon as they are able to consistently dive safely. Many swimmers now have longer sessions on Sundays and the sessions have been altered to ensure that each swimmer works on a skill specific to them. We have seen huge improvements in those swimmers who put in maximum effort within their sessions, who listen well and try as hard as they can to put into practice the skills that they are learning.

As you will all be aware we have had further changes to the pool times this year following the withdrawal of our pool time at Habs, but I would like to thank Pam Brown for her tireless efforts to source alternative pools. We managed to replace a lot of the time, but not all. Therefore, we took this opportunity to restructure the sessions, putting our swimmers into five different ability based groups.

Progression within these groups is based on attendance, speed, technical ability, stamina and willingness to compete.

As always, the coaching team would like to congratulate our swimmers for every one of their successes and achievements this year, from the mastering of a new skill, through the tiniest PB to the Club Record and beyond. Look at the number of speed awards, trophies and individual achievements that are being celebrated tonight at the AGM. This is testament to the swimmer’s hard work and

commitment to the club. We wish you all the best for this year and hope that you will all progress further and achieve more in 2013.

I have enjoyed my time with Bushey ASC and wish you all the best as I take a break from teaching and poolside matters at the club. I wish all the swimmers well and look forward to hearing of many more achievements in the coming years.