Chair's Report (Including Poolside Report)

A very warm welcome to everyone to the 2014 celebrations of our swimmers and the AGM. This gives us the chance to reflect on both the glory of the swimmers and the huge contributions of parents and helpers. So to all of you – thank you very much.

At the start of the year we saw the retirement of Jamie from the teaching staff and Sara who had to step down due to illness. I am happy to report that Sara is on the mend. We wish them both good luck and a big thank you for all their support.

I would like to give a big thank you to Karen, Rafal, Richard, Colin, Lou, Susanne, Clare, Louis, Jack, Tayla, Elizabeth and Charlie for their contribution and a welcome to Jules who joined the coaching staff. We have had three new volunteers step forward to become teachers; they will be shadowing our current teachers in the near future.

Congratulations to Suzanne and Tayla for completing their level 2 teaching qualification and to Karen for completing her level two in coaching.

Although we have seen a big increase in our team of teachers, we do have an annual turnover of teachers. This has caused a problem in covering the amount of sessions that we now run. It also impacts on the amount of expertise overall we are able to offer our swimmers. We need to continue to develop the team and ensure that we have a sustainability plan in place for the club.

During the last year we have had a core number of teachers who have taken between 3 and 4 sessions a week; this is not sustainable this year due to family commitments. There is no more flexibility in the number of teachers we have, who all work voluntary for the club.

The teachers have discussed the problem that we face

· ensuring that we continue to have flexibility

· the ability to keep the current level of swim time

· support new teachers to develop their skills

· ensure a club wide teaching plan

A proposal was sent to the committee requesting the engagement of a paid coach. Three options were discussed

1/ Continue as we are and appeal for new teachers to come forward in the hope that we can cover all the sessions but by doing this we will lose the expertise in some sessions while the new teachers develop their skills.

2/ Reduce the swimming times of all age groups, this would take us back to 2012, when we saw an exodus of members and revenue to other clubs who could offer the swim time and expertise in coaching.

3/ Contract a paid Coach at level 2/3 to support the club for a number of sessions per week. 

This will help the club to continue to provide quality teaching, sustain our success at galas by developing the swimmers and teaching staff. Give flexibility in movement of teachers and help relieve the burden on the teaching staff in the number of hours they need to give to the club.

The decision by the committee after a long discussion was to adopt option 1 and 3.

You will have seen the request for help in an email sent to all members.

Option 3 to contract a paid coach is not without a financial implication for the members of the club.

We will be asking members to pay an increase to their subscription of £5 a month as of April 2015.

This will allow us to continue to develop our swimmers and ensure continuity for the next year. It is planned that we will review the impact after a year to ensure that we have obtained the optimum amount of benefits a paid experienced coach will bring to the club. I would ask you to support this decision and if you have any questions to raise them here at the Annual General Meeting.

Thank you to everyone who has stepped up from my request last year to help support the club in volunteering either as a teacher, official or committee member

I would also like to give a big thank you to all the parents and older swimmers who have put themselves forward and become officials for the club. We have seen a big increase in time keepers and hopefully this will encourage our qualified officials to become judges. Without their support we would not be able to enter galas and run our internal competitions. We have to supply officials for each external gala we enter.

The club is not out of the woods yet. Next year will see the post of Chair, Secretary, Treasurer and Welfare Officer up for re-election. These are key post for the club and need to be replaced.

I am appealing to all parents and guardians to please join the committee in a shadowing function this year. This will enable there to be a smooth transition next year. There is a wealth of knowledge in the club which will be lost within the next year if no volunteers come forward.

We were very ambitious with our aims for the last year and although we have not fully met them we are on the way.

The results of our efforts as a club for the last year were as follows

1. Find 3 new teachers to join the team. We have one qualified teacher and 3 new volunteers. We will lose two teachers in the summer and possibly a third.

2. Find 10 judges to support the club although not completed we have a number of officials training at the moment Please see the report.

3. Increase the amount of time keepers for the club by 6 this has been exceeded, thank you.

4. Fill the vacant post on the committee we have not succeeded in all posts Health and Safety remains vacant. Kit secretary became vacant during the year.

5. Identify one person for each role on the committee to shadow the committee member.  We managed to have lots of new committee members so the appeal has been re issued

6. Continue to develop our leadership programme. This continues we have a number of older swimmers now volunteering on a Sunday at St Margaret’s and Thursday at Watford girls to help the younger swimmers.

7. Swim 21 accreditation we achieved this, thanks to an enormous amount of work carried out by Lou. Thank you

8. Increase our membership Achieved

9. Improve communication to parents and swimmers. This needs to be evaluated your comments are encouraged.

I would like to adopt the aims that we did not complete for the coming year and add two new aims

1/ increase the number of swimmers taking part in open meets and

2/ increase the number of swimmers who obtain County qualifying times.

We will also be introducing a new code of conduct based on the ASA Wave power document. This is part of our swim 21 accreditation. You will be asked to sign this document over the next few months either as a swimmer, parent/guardian or volunteer for the club. The codes will be put on the web site within the next few weeks.

I would like to thank Howard Willis who is stepping down from the committee. Howard has been part of the club since 1998 ensuring that our galas have enough officials and run smoothly. He has also been in charge of ordering all the medals and pendants given to our swimmers and engraving the cups and trophies for the AGM. I am pleased to announce that he will still be refereeing our galas and supporting the club.

I would like to thank all the committee for their hard work and support that they have given me this year. They have worked tirelessly to ensure the club runs smoothly.

This Year we went to the Olympic Park as a club and had the chance for our swimmers to have a training session in the Olympic Pool. On behalf of the club I would like to thank Pam and Alan for all their hard work in achieving this plus all the teachers who gave up their time and chance to swim in the pool to teach our swimmers.

Finally congratulations to all our swimmers we have seen many new PBs and records broken within the club. Over the year we have had 104 swimmers represent Bushey in external galas. We have a great team spirit and are known as a friendly club.

It gives me great personal satisfaction and enjoyment to go to the galas and see the commitment of our swimmers.

All the children should be extremely proud of themselves as it is only through their effort and behaviour, when they represent the club that gives us a good reputation. 

I continually receive comments on the behaviour and friendliness of our swimmers who are always the one cheering the loudest.

Once again thank you to all the volunteers for your contribution and help within the club. I know that the swimmers and parents really do appreciate everything you all do.

I wish you all the very best for 2015 and enjoy the celebrations.

Caroline Shermer