February 2008

Dear swimmers, parents and carers,

Here’s the latest round-up of news and dates for your diary.

Presentation Evening

This was held at the Broadstairs Pavilion on Friday 25 January and was a popular evening with lots of parents, friends and family there to see the swimmers collect their hard earned awards.   We’ve taken on the feedback from parents and will make sure that food is available next year.  We’d like to thank to Tony New for hosting for us, and Jane Pond and Emma Kemp for organising the evening.  As always, Louise English worked wonders with the raffle, meaning that we made a profit of a whole £10 on the night! 

We are considering a winter/Christmas disco for the swimmers.  If you have any feelings either way about this, please talk to Jane, Emma or Louise to give us an idea of the potential interest.  Remember that we will not be holding a gala in November 2008.  The next one will be in April 2009.  This means that the Presentation Evening will be on a lovely spring evening (hopefully!).  Keep an eye out for dates and entry in due course.

Annual General Meeting

This is booked for Tuesday 20 May 2008, venue TBA.  We expect as many parents as possible to come along to hear about how we have been developing your children and what we have been spending your money on.  It is also a chance for you to show your support and appreciation of the work done by all the unpaid volunteers in the club.

The whole Committee stand down at the AGM and all roles are open for nominations and appointment, subject to a clear CRB check. 

We are particularly looking for someone to take over the role of Secretary.  Meryl Smallbone has loved the role but has heard the call to swap reception for poolside!  The Secretary’s job is quite streamlined now; please talk to Meryl to see if this might suit you.

End of financial year

The Treasurer, asks that all subs are up to date by the end of February to make it easier to balance the books!  Please also make sure that kit bags, t-shirts, Swimshop orders, etc are paid. 

Swimshop.co.uk

We have an account with Swimshop that allows us a discount on some things.  We are looking for a volunteer to take on the ordering, etc for this as the treasurer does not have time to do this in addition to the Treasurer’s work.  If we don’t have a volunteer we will have to let this service lapse. The Swimshop job will take about an hour a week and is good for someone who is able to access the internet/email and is good with sorting out orders.  Please talk to us if you can take this on. 

Small Pool progress

We are delighted to say that the younger swimmers in the small pool have settled in quickly and are all progressing really well! We’re also glad that the parents are happy with the Club and like what we do.   

More info, less paper

We are trying to reduce the amount of paper newsletters that we print.  The newsletters are always available on the website. Please also keep checking the What’s New page to see what’s happening in between newsletters.

If we haven’t got your email address, please consider passing it to Meryl.  We can then give you a short email to say there is a new newsletter out for you to read.

Kitbags

The kitbags are for sale for just £12.  The Club has heavily subsidised the cost and so the bags are half price to you, complete with a free float and hand paddles, to help solve our storage problems!  The next batch will arrive over the next couple of weeks, so see reception to put your name down for one.

Behaviour

We are delighted to say that since the recent reminder, the behaviour of swimmers on poolside and in the water has been excellent.  Thank you.    

Water Polo tournament

We will be holding 2 consecutive water polo sessions at the end of March, dates TBA.  The first week will be a teaching week, with guest Lawrence Arnold, and the second week will be the Inter Bay Tournament for the trophy.  Viking Bay was the inaugural winners but the other Bays have their eye on the prize!

The 9.00 group will need to come in at 8.15 for the tournament week ONLY, and the 8.15 group are invited to stay until about 9.30 for the final match.  Players are rotated through each match, if they wish to play.  If you need to take your child home before that, please let us know.

National Plan for Teaching Swimming

The Amateur Swimming Association has brought in a new framework for NPTS.  This does not dove-tail exactly into the existing Levels.  Stage 1, 2 and 3 are clearly for the small pool, with skill and confidence development. Stage 4 could be tricky, as we are not currently sure if that is proper to the small pool or main pool, so we will have to make a policy decision!  Stages 5-7 broadly cover the current Levels 5-9.  The 'combined' way of teaching swimming, polo, PS, diving, etc stops there and branches off into Stage 8/9/10 in EACH of competitive swimming, water polo, synchro and diving.  This has a significant impact on the planning and delivery of the lessons.  We have lots of questions at the moment but the Teachers will be meeting to share ideas and learn to use the new plan.

The impact on existing members may be that they will move groups into a new Stage number.  It may mean, for instance, that a group of Level 7 swimmers will be allocated in one or more Stages. 

We will pass on more individual information as we find our way.     

Teacher training

The Committee have been considering how best to fund teacher training courses, which cost anything between £200-350.  We’ve decided that the club will split the cost 50/50 with teacher and then if the teacher passes the course and is still with the club after 6 months, the club will pay the teacher the other half of the fees.  This would be blanket policy, but each case could be decided upon own merits and individual’s circumstances, length of time helping poolside etc.

Try-outs and waiting list

We’ve had a large amount of application forms recently, particularly for the small pool and for the current level 6/7.  In the main pool, we are working our way through the prospective members and small pool trial date or dates will follow.

Masters

The Masters branch will be taking part in the East Invicta gala at King’s School in Canterbury on 5 April in the evening.  It’s a nice friendly gala to have a go at if you want to try it but are not sure!  The closing date is 5 March.  Have a look at the website for the entry forms that outline the events.  If you’re interested in joining up, contact us via the email address at the top of this newsletter, or talk to Sue White. 

We are currently talking to one or two of the Masters to see if we can get them along once or twice to do some demonstration swimming.  These particular swimmers are very good at butterfly and breaststroke, which are beautiful strokes when swum properly.  Fingers crossed that they can make a session or two. 

That’s it for now, keep checking the website!

Yours in sport,

The current teaching team

Sue Smith (Head Teacher), Cathy Tuddenham, Sue White, Rachel Clifton, Tony Taylor, Darren Gambrill, Tony New,

Colin St John Jeffrey, Erica Smallbone, Emma Warren, the young poolside helpers Jack Pike, Grace Andrews, Molly White, Vinnie Jones, Amy Little

(And any others we have left off J) and Committee of

Broadstairs Lifeguard and Swimming Club