HHSC Club Chair’s Newsletter: November 09
In this edition…
Competitions update
Congratulations to everyone involved in our Birthday Open which – thanks to the efforts of all our volunteers, especially Claudia Cruttwell, Louise Farrow and the rest of the competitions sub-committee – ran like clockwork, with over 950 entries to the competition. As you may have read on the club website, club swimmers posted 144 Personal Best times, won 53 medals, broke 5 club records and 3 meet records. Hemel swimmers were pipped at the post in the Skins by Watford but gave their all in an entertaining finale to a busy day. Well done! The event raised over £3,200, which helped offset our fee increase. Our next in-house event is the Sharks Gala on Sunday 20th December, followed by the middle distance club championships, which will be on Sundays 17th and 31st January and 7th February, 2010. Good luck to the team competing in the National Arena League on 14th November. HHSC is hosting Round 2 at Hatfield so if you’re going, please sign up on the Notice Board to help out as we are still desperate for more volunteers. No volunteers, no gala!
Swim 21 accreditation update
A big thank you to Keith Wilding who has helped us to complete the Swim 21 audits for Compliance, Volunteer and Athlete Development and submitted them to ASA East Region. We have now officially begun the process of re-registration. We have three separate development plans: for athlete development, workforce development and compliance, and have begun gathering all the evidence we need to submit for the actual accreditation process. We hope to be able to do this early in 2010. This is a prestigious club kite mark and everything we are asked to do will make us a better club, as well as giving us access to more funding from Herts ASA and/or East Region. Because it is generating more work, we are constantly looking for more parents to help us – see below.
Growing and developing club volunteers
With so many events happening, we are always in need of volunteers to help run them. Sometimes this is to run the raffle, do refreshments, take door money or run the electronic timing (AOE) and results. But we also need to grow our own supply of officials such as timekeepers, judges, starters and referees. So don’t be shy, come forward and begin the process. Start with helping out with timekeeping, then consider taking a judge’s course. Judging is particularly suitable for parents who’ve been swimmers themselves but many of our timekeepers started as complete novices and will soon tell you how much nicer and more fun it is to be down at the poolside during a gala, rather than up in the hot and sticky balcony! We particularly need new judges for the Peanuts galas, which start in April next year. We put out 3 teams and each has to have its own judge, so if you’re a parent of a Peanuts swimmer, please consider taking the judge’s qualification.
Congratulations are due to the following people who have taken courses recently: Carryl Baughan, Gemma Brown, Andrew Farrow, Mark Fone, Emma Jolly, Amy Howard, Helen Lees, Tom Osborn, Karen Scarborough and Lisa Wilding who all completed a timekeeper’s course recently; Paul Keevill who’s currently doing Judge 1 and to Paul Mackie, Tom Osborn and Natalie Pigott who gave up a week over half-term to complete their Level 1 Certificate for Teaching Aquatics (Units 1&2). I am delighted that Emily Garratt is now our Volunteer Co-ordinator and is working closely with Nadine Mackie and James Keeling to assist with record keeping, planning and the administration side of courses and generally support and develop all our volunteers. If you’ve done a qualification recently, please give Emily or Nadine a copy of your certificate for our Swim 21 file. If you plan to go on any courses, speak to them first about how to sign up and what financial support is available (in advance only – this is not retrospective). If you’d like to help out at a gala, contact Emily on volunteers@hhsc.org.uk. Look out for a new volunteers’ page on the club website, which will highlight up and coming courses and events.
New committee members/Fundraising
We have a new Welfare Officer, Tina Smith, who is the first point of contact for any child welfare concerns and who is also co-ordinating CRB checks and training for volunteers. Tina is usually at Sportspace on a Sunday evening or you can email her – welfare@hhsc.org.uk. Tina will ensure we follow the new ASA Child Safeguarding Policy and Procedures, Wave Power. We also have a new Treasurer, Ian Dignum, who is taking excellent care of our club finances, and Claire Jelfs has joined the committee and taken up the fundraising baton. The superb prizes at the Open were all sourced by Claire. We’d like to start fundraising for a new scoreboard next (£5,000 to £7,000 for a 6-8 lane electronic one). Watch the notice board or the website for further details of forthcoming fundraising events and give your support.
The committee meets once a month for about 2 hours and minutes are posted on the club noticeboard. The current committee is made up as follows:
Joan Keevill – ChairMark Horrod
Ben Howard – Vice Chair
Annette Reed – SecretaryJames Keeling
Ian Dignum – Treasurer
Charles Dainton – Head Coach
Andrew Farrow – Membership and AdminTina Smith – Welfare Officer
Claire Jelfs
New Club Captains
Congratulations to the new club captains Rachael King, Lois Moore, Tom Osborn and Tom Sherriff. I have asked Charles to invite them to do the ASA Helpers’ course (apart from Tom Osborn who’s already done Level 1 Teaching). In addition they will be mentored by Dave Pirrie (boys) and Liz Sherriff (girls) throughout the year.
Farewell
After coaching at the club for more than ten years, Gavin Wignall is leaving us as he’s moving out of the area. We’d all like to say a big thank you to Gavin for his support and wish him well in the future.
Club website
Have you noticed how the club website has been completely revamped and updated? This was all done by Alan Doyle, who is now adding more elements to it, such as the new online shop and a Twitter account. Buy online via our shop and the club gets a small percentage back. Follow our tweets and you will know straight away if the pool has had to be closed or an event cancelled even if you’re en route. To find out more, go to http://twitter.com and search for ‘hemelswim’.
Tweet tweet!
Best wishes,
Joan
Joan Keevill
Chair