A huge vote of thanks to Tom Sherriff who masterminded the highly successful 2014 swim camp in Tunisia over the autumn half term. It’s taken a year to plan and included organising a sponsored swim and bag packing to help fund the trip as well as arranging sponsorship for the coach to the airport and the special red camp hoodies that you’ll now see at training. Tom also had to battle with the availability of accommodation, pool time and flights for a whole range of options before eventually settleing on Tunisia, but all the feedback suggests that it was time very well spent.
If you want to know what it means to be on a swim camp it starts with a coach at 4am on a Sunday morning from Maylands to Gatwick. Once at the resort each day follows a similar routine with the first two hour pool session starting at 7am, followed by breakfast and one hours land training. The second two hour pool session comes at 2pm after lunch before dinner and a briefing on the next day’s activities. All of the swimming took place in an outdoor 50m pool.
Important though it is there’s more to a swim camp than just the training, and if you’re interested in the detail you should read the blogs here. By way of a taster, in-between training much of the time seemed to be spent sitting by the pool or playing in it; that’s swimmers for you! There were two birthdays (belated congratulations to Grace and Josh), Tony Gaines composed and performed songs and Michael Holmes was quiz master extraordinaire. There was a visit to the local market, a competition against Bracknell SC who were staying in the same hotel, and Jacob’s legs were waxed – and that’s just what they were prepared to publish; one of the blogs ends with the somewhat ominous “what happens on tour, stays on tour”!
If Tom shouldered the bulk of the planning I’m sure he’d want to acknowledge the support he received from his parents, Ralph and Liz, in the run up to the trip. And no camp could be run without the volunteers who gave up their time (and paid for the privilege!) – David Cox, Janet Davies, Tony Gaines, Michael Holmes, Hayley McKenna, Linda Rayner and Liz Sherriff; our thanks to them all.
And finally thanks to Justin who delivered 5 hours of varied training every day tailored to a wide range of abilities to keep everyone on their toes and interested.