Chairman's Report 2017
Barnes Swimming Club - AGM 27th June 2017
Chairman’s report
Welcome to the AGM.
BSC has remained stable over the year with a similar overall membership size. The main highlights for BSC in the year are listed below
Swim 21
We again achieved Swim 21 accreditation in December 2016 following an update of information required.
Pool facilities
We continue to maintain good relationships with both St Paul’s Boys and Girls schools who provide most of our swimming time and renewed our annual contracts. We also use Acton, Crystal Palace and Chiswick New Pools for additional pool time.
Finding additional pool time remains difficult as this is a very busy area with many other clubs looking for space however we remain on the lookout for opportunities.
Coaching
Head Coach Roxana and all our coaches have continued to do a great job providing schedules, direction and support to enable all our swimmers to improve their own levels and achieve successes in the pool.
Tony Pearce has recently returned to coaching the Masters one day a week and we are grateful to David Ashton who has helped in coaching the Masters 2 nights a week whilst Tony has been away.
Whilst we have a very strong group of coaches we are still looking to add to the group and continue to interview potential candidates.
Thank you to all our coaches for their commitment and hard work this year.
Swimming successes
Club Championships
The Club Championships took place in September and October over four busy days of swimming competition. The Championships were enjoyed by all who participated with many children competing for the first time. There were a number of children achieving PBs, winning medals and achieving county times and there was a great spirit around the pool.
Counties
Last year at the Surrey County Championships BSC finished 12th out of 29 clubs in the medals table. This year our 25 swimmers came 5th in the County As with 29 medals -16 golds, 6 silvers and 7 bronze medals including bronze medals in the 12-13 medley relay and the 10-11 free relay . This is an amazing achievement for a club of our size. In addition to this we had many finalists and P.Bs in both the County A and B events.
London Summer Championships
This year 15 swimmers competed at both Age Group and Youth Regionals. 12 medals were won: Sam Beverley bronze, Tom Owens gold and bronze, Adelaide Gradillas 3 gold and 3 silver, Kaitlyn Hanson-Puffer 2 silver and bronze. There were final places for Alessandra Caprera, Ben Owens, Themis Frigo, Rebecca Sweeney and Malachi Cohen.
Nationals
There were 2 swimmers who competed at Nationals last year and both boys made the finals (Sam Beverley for 50 fly and Tom Owens for 400 free). Both Tom and Sam have again qualified for the championships this year as well as Adelaide Gradillas who has qualified for 5 events.
Milton Keynes Junior league –
We came 5th out of 18 in Division 1 of the Milton Keynes League which is a great result having come 7th last year
Only last weekend our U12 boys and girls went to Hemel Hempstead for the first round of Division 1 where we came a very impressive 2rd. We are now due to go to Oxford for the second round against some of the countries largest and best clubs including City of Oxford and Wycombe
Galas
The club ran a full programme of galas for all levels of ability achieving may excellent PB’s, medals and finalist places.
Training Camps
We held a successful training camp for 20 swimmers last year near Barcelona and intend to run another camp this year again in Greece
We also ran a joint performance training with Wandsworth in February half term, Easter and May half term to prepare for the regionals and nationals
Whilst many swimmers attended galas overall as a competitive club we would like to get even more swimmers competing next year.
Masters
Several masters swum at the Sheffield nationals where we achieved a number of silver and bronze medals.
At the Bracknell meet we achieved 4th place, an improvement from 4th last year with 14 swimmers participating. At the Surrey County Championships recently our masters swimmers won 15 gold, 9 silver and 3 bronze medals coming 7th out of 18 overall.
Congratulations to all our swimmers who either won medals, improved on their PB’s or competed at whatever level. Well done to you all and I hope you have set some targets to beat for this year.
Finances
Caroline Evans will run through the current position in more detail however I would state we are in a strong financial position and the Committee will be looking into potential areas over the next year where BSC could use some of these funds to benefit members.
Club structure and swimming numbers
We have maintained the structure of the squads which enables swimmers to move through the club to meet their potential. Overall our numbers average around 310 and we do not see a major change to this without additional pool time.
Volunteers
BSC is a club run by volunteers giving up their free time. The greater the number of people involved the better we are to share the workload. Anyone able to give some time to the Club, which can be either large or small, will be able to assist in some area.
Urgent plea - We particularly need people to train as officials as without officials we are not able to run our Club Championships or have our entries accepted for galas.
Please contact April Owens or any member of the Committee if you can help and look forward to hearing from you.
I hope you have found the information above useful however if you have any questions please feel free to contact a member of the Committee.
Finally in my last report and act as Chairman I want to express my thanks once again to the Committee for their support, in particular April Owens who again has dedicated a huge amount of time over the year to the running of the club, and all volunteers for their assistance and time over the last year to keep the club running.
Whilst I will continue as a swimming member my best wishes go to BSC and the new Chairman going forward. I know the club will continue to target success and remaining a club open to all swimmers giving them the opportunity to achieve their aims.
Regards and happy swimming,
David Brandon
Chairman - Barnes Swimming Club