Chairman's Report 2019

Chairman’s Report for the year ending 24th June 2019.
 
We have seen another great year at Barnes Swimming Club as our swimmers continue to reach their potential in and out of the water. To ensure that the club continues to move forward we conducted a Club Review and held a Vision, Mission, Objectives and Strategy session which has helped us focus our thoughts for the future and we now have a 3 Year Action Plan to move forward with.  Key to these improvements for the club will be a 5 year contract for the SPS pool and improved communication at all levels to encourage better engagement with the club by swimmers and parents.
 
During the year a number of our committee members stood down and a big thank you goes to Gordon Barnes (ex Chair), Lucy Gradillas (Volunteers Co-ordinator), Caroline Evans (Treasurer) and George Hall (Vice Chair) for their significant contribution to the club.
 
High points for the last 12 months were seeing the progression of swimmers and getting swimmers to the National galas. In particular Megan won gold in 400 Freestyle and bronze in 800 Freestyle and Kaitlyn won bronze in 100 breast at the Swim England National Championships in Sheffield, a tremendous achievement. The Club Championships was again run over one weekend and it was a great success. This event is the centrepiece for the whole club where new members and parents get to see what the club does as the 7 year olds watch our County / Regional / National swimmers compete and members achieve official times with which to enter external galas. Our performance at the Milton Keynes Junior League events was fantastic with the club coming 5thout of 18 clubs in the 1stDivision from all over the South East of England.
 
Our top swimmers travelled to Spain in October for our annual training camp which helped set our older swimmers up for the season ahead and we continue to hire lanes at Crystal Palace to run long-course training sessions during the school holidays (working with neighbouring club Wandsworth SC.)  
 
We have seen high levels of club representation at a number of quality galas building towards qualifications for each level of competition. We have also relaunched our club kit and those attending galas look very smart with their new hoodies, t shirts, leggings and shorts which are now available for purchase through Serious Stuff
 
Surrey County Championships
In 2017 at the Surrey County Championships BSC finished 12th out of 21 clubs in the medals table. Last year in 2018 year we came 11th. This year we improved on this again to come 9thbeating clubs much larger than ourselves. We won 9 gold, 7 silver and 8 bronze medals and had multiple finalists. A particular highlight was Wilder, Anderson, Jack and Oliver’s gold medals in the 10-11 medley and freestyle relays. Well done to all our medallists!
 
Again the 50m events were held at the iconic Olympic Pool and the A & B times were combined to encourage greater participation which enabled 53 Barnes swimmers to participate.
 
London Regional Swimming ChampionshipsLast year we had 20 whose entries were accepted (more qualified with consideration times).  This year we had 27 qualifiers. We also got 6 medals plus many top 8 places.
 
National Championships 
This year we had 2 qualifiers for British Champs with 2 events each with Megan reaching the final of 100 free. Kaitlyn came 4thin the National Open Water and we had 3 qualifiers for 7 events for the English National Championships. As mentioned earlier we won one gold medal and two bronze medals at the championships which is an amazing achievement and the club is very proud. Well done to all our qualifiers Tom, Megan, Kaitlyn and Rebecca!
 
Coaching
Head Coach Roxana, Alberto and all our coaches have continued to do a great job providing direction and support to enable all our swimmers to improve and achieve their best in the pool. 
 
It has been an incredibly busy year for galas, sometimes more than one on the same weekend which stretches the coaching resource and we are very grateful for all their hard work.
Whilst we have a very strong group of coaches we are still looking to add to the group and continue to advertise for potential candidates. 
 
Thank you to all our coaches for their commitment and hard work this year.
 
Masters
Our Masters section is in good shape with a number of new members joining through the year and attendance at sessions is good. Milton’s Pre-Masters session on a Saturday morning is as popular as ever with a wide range of abilities and aspirations catered for.
 
Finances
We are in good health financially and I would like to thank our outgoing treasurer Caroline and Sarah and Sue our new treasurers for all their hard work throughout the year keeping our books in order. 
 
Volunteers
To run our Club Championships as well as to compete at external galas we need a host of licensed swimming officials and Lucy has worked to encourage parents to join the process of training and qualifying as officials. Congratulations to those that passed assessments this year, we currently have 1 J2S, 2 J2, 5 J1s and a further 5 J1s in training but we need more. We thank all those that give up their time and assist, it is most appreciated.
 
Committee
A massive thank you to all the members of the committee and particularly our competitions secretaries Karen and Alison for their input throughout the year, without you all we would not have a club.
 
System
In September we rolled out Team Unify. This has helped enormously with gala entries and other club admin tasks like recording attendance and sending emails etc. Thanks to Belinda and Karen for their input into this project
 
Here’s looking forward to a great 2019/20 season.