South Axholme Sharks Committee Meeting
held at
The Red Lion Hotel, Epworth
on the
12th December 2006

Present: Simon Latham (Chairman), Kevin Dunne (Head Coach), Sandra Temperton (Secretary), Margaret Gray, Jill Watson, Jim Cook, Bev Webb, Lynn Crawford, Julie Hirst, Jan Simm, Cris Lewis, Claire Windle, Jeff Buxton & Angie Shpylka.   

Apologies: Stuart Starbuck & David Gray.

Minutes of Last Meeting

Agreed as a true record.

Matters Arising

Kev advised that he would be running another Preliminary Competitive Start Award course in January 2007. A notice will be put on our board for names of swimmers who are interested.

Swim 21 is still on-going although there is nothing new to report since the last meeting.

Sandra advised that the new swim bags had arrived and were now for sale.

Sandra advised that she had sold quite a few items at the swim shop at the last Club Champs and it was worth setting up a display table in the future. We still need volunteers from the committee to run the swim shop at the Pool as often as possible.

At the last DMASA Committee meeting, it was mentioned that they were disappointed that some people did not turn up for the Child Protection Course run on the 28th & 29th of November 2006 and they may reclaim the course fees from the Clubs involved. Unfortunately this may involve ourselves, as Jim Cook was unable to go however he did send his apologies before hand. Jeff Buxton attended representing Sharks and thought it was a well run course. All swimming teachers now have to have a licence in this respect, which includes a CRB check.

Simon Latham & Margaret Gray are still awaiting a date for the Equity Course run in conjunction with Swim 21. Margaret to chase.

All the Committee thought that Club Champs was successful despite the temporary changing rooms at Gainsborough Pool.

We still need to sell the tickets for Presentation Night preferably before the Pool closes for Christmas. Claire and Angie to take this forward.

The Open Meet Sub-Committee is still in its infancy stage and although there have been regular meetings there is not a great deal to report, as they are still bringing everything together i.e. dates, venue etc.

Thank you to Jim who has organised a fund raising event leading up to Xmas – for just £1 a go you can win free Sharks sessions for a whole year. The winning ticket is to be drawn on the 21st of December.
 
Correspondence

Invoice received from Running Imp for the recent swim hat purchases – Sandra to pay.

We have received a letter from DMBC advising us that they will be running a course on the 18th of January 2007 – ‘Running Sport a Club for all’. It is a Swim 21 requirement that someone from the Club attend this course at some stage, the cost is £13 per person, although we can claim back £10 from DMBC after showing evidence of attendance. Maximum attendance per Club is 2. There are some further details on the course on the NEC web-site. Simon Latham volunteered to go on the course initially but needs to check the date of another course he is going to attend first before he can fully commit.

Another letter received from DMBC advising us about a National Pool Lifeguard course, which is to be run sometime in January 2007. Keith Squires and Elizabeth Ella are to attend, the cost is £170, Rob to be advised who is attending and Sandra to check if we can claim the cost of the course back from DMBC.

We have received a letter from the Yorkshire Swimming Association regarding Shirley Hinchliffe and her achievements at the Yorkshire Masters. She has been awarded the Leo Batty Trophy for her achievements and will be awarded this trophy in person on the 12th of May 2007, at the next Scarborough Masters Meet. We have been asked if we can ask Shirley to let them know if she will be attending this Meet to collect her trophy. Kev suggested that we should send a letter to Shirley to congratulate her and present her with some flowers on presentation night on the 12th of January 2007, this was agreed.

Coach’s Report

The Barnsley Minors League individual championships took place on the 4th of November, Sharks took home 21 medals in all, including 6 Golds, 5 Silvers, 4 Bronze and 6 minor placings. Holly Lewis took 2 gold medals in the morning in the 9/10 yrs age group for 50m Back and 25m fly, Alex Cook took another gold medal in the 9/10 yrs age group for 50m breast and James Lockey won gold in the 9/10 yrs age group for 50m back. Another 2 gold medals came in the afternoon session with Chris Watson winning the 50m breast final and Amy Watson winning the 50m fly final. The 5 silver medals went to James Lockey (9/10 yrs 50m breast), Alex Cook (9/10 yrs 50m free and 25m fly), Anna Laird (50m back) and Emily Fordham (50m free). It was a great day and to celebrate the 25th Anniversary of the Barnsley Minors League all participating swimmers and officials were rewarded with a stopwatch.

Next came the Falcons Meet on the 11th of November 2006, which was a little disappointing for Kev as only 6 swimmers turned up and last year we had the achievement of being the 2nd best Club out of 27 other Clubs however, this year we finished near the bottom. The six swimmers won 9 trophies (1 gold, 2 silvers, 2 bronzes and 4 minor placings) between them and swam excellently. Hannah Hirst was the showstopper with gold in the 50m breast and a bronze in the 50m back. Holly Lewis took 2 silvers in the 50m free and the 50m breast. Matthew Hirst took bronze in the 50m back. Kev decided that he would be erasing this fixture in 2007 because of the poor turnout.

Club Champs came next on the 18th & 25th of November 2006, we had a very good response with well over 100 swimmers competing and it was nice to see some fresh faces and interest from the younger swimmers. There were 18 Club Championship records broken in Gala 3 and even some old Championship records were broken. Chris Watson broke Luke Osborn’s 15yrs 200m back record from 2001 by over 13 seconds and Matthew Hirst also broke Jono Milnes’s 200m back record from 2002 by 24 seconds! Ten overall short course records were also broken. In Gala 4, 21 Club Championship records were broken with two 2003 records broken by Holly Lewis. Holly knocked 6 seconds off Charlotte Squires’s 2003 100m free Club Champs records and 12 seconds off Vicki Swinbourne’s 200m back Club Champs record. There were also 5 short course records broken. So over the two Galas there were 39 Championship records and 15 short course Club records broken.

There were 33 entries for the Barnsley Xmas B/C grade Gala on the 2nd of December, 24 swimmers turned up on the day. It was another good day as everyone got into the Christmas spirit. Keith Squires was awarded top boy in the 15/o age group, whilst Luke Shyplka was top boy in the 10 years age group. It was also good to see swimmers such as Robyn Hunt, Hannah Halls, Heather Shaw, Georgina Holroyd, Hayleigh Dunne and Lewis Starbuck all collect trophies for their efforts. Everybody got their fair share of speeding tickets and trophies.

Forthcoming Galas

Kev has organised a Sprint Gala at Gainsborough Pool on Saturday the 27th of January, to include 25m swims for the reef squad and 50m swims for the other squad swimmers.

The 10th of February 2007 sees the first Lincs Senior League Gala to be hosted by ourselves at Gainsborough Pool, we therefore need lots of help with timekeepers etc.

The Lincs Junior League Gala is to be held on the 17th of February at either RAF Cramwell Pool or Yarborough Pool, the venue has yet to be finalised.

John Harriman Championships Gala 1 is to be held on the 18th of February 2007.

Any Other Business

Kev advised that we would be re-entering the Dinsdale League for 2007 in Division 2, swimming against Rossington, Thorne Tigers and Don Valley Dolphins. Sandra to request some up to date rules re this League.

The Committee wishes to encourage more people to attend the timekeepers, judges and starters courses etc. and in this respect a notice will be put on the board for anyone interested.

Kev advised that the Club really needs an Education Co-ordination Secretary. Jeff Buxton was proposed and was pleased to take up this post. Jeff has had previous experience with other swimming clubs (Edlington, Adwick and DARTES) taking on roles such as education secretary, coaching and team manager. Jeff advised that he would be happy to run some ‘in-house’ courses, if enough interest was shown, with the intention of generating parental interest in time-keeping, judging, team management etc, which would obviously benefit Sharks.

It was noted that the notice board is looking pretty dire and is in need of some TLC. It was suggested that we could perhaps look at putting some kind of lockable screen on the notice board to avoid it getting damaged. The cost could be between £125 and £170 for a small screen but we could really do with something bigger to enclose such things as the Club Constitution, photos of the Committee members & teams captains/vice-captains and teaching staff. Then a separate space for team sheets, forthcomimg gala information etc. It was suggested that we should let a joiner give us a quotation and ideas on how best to cover this. Kev to speak to Pete Smith and Jeff to speak to his neighbour.    

Kev suggested that we have a records/input officer i.e. someone who could input all the swim times etc. on the Team Manager system. Kev also thought it would be a good idea to update the old Team Manager system to Team Manager 4, the cost being circa. $186 with perhaps a time console interface, the total cost of which would be circa. $221. The second option is to update the Team Manager system on the computer at Epworth Pool at a cost of circa. $69 and Rob would more than likely update the swimmers times during the day for us. Cris Lewis said that he would advise on the one that he thought would best meet our needs now and for the future, particularly to meet the needs of the proposed Open Meet in 2007 estimated cost circa. £200. The Committee agreed that a new system in this respect would benefit the Club and initially agreed to the purchase of ‘Meet Manager’ and ‘Team Manager 4’.

Cris also advised that he would be taking part in a training exercise in respect of ‘Meet Manager’ in preparation for our Open Meet.

Date of Next Meeting

Tuesday the 16th of January 2007 at the Red Lion Hotel, Epworth to start at 7.15pm.