Chairmans Report

Chairperson’s Report – January 2011

Swimming

The latter part of 2010 proved highly successful for the club.  As the club has grown and become more successful the occasions when the club puts out its best team for a gala have become fewer.  Swimmers instead concentrate on championships – the Kents South East Regions, the Nationals and Open events.

But each autumn the club as a whole puts its best foot forward in the Kent Junior League and the Arena National League.

The Kent Junior League is for swimmers under 13.  We are one of only 2 clubs who enter an A and a B team.  The A team secured third place in division 1 over the 3 gala league programme – the best position ever for the club.

Meanwhile the B team finished second in division 5, beating Black Lion B, the only other B team entered and 2 ‘A’ teams.  Unfortunately the League rules prohibit B teams from being promoted from Division 5!

Meanwhile, running in parallel was the Arena National League for swimmers from 9 to Open age groups.

The League is run on a regional basis, with the top clubs in each region progressing to the national finals.

We are in the Southern region which has a premier division and then south east and south west feeder leagues each of which have 2 divisions.

In 2005 we had one team entered in the league which finished 3rd in South East Division 2.  This year saw our A team finish 11th in the Premier Division and our B team finish 4th in South East Division 2.

The ‘A’ team had only secured promotion last year, and were concerned that they might face a real struggle to stay up – as on the only other occasion we have been in the Premier League we came straight back down.  In the end we stayed up very comfortably, finishing as the second highest ranked Kent team in the league behind Beckenham.

The B team just missed out on promotion and were the second highest ranked B team in the South East, again behind Beckenham.

The Kent Development Gala took place in November and is for swimmers who have not previously swum in the Kent Championships.  We had 12 swimmers entered, Charlotte Hook and Amelia Harding both securing 2nd places, whilst Izzy Booth had a storming gala winning all four events in her age group.

We had very successful club championships, with record numbers of entries.  It is very noticeable that compared to other Kent clubs we have a much higher number of entries for our championships.

Water polo

Numbers of both junior and senior players have fluctuated over the year.  At times our seniors have struggled to field a team, yet against Hastings just before Christmas in a friendly we had so many players, we lent some of them to Hastings!

The junior section is now seeing 12 or more players turning up regularly for training.  The club puts out joint teams with RTW Monson in Kent and London league competitions, and whilst the results have not always gone the way we would like, the players are definitely making progress.

Anyone interested in senior water polo is urged to contact Tom Howes and junior water polo Dave Clifford.  New players are always welcome, and no experience other than an ability to swim is required.

Life saving

Our life saving section is now up and running, and a big thanks is due to Mandy Turner for all her efforts.  The next course will be advertised shortly.

2011

2011 has got off to a great start.  We have seven qualifiers for the  new Zonal championships which covers an area from Milton Keynes to Southampton and Dover to Lands End.  70 swimmers have qualified for the Kents and our presentation evening was sold out!

Our finances are looking much healthier than this time last year, and following the membership renewal our numbers are slightly ahead of those for last year.  With the AGM now moved to June we are proposing the following timetable for squad changes and membership fees. 

March and May committee meetings to fix changes and fees.
June AGM for members to consider the changes/proposals.
September renewals posted to members.