Anthony Snow – Club Chair
The Awards evening at Reed Hall marked the end of the season in what has now become an annual event. Many thanks for the organisation by the social committee and to all those who could make it on the night. I still have various cups and certificates for several people who were unable to attend and I will be in touch separately, these are largely age group prizes from the club championships at Exmouth.
The Awards evening gives us the opportunity to celebrate achievements across the club and demonstrates the breadth of activity undertaken by club members. It is also an opportunity to thank our coaches and members of the committee who undertake much unseen work.
As always thanks to the social committee for all their work in organising the evening and pulling everything together, especially Juliette Dean who is stepping away from this role.
2020 and 2021 Challenges
Anthony ran through some of the challenges and highlights of the last couple of years.
We have appointed a COVID Officer, Simon Parke who has kept us up to date with the latest COVID rules and guidance. People have started to get back to racing, getting used to social distancing and neutralised transitions, it has only really felt normal later on this year.
Lockdowns have had an impact on our training, only going out for exercise, then socially distanced, even the track was closed. Gradually starting to reintroduce sessions, virtual bike sessions then eventually returning to ESA with Wai’s bike session. The juniors well served with online S&C sessions run by Pete Wilby replacing the swimming sessions. With the re-introduction of training sessions we needed to record attendance, this meant the introduction of the BTF club management system – Club Spark, this has brought some challenges for coaches and administrators. Sea swimming felt normal and thanks as always to the lifeguards, as is customary we have made a donation of £1000 to the Teignmouth Life Saving Club, thanks to Rob Moore for maintaining this relationship.
The last club event that we held was the Dawlish Aquathlon in March 2020, the lack of events has had an impact on club finances. However we are aiming to be back to normal next year, and as always help is needed.
The last couple of years have brought about venue challenges; swimming in Exeter has been particularly difficult with the permanent closure of Middlemoor, ongoing issues with Pyramids and the temporary closure of Riverside, we are all looking forward to the open of St Sidwell’s Point thanks to Laura Jones, Gavin Coleman and others for co-ordinating and ensuring that we have had swimming session.
We continue to need new coaches and have some new and returning coaches, with a breadth of experiences – Yvonne Farrell and Charlie Sumner and Hannah Mattinson helping to fill the gap in junior swimming.
The committee has been busy behind the scenes with all meetings online and have given great support, for instance Richard Parker has picked up the role of membership secretary from Monica Hitt who has managed this for a few years. Rich has introduced a new membership portal and this may well be the base for training sessions in the future. Also Emma DaCorsi our Welfare officer has been busy navigating BTF bureaucracy for DBS certificates and safeguarding training. We have also had work to do around BTF Affiliation and Tri Mark Bronze Re-Accreditation.
Awards
We had various awards to give out, the Club Championships were held at Exmouth with both sprint and standard distances, results below:
Sprint | Standard | |
Male Champion | James Finn | Tim Gordon |
Open Male 2nd | Adam Thomas | Robert Mann |
Open Male 3rd | N/A | Will Evans |
Female Champion | Scarlett Joiner | Emma Cockcroft |
Open Female 2nd | N/A | Emily Brown |
Open Female 3rd | N/A | Isabelle Stoate |
MV40 – 1st | Neil Grimwood | David Macdonald |
MV40 – 2nd | N/A | Tim James |
MV40 – 3rd | N/A | Alan Hughes |
FV40 – 1st | Sarah Griggs | |
FV40 – 2nd | N/A | |
FV40 – 3rd | N/A | |
MV50 – 1st | Elliott Snow | Rupert Warren |
MV50 – 2nd | Gary Rogers | Ulrich Hewald |
MV50 – 3rd | N/A | Andrey Varvinskiy |
FV50 – 1st | Leah Rogers | N/A |
FV50 – 2nd | Corinne Parnall | N/A |
FV50 – 3rd | N/A | N/A |
MV60 – 1st | Charlie Sumner | N/A |
MV60 – 2nd | N/A | N/A |
MV60 – 3rd | N/A | N/A |
FV60 – 1st | N/A | N/A |
FV60 – 2nd | N/A | N/A |
FV60 – 3rd | N/A | N/A |
Other awards:
Newcomer’s Award – Rob Mann
Award for Outstanding Achievement – Emma Cockroft
Chair’s Award – Sarah Griggs
The Becky Scott Award – Izabela Soznowska
Wooden Spoon – Rob Moore
If you would to hear any more details on the above, please contact Anthony.