British Swimming has announced today that British Gas will be its sponsoring partner in the run up to the London 2012 Olympics – and beyond until 2015.

For full details please click here

"Swimming has been waiting a long time for a principal sponsor. We welcome the opportunity that the British Gas sponsorship raises for London specifically with the potential twin benefits of the Mayor London Legacy Plan". Colin Brown, Director of London Swimming.

London Swimming have organised the first of a series of Disability Swimming Master Classes, with Sascha Kindred & Dervis Konuralp delivering the first class focusing on Starts & Turns. The Master Class takes place on Saturday 28th March at Dagenham Pool, RM10 7AY. For further details and booking click  here. 

 

London Swimming will be delivering a Freestyle Master Class on Saturday 21st March at Highbury Pool, Islington N5 1RR

A London Swimming Coach will provide technical feedback, tips and advice on how to improve your freestyle technique to get the most out of your swimming sessions.

Further details and booking here 

 

High board diving is a great method of increasing confidence, flexibility, fitness and co-ordination.  More importantly it is great fun!

Booking and more details here 

 

If you would like to further information about any master class or want to book one with London swimming please click here. 

 

Following requests, London Swimming has made the entry times for the 800/1500m gala slightly easier Details and the new entry form here. Note - if we are oversubscribed we will need to restrict entries in accordance with the conditions.

 

Now the County Swimming Championships are over, ensure your club has the information for electronic entry of your swimmers into the Regional Galas - the closing date for the Youth Championships is 4th April, only 3 weeks away - click here for more details. 

   

21st March sees the annual London Recreational Synchro Competition, 3-10pm Southgate. It will see the four London Clubs joined by Brentwood, Chelmsford, and Potters Bar swimmers.  The competition is based on the recreational system so that it should be suitable for everyone from beginner to good club swimmers. If anyone is interested seeing how a synchro competition is run this is a good one to come and see. The first couple of hours will be technical figures where everyone wears black costumes and white hats. The later part of the competition is the routines where the parents get tested on their sewing skills, the swimmers on their presentation and execution.

The results of the 2008 National Decathlon Competition have just been published. This is an annual competition for Master swimmers in which they accumulate points for up to 10 swims out of 18 different swimming events. London Master Swimmers Jane Asher (Kings Cormorants) is the top women swimmer with Fiona Marshall, Gina Hobson & Elizabeth Mcmenemy (Otter) and Amanda Heath (Spencer) all in the top ten. In the women’s team competition Otter take top place with Spencer 2^nd, Kings Cormorants 4^th and Barnet Copthall 8^th.  In the Men’s team competition Otter took 4^th place.

Full results can be viewed here.  

For more information on courses, dates and venues, to download booking forms, or details of funding opportunities click here.  

 

This week Colin Brown (RD) has spent a busy week planting the seeds for Aquatics Strategies in our second wave of interested Boroughs. The meetings in both Harrow and Wandsworth were attended by the local authorities, operators and clubs who all came together to look at how we improve Aquatics in their areas. At the other end of the spectrum was the opportunity to review the independent quality assessment by Adrian Turner of Total Swimming and the draft Aquatic Strategy created by Strategic Leisure for Lewisham. Both of which will really make a big difference to the future of Aquatics in this East London Borough. Colin also attended a number of key meetings with Visit London and three pool operators (GLL, Aquaterra and Parkwood) on wider partnership work.

Next week: Colin will be meeting with all the London pool operators around implementing the government’s free swimming offer. Colin is also delighted to accept the invitation of Essex County ASA to attend their management meeting and present on 'A stratetgy to get London Swimming 2008-2012+'.Colin will also be meeting with Richmond Council on their Aquatic Strategy.

 

This week has seen Jo Melchior (EDS – Lewisham) has been frantically trying to complete 101 jobs before the end of the Everyday Swim Project. This has meant more work on the booklets and banners, developing marketing projects for Saxon Crown Swimming Club , the Lewisham Strategy, collating Staff and Learn to Swim Surveys, filming the Lewisham DVD, and planning the launch of Free Swimming...and finally getting nearly 50 staff through various qualifications.

  

This week Annabel Kehoe (EDS – Islington) has been assisting Aquaterra Leisure in the promotion, management and pool programming of free swimming for under 16s in Islington. Annabel was also thrilled to get the support of management to run another course of adult swimming lessons. The last two promotions have been considerably over-subscribed and this offer will aim to accommodate those who have so far missed out on places on the swimming lessons.

Next week, Annabel will be meeting with Aquaterra Leisure’s Training and Development Manager to discuss ways to better structure and promotion staff training.

 

This week Jo Calvino (Aquatic Programme Development Co-ordinator) has been completing the paperwork for the super CPD’s of which one ran last weekend and one is running this weekend.  Jo has spent the week planning the spring conference which will have a real focus on club development and updates on the ASA restructure.

There are still spaces available for this weekend’s Freestyle master class with Jane Asher and the disability swimming, Sascha Kindred & Dervis Konuralps Starts & Turns master class, and a few spaces left on Jo Jackson’s Butterfly Master Class.

Mel Marshall will be back for another master class, this time on Freestlye technique next month, along with a 3 day camera camp for swimmers of all ages and abilities taking place at Colfe’s School on the 6^th-8^th April. For more information and to book onto any of the above please click here. 

 

This week Jemma Konuralp (Swim21 Quality coordinator) conducted a parents forum on swim21 at Saxon Crown and visited Anaconda to discuss accrediting their competitive section at skill development level. Jemma also visited   London Borough of Newham SC to discuss obtaining swim21 accreditation.  Next week she goes back to Saxon Crown to go through the new criteria and process with the committee.  She will then be contacting all clubs who are due to revalidate in May.

 

Last week Nik Jovanovic (West London Waterpolo coach) was involved in the Ealing Primary School mini polo festival, where children in Years 5 and 6 from 8 schools in Ealing, had the chance to learn about mini-polo, learning the new game, rules and drills and finally having a tournament. All participants had a good time and we hope that this festival will become a regular tradition in Ealing, and after its success and positive feedback from everyone who was involved we will be encouraging other boroughs in developing similar festivals as a first step in aquatic pathway for water polo players. Last Sunday Nik was also tutoring a mini polo CPD in Islington and over the next couple of weekends Nik will be presenting mini polo CPD’s in Kings Hall in Hackney, Acton Baths and Harrow Leisure Centre.

Regular mini polo and water polo sessions are still running in West London details

can be found here.