16th February 2010

GROUP 3 NAME CHANGE TO JUNIOR COUNTY

The committee and coaching team have been reviewing the training groups and realised that Competitor-Plus doesn’t really do justice to the work and commitment put in by the Group 3 swimmers. Broadly speaking those swimmers are either within 1 second of an Oxfordshire & North Buckinghamshire (ONB) County time for their age OR they are County Qualified under 11 years of age. Therefore we are changing the name of the group to Junior County to better reflect the position of those swimmers.

In addition, as a competitive swimming club, we expect the swimmers in Group 3 to be committed to their training and have as high an attendance % as possible to enable them to meet their goals on the reports cards and progress. Similarly a Junior County swimmer should be competing in galas.

The various places on the website where Group 3 is referred to will be updated to reflect the name change. Many of our Junior County swimmers will be competing in the ONB County Championships in March, we wish them well.

15th February 2010

IMPORTANT CHANGES TO LAND TRAINING

With immediate effect there are changes taking place to the Land Training provided by Thame Swimming Club. The ASA have changed their coaching guidelines and now state that Land Training must be taken by a specialist coach with fitness training qualifications. Since Christmas, Club Vice Chairman Andrew Newton has been developing the club’s response.

We have engaged George Anderson, a fully qualified fitness training coach and personal trainer to take the sessions. Head Coach, Dave Jones will continue at the Land Training sessions to support George. Those of you that have attended Land Training over the last 2-3 Wednesdays will have experienced George’s sessions and I think all agree that they are great training sessions.

Due to the additional expense to the club of engaging another coach, securing a more suitable room and also George’s availability, Land Training will now ONLY run on a Wednesday, 5:30pm – 6:30pm at Thame Leisure Centre Small Hall. The first of the new sessions will be on Wednesday 24th February 2010.

We apologise for the inconvenience that may be caused by removing the Tuesday sessions but currently the club is only able to operate Land Training on a Wednesday. Options for re-opening a Tuesday session in the future are being examined but for now we can only do a Wednesday. Group 3 swimmers will have time to get from Land Training in the small hall finishing at 6:30pm to be in the water at 7pm via a chat in the changing rooms.

We’ll be posting some details about George on the coaches page of the website soon. Please check the website for any updates including changes in venue for land training due to clashes with other users.

11th February 2010

Jo Hewett Competes For BDSC at DSE South East, Southampton Quays 

Thame’s own Joanne Hewett was in competition at Southampton Quays pool on Saturday 6th February 2010 for the Buckinghamshire Disability Swimming Club.

Don’t panic, Jo hasn’t left Thame but was competing for BDSC at this event, the Disability Sports Events (DSE) South East Region Gala. Jo competed in the 50M Fly, Breast, Back and Free as well as the 100M Breast, Back and IM.

Out of her 7 swims she achieved 5 PBs! Jo came close to breaking the 60 second barrier for her 50M Freestyle with a time of 1:00.09 seconds, so close – next time trial and that barrier will fall!

11th February 2010

New Team Manager and Gala Secretary Role

The committee has been discussing the process for getting the novice and league squads to the events and also the work involved in getting the letters out about galas and hence collecting your entries. Tony Collins has stepped forward to take on these roles as the new Gala Secretary and League & Novice Team Manager. Tony will be assisting Dave to get the gala entry letters produced and distributed with material on the website, such as the fixtures list. In addition, Tony will be helping Dave with the league and novice events to ensure that those selected for the squad with a “Congratulations You’re On The Team!” card are reminded and if their ability to attend has changed, we have warning to try and find another swimmer.

Please join us in welcoming Tony to team Thame.

10th February 2010

WDSC L1 Long Course Meet, High Wycombe 13-14 February 2010

Thame Swimming Club was scratched from the WDSC L1 Long Course Meet at Handy Cross High Wycombe on Saturday 13th and Sunday 14th February 2010. Swimmers will be refunded in the normal way through their next swimming fees invoice.

24th January 2010

MAXWELL JANUARY L2 MEET 23rd & 24th January 2010

Thame swimmers were competing this weekend in the Maxwell January L2 Meet at Aqua Vale in Aylesbury. The squad consisted of Boys Captain and Vice Captain George Finch and Jamie Goetz and Girls Captain – Georgia Cahill and for the first time in a Thame hat – Nathanial Armstrong, competing for Thame as his No1 club, ADSC were not at the event. Nat went home with 2 Bronze and 4 Silver medals. Imogen McCalman put in some great PBs and went home with no less than 5 Gold medals. On Saturday evening the rest of the squad arrived for the girls 50M Freestyle, Rowan Reed, Harriet Cross, Lydia Briars, Holly Revill, Rebecca Smith and Danielle Kidd all took part and Danielle went home with a Bronze medal.

Out of the 40 swims there were 22 PBs. As a L2 meet the squad were racing against stiff competition with national and regional swimmers from clubs as far away a Coventry. The swimmers were treated to some great swimming – the men’s 50M freestyle culminated in a swim of 23.10 Seconds, the men’s 100M freestyle was over in 50.6 Seconds, so keep training guys!

You can see the results on Maxwells website http://www.maxwellswimclub.org/html/results.html

19th January 2010

PARENTS & SWIMMERS HAVE A GREAT TIME AT CLUB PRESENTATION NIGHT!

Thame Swimming Club held it’s first presentation evening on 16th January at the Spread Eagle in Thame. The swimmers were there to receive their awards from the Club Championships in November ’09 and to see who had won the Most Improved and Most Competitive awards. Parents and Swimmers turned out in considerable numbers – so many in fact that we had to get extra chairs and tables to provide them with somewhere to sit!

We kicked off the evening with the awards from the Club Championships, 59 Silver plates were presented by Head Coach David Jones to the deserving swimmers ranging in age from 7 to 17. The winners can be seen if you look at the results for the Club Champs on the Results page of the website. We then presented the DQ Awards – some additional awards to generate some fun. Hannah Hawken won the “Can’t get out of bed in the morning” award and was presented with an alarm clock. The “Can’t be quiet award” went to both Grace Gilmore and Imogen McCalman, who both received some chattering teeth. Dom Holmes was presented with a small set of speakers for his phone to recognise “The Worst Music Played At Land Training Award” and Jamie Goetz, George Finch, Olivia Hawkes, Susannah Smith and Will Swart all received shower gel for the “Longest Shower Award” – although it was agreed that most Thame swimmers would deserve the award.

The coach’s awards were then presented. Each coach gave an award to the girl and boy from their group who had put in the most effort and commitment in 2009.

Group 1A: Ella Simms and Elliot Riley-Brown
Group 1B: Laura Nobes and Oliver Hodgkiss
Group 2: Emily Malkin and Liam Talbot
Group 3: Grace Gilmore and Oliver Hawken
Group 4: Amy Fleming and Jamie Goetz 

The club then presented the coaches and officials with gifts to recognise the work they do on a purely voluntary basis. The evening then moved on to the Most Improved and Most Competitive Swimmer awards. Rob Brooks, Director of Sport at Lord Williams’s School, who sponsors the Most Improved award came to present it and to entertain us with one of his speeches. To qualify for the most improved swimmer award, the swimmers had to have times for all the 50M and 100M events. The times being compared between September 2008 and September 2009. Lauren Collins put in a fantastic performance with 24.2% improvement but couldn’t qualify as she was missing one of the required times. In third place for the award was Gemma Sutton with 18.7% improvement. In second was Jamie Goetz with an improvement of 20.5%, an impressive performance for a Group 4 County & District swimmer where such large improvements are harder. The award was won by Thomas Goetz with a 26.7% improvement. Mr Brooks presented the award to Thomas and then thanked the club for honouring him with an award, even though in his opinion, you normally have to be dead to get that honour. Mrs Brooks has had him checked out several times this year and he’s definitely ok and will be back next year to present again.

It was then time for the Most Competitive Swimmer Award. Simon Burnett could not be with us as he is already on his training programme for the Commonwealth Games later this year and is training in the USA. A hotly contested award where points are awarded for places earned at galas. In third place was Imogen McCalman with a total of 248 points. In second was Jamie Goetz with 317 points but with 339 points the Finchinator himself – George Finch raised the trophy.

See the Club Records page for more on the Most Improved and Most Competitive trophies.

The disco then opened and we were treated to some stunning g dancing by Debbie & Stuart Groves as well as our Child Protection Officer, Carol Allen. As usual, Treasurer, Simon Haarburger was pushing the barriers of known dancing. As the swimmers danced the conga, trophies could be seen weaving through the parents. Considering all the feedback we’ve had it looks like you all had a great time. We even managed to stop Dave giving a speech!

So now, back to training, for some in preparation for Thame’s first attendance at the County Championships which are coming up soon. So, work hard, 2010 should see more tough competition for the Most Improved and Most Competitive.

Photos coming soon!

15th January 2010

8th January 2010

BAT MEET SUNDAY 10th JAN 2010:

At present the plan is to continue with this event. We will take a final view on Sunday AM and assess the weather conditions at the time. If they are ok we will keep the event running. Please only travel to the event at Aqua Vale if it is safe to do so. We will keep an eye on the weather and if conditions deteriorate we’ll stop the event so you can get away.

We are running this with Bourne End SC (BESC) and Aylesbury District SC (ADSC). Some of the officials and the coaching team from Bourne End are snowed in but we should have enough to keep the event running. The programmes are also snowed in so it would be a real help if you could print out the session sheets below as your programmes and bring them with you.

See you there and have a safe journey. Check the website on Sunday morning as a final check on whether the event is still on.

Session 1 (pdf) - Session 2 (pdf)

6th January 2010

One (Sporting) Moment in Thame

You are invited to this new event One (Sporting) Moment in Thame.  Originally the Committee was approached by Jon Littler (Eloise Littler’s dad) who wondered if the club was interested in his band (2am Blue) performing at an event to raise funds.  The idea took hold with Thame Boys Football Club and Thame Cricket Club coming on board, together with two more bands.  And the concept is very simple – have a party in one of the quietest months of the year, listen to good music, enjoy great conversation and, at the same time, raise funds for the club.  The venue at the James Figg is perfect for the occasion and the proprietors are keen to support this as an ongoing annual fixture in Thame. So to reserve your tickets please contact Simon Haarburger either by email at simon@southerncrosspackaging.com or by telephone on 07841 929300

This will be an very enjoyable evening and on behalf of the Committee, we hope that you can come along!

TSC Committee

4th January 2010

Presentation Night Saturday 16th January 2010

The club is hosting it’s Presentation Night on Saturday 16th January 2010 at the Spread Eagle in Thame. We have hired the main room at the rear of the building for the evening to allow us to present the trophies the swimmers won at the Club Championships in November. There are awards for each stroke and age group for first, second and third places.

So come along and enjoy the fun! There will be a bar and disco. The fun starts at 7pm. Young children are welcome but must be supervised.

4th January 2010

BAT Meet 10th Jan 2010 EVENT DETAILS

We are hosting a no frills gala with Bourne End and Aylesbury District swimming clubs on Sunday 10th January 2010 which will be held at Aqua Vale in Aylesbury. For those of you who haven’t competed there before the address is:

Aqua Vale Swimming & Fitness Centre
Park Street,
Aylesbury,
Buckinghamshire,
HP20 1DX
Tel: +44 (0)1296 488555

The first session warm up starts at 1pm, please allow time for swimmers to be poolside in time for warm up. We have secured qualified officials to ensure that the swimmers times count should they qualify for entry to the Oxfordshire and North Buckinghamshire County Championships in February and March 2010.

CAR PARKING: Since our championships start at 1pm, the car park will not be empty and won’t be free. You may have to find parking elsewhere in Aylesbury. Please allow time to get from your car to Aqua Vale and also ensure that you’ll be able to get your car out of the car park after 8pm in the evening when the championships have finished. The following link gives info on parking costs and times:  www.eplanning.aylesburyvaledc.gov.uk/

LOCKERS: The general public will still be using the fun pools at Aqua Vale. Swimmers are advised to take coins for the lockers at Aqua Vale as in the past simply placing clothes in an unlocked locker has resulted in clothes being thrown on the floor by members of the public. DO NOT leave valuables in your locker.

TIME KEEPERS: If you are a club official Time keeper and can help at this gala, please contact our Officials Officer, David Cross to arrange to attend.

21st December 2009

Christmas Relay Gala, Aqua Vale, 19th December 2009

Thame sent a squad to the Christmas Relay Gala hosted by Aylesbury District SC on Saturday 19th December. This was a fun event involving Rushden, Crusaders, Henley, Aylesbury and Newport Pagnell swimming clubs. Bourne End SC had to pull out due to the state of the roads around Bourne End following the snow last week. This was the swimmers last competition of a very eventful 2009.

Regarding the No Shows – all the selected swimmers would have received a “Congratulations you are on the team!” Card. That card contains details of the event or events. These events tend to be paid for by the club so you will NOT receive another letter or need to pay for the events unless otherwise stated.  If you can’t make the date you need to let Dave Jones know ASAP so he can select another swimmer. You also need to state that you can compete in the event to Dave. If you state you can compete, unless you have a good reason, please turn up as otherwise you won’t just be letting yourself down you’ll be letting your fellow swimmers and the club down. So swimmers – if you are given one of these cards it is because you have been selected for the team – so get them to your parents and make sure you let Dave know whether you can compete or not.

11th December 2009

Parents .V. Kids 2009

On Friday 11th December the first Parents .v. Kids was held as Thame Swimming Club. We have run this for the preceding two years as well as part of WDSC but this year we had a record number of parents turning out to race their children and have fun before Christmas. There were also a record number of mum’s who were “Not swimming, I’m doing the raffle!” – something we will think up something devious for next year!

The Swimmers had the chance to race their parents on a 50M race, usually with the swimmers handicapped to give their parents a chance. Although any stroke could be selected, ALL parents avoided Butterfly for some reason. In addition, some twists on 50M relay races were held with the Christmas Carol Crunch involving exiting the pool after the first 25M and singing a verse of a well known Christmas Carol to the Mum’s at the shallow end – not surprisingly “Jingle Bells” seemed to be the Carol of choice.

The swimmers had been divided up into teams of mixed Group 1, 2, 3 and 4 with one the squad Captains or Vice Captains as their lead – Coach Cara deputising for Girls Squad Captain, Georgia Cahill, who was already off for Christmas. Coach Lorna Whitehead ran the fifth team. “Run the Gun” was back again and again, asa with the other two years, the swimmers found news ways of cheating, including walking from one end to the other and hoping we hadn’t noticed. The idea of “Run the Gun” was to do something similar in a swimming pool to the traditional Royal Navy Field Gun race from the Royal Tournament, which was discontinued in 1999 due to defence cuts and now continues as an internal navy competition – the last team to win being the Fleet Air Arm. If you want to see what it was like, take a look at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32s4qCCFnmk . It’ll give you an idea of why were getting the swimmers to pretend floats were wheels, the woggle was a gun barrel and why they had to shout BANG!

We’d like to thank the coaches – Dave, Lorna, Karen, Cara and Natasha – who has now completed her Level 1 Coach course and is qualified. Congratulations!

We’d also like to thanks Ros Hawkes for organising the mince pies and chocolate mini rolls for all the swimmers to tuck into before heading home. Having spoken to some parents today they said they were a bit stiff and sore but really enjoyed it, we hope you all did. Visit the Gallery to see the photos!

Merry Christmas

6th December 2009

CITY OF OXFORD Level 2 Gala 5th – 6th December

Thame’s A Grade  swimmers were in competition again on the 5th & 6th December at Temple Cowley pool for the City of Oxford L2 meet.  As a higher grade gala the squad was smaller, only 4 swimmers competing, but the experience gained against stiff competition was very useful. The squad consisted of Imogen McCalman, Eloise Littler and boys squad Captain and Vice Captain, George Finch and Jamie Goetz. Together they competed in 13 events. There was only 1 PB, from Eloise Littler and County Times were registered by Jamie, Eloise and Imogen. Imogen received 1 GOLD, 1 SILVER and 1 BRONZE medal with George taking SILVER and BRONZE and Eloise a BRONZE. All in all a good event in what was apparently a cold pool, at 26°C, somewhat lower than Thame Pool. Results.

5th December 2009

NEW SWIMSUIT RULES FROM JANUARY 2010

Just in case you already wear a full length swimsuit or are considering buying a new stylish costume for Christmas to improve your performance and wow your fellow swimmers in 2010, please take note of the new FINA rules on swimsuits which take effect on 1st January 2010.

The new rules have been listed by the ASA South East region on the following link: http://www.southeastswimming.org/news/show.php?id=474

Broadly speaking the amendment to rule 102.9 reads:"All swimsuits shall be made from textile materials. For men, the swimsuit shall not extend above the navel or below the knees, and for women, shall not cover the neck, extend past the shoulder or below the knee."

4th December 2009

CLUB CHAMPS RESULTS

Hot off the press from Head Coach Dave, the results from Sunday’s First ever Thame Swimming Club Championships are now available on the Results page. We had 14 events covering all the 50M, 100M and 200M strokes and distances, including the IMs. Some of the swimmers were using competition blocks for the first time but they all stepped up and gave it a go! There were big PBs and some stunning swims, not least of which was the 200M Butterfly swim from Coach Cara Evans which was all the more amazing given she had just competed in the 50M Butterfly only 5 minutes before.

There were some DQs and these are explained in the results. If you had a DQ, please have a look and discuss it with your coach.

Congratulations to all the swimmers, you did a great job and we all hope you enjoyed the event – we’ll see you at Parents .v. Kids so you can give your parents the full competition experience! and at the presentation night in January so you can receive your awards!

29th November 2009

A BIG THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT FOR CLUB CHAMPS!

The Committee would like to say a big thank you to all of you who took part in the Club Championships or came to cheer your swimmers on at Aqua Vale on Sunday. This was the first event that Thame Swimming Club has run and when you consider we have only been running as a club for 7 months, it was the culmination of a pretty amazing journey through 2009. If you see the coaches, our team of officials or any of a weary looking committee, please give them a pat on the back as they all pulled together brilliantly to make the event a great success.

PHOTOS: The results and a few photos are now on the website. In addition, the team at ALLPeople photography (http://www.allpeoplephotography.com/home.html ) have already uploaded all the photographs they took. If you missed the opportunity to view their photographs, please take a look at their website. You will need a password to access the photos, this is available on request by e-mailing communications@thameswimmingclub.co.uk. To view

DQs: Some of you have asked about the DQs. We had a full team of qualified referees and judges at the event so that the swimmers times would count and in particular if they were fast enough, would count for qualification to the County Championships in March 2010. Hence, the judges had to stick closely to the rules. As our first event, the team running the PCs on the control desk did a great job on keeping the temperamental Aqua Vale timing system under control but we didn’t filter the DQ codes from the judges into the results when printing them out to be posted up on the walls. These codes have now been filtered by Dave and are included in the results posted on our website. If you did get a DQ, don’t panic – it happens to the best and most experienced, the men’s team GB relay team were DQ’d at the World Championships in Rome this year. Have a look at the reason for your DQ and discuss how you can improve with your coach, they’ll advise you on how to avoid it happening again.

LOST PROPERTY: There is some lost property from the event, if you want to claim it please e-mail communications@thameswimmingclub.co.uk ,we have:

• A white T-Mobile T-Shirt - claimed
• A Designers At Debenhams Jasper Conran Coat
• A pair of flip flops with flowers on - claimed  

AWARDS: As you know, there were no medals awarded at the event. This is because we will be awarding trophies to the first, second and third placed swimmers from each age group and race at our Club Presentation Night on Saturday 16th January 2010 at the Spread Eagle in Thame. So, book mark the date in your diaries, we’ll have a disco and a bar so plenty for all the family. If you attended the Club Championships you have already paid to come to the Presentation Night.

CHRISTMAS FUN: So, some of the swimmers still have 3 more competitions before Christmas and of course you the parents will be competing against your children at the Parents v Kids event on Friday 11th December at Thame pool 7pm – 9pm. So, see you there for lots of fun!

Ian Goetz

Chairman, Thame Swimming Club

The team’s times were as follows:

01.12.09

CITY OF OXFORD L2 Gala 5th – 6th December.

The parking at the Temple Cowley Pool is notoriously bad, click here to see the COSC Parking arrangements for this L2 Gala and also note that the sessions times have changed since you entered the gala. For details of the new sessions and events in those sessions click here.