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Inverleith ASC
October 2015 NewsletterView in browser
In this issue:
LETTER FROM THE CHAIRMAN, GRANT DENHOLM

Welcome everyone to the October edition of the newsletter. It was fantastic to see such a huge turnout for the Gavin Fulton Relay last week which has become a firm favourite on our internal competition calendar. Many congratulations to the winning team and everyone who took part. I'd also like to say thank you to Malcolm Dow for his splendid organisation of the event. Choosing teams of similar ability and then managing them all through heats and finals is quite a feat!

You may also have seen Claire and Stuart wearing their Club Captain shirts on poolside. This is a new initiative and the role of the Club Captain is to provide all swimmers with a point of contact for any questions or concerns they may have, whatever squad they are in. They are also there to promote good behaviour on poolside and will be active helpers at many competitions, particularly with our younger swimmers. If you are unsure about anything to do with the club, and don't want to raise it with a coach, then please speak to Claire or Stuart.

The club is also going through a re-accreditation with SwiMark. We successfully achieved this two years ago and it is now time for this to be renewed. SwiMark is Scottish Swimming's quality development programme for clubs. Much of the accreditation process involves developing good governance processes and we're indebted to Alex Hale for leading this for the club. It's all to easy to forget that Inverleith is wholly run by volunteers and we are very lucky to have a group of individuals who are willing to give up their free time to help develop the club.

Finally, talking about people, there are a few changes to tell you 
about. For those involved in competitions, you are probably aware that the invites to compete are now coming from Shona Skakle. Shona has taken over this task from myself and she is now responsible for the administration of all competitions, from initial invite to entry submissions, results collation and managing the club records. If you haven't already done so, please add Shona's email to your address book so the competition invites are not caught in your spam filter. I am also coming to the end of my 2 year Presidency and the next Club President will be announced very soon. Also moving on is Norma Wood who is currently our Vice President and Membership Secretary. I'd particularly like to thank Norma for the many years she has supported the club and her knowledge and experience of Scottish swimming will be a loss to us. 

Grant.
 

DATES FOR YOUR DIARY

PLEASE TAKE A NOTE OF THESE IMPORTANT DATES REGARDING INTERNAL & EXTERNAL COMPETITIONS THIS TERM

FORTHCOMING INTERNAL COMPETITIONS

29 November – Anderson & Huntley Cups

5 December – Club Championships. Please ensure that you all have this date in the diary. As there are three winners per age group there is a lot more opportunity for swimmers to win medals and take pride in being presented with them at the Club Dance in the Spring. Prep group only swim in the morning. Int 1 Int 2 & Advanced all day.

20 December - Christmas handicap. Fun end of year competition.
 
FORTHCOMING EXTERNAL COMPETITIONS
 
EDINBURGH SCHOOLS

22 November - entries are now in. Many Inverleith parents are managing school teams as schools don't have staff to send at weekends so try to sit together and cheer each other on!
 
INVERLEITH EXTERNAL COMPETITIONS

These are competitions that we are likely to be doing up until Christmas. You will receive an email from Grant / Shona to let you know if your coach would like to enter you.
 
Hearts Premier Meet – 10/11.10.15
Carnegie Winter Meet – 24/25.10.15 - please note travel disruption on the Sunday as the Forth Bridge is closed.
ED Age Groups – 31.10/1.11.15
                              28/29.11.15
                              22-24.01.16
LR Graded Meet – 14.11.15

For further information about the various competitions go to www.swimscotland.co.uk and click on Forthcoming Meets (in date order). The home page also lists latest results so that you can keep track of your times or watch how other swimmers are getting on from the comfort of your own home!

LETTER FROM THE CLUB SECRETARY, KATHY PITCHER & NEW COMPETITION SECRETARY SHONA SKAKLE

A warm welcome to our new swimmers Georgii, Tanya, and Prioca in Advanced squad Luca in Int 1 Abbi in Int 2 and Ruby, Lyle, Rory, Charlie and Brodie in Prep.
 
A huge thank you to Shona Skakle who has taken over as Competition Secretary, to Joan McDaid who is the new Keeper of the Trophies, to Fiona Donald for taking on the organising of the Presentation Dance 2016 and Janet Bain who will be taking over Membership Secretary from Norma Wood.
 
The Annual General Meeting will be held on 25th November to which all are welcome. I would ask if you could let me know ASAP if you will be attending to allow me to book an appropriate Hall.
 
We also have four candidates for the Level 1 Coaching course, which is being run over two weekends in November and December, hopefully all will get a place. Good luck to Chris Bryce, Alan Bain, Hilary Alexander and Claire Dow.
 
The Club Championships will take place on Saturday 5th December at Leith Academy School starting at 9.45am. All swimmers are eligible to take part and it's a fun day with a break in the middle for sandwiches and toasties.  PLEASE if any Parent is prepared to provide 9 dozen filled rolls could they let Kathy know.  We also require donations for the Tombola - see Gillian (Cameron's Mum Int1) or Leanne (Mum of Morgan and Alanna Int 2 and Prep) Timekeepers names to Kathy.

If have an idea for fund raising but don't necessarily want the responsibility for implementing it please contact Kathypitcher@yahoo.co.uk so that it can be considered by the committee

As you know, I have taken over as Competition Secretary from Grant. It’s been a steep learning curve and I want to thank everyone for their support so far, particularly Grant and members of the Committee, who have been bombarded with questions!  If you don’t know me yet, I’m sure you will know Angus and Michael or Keith (poolside helper with Prep on Sundays).
 
So what’s involved in being Competition Secretary?
 
External competitions
On advice from the coaches, I invite swimmers to compete and ensure that I enter them for the events they want to do. Once the draft programmes come out, I check to see whether everyone has got their swims and let them know what’s happened. I communicate with the meet organisers about any withdrawals before the competition. Once the competition has happened, I make sure that I record all the results. All this is facilitated by a handy tool called Team Manager.
 
If you don’t already know, the forthcoming competitions that we are going to enter appear in the newsletter. If you want to find out more before I email you about it, there is information about the competitions, including events and age groups, on Swim Scotland website;
 
http://www.swimscotland.co.uk/Also worth checking the results section for meet results – often kept up to date while the meet is happening (an alternative is Meet Mobile). You can also check out swimmers’ times for external competitions by going into Rankings on the left hand side and then selecting Individual Best Times from the Rankings menu.
 
Internal competitions
More information about all internal competitions can be found on the Inverleith website. Once the competitions have taken place, I convert all times from yards to metres by dividing times by 0.905 and then add the metres times to Team Manager. These times can be used for entry to most external competitions but not for the East Districts. Once the times have been converted, they are published on the club website and will be on display on the club noticeboard on Sunday nights.
 
I know that, as a parent, there are often a lot of questions about competitions. If you have any questions, please let me know – if I don’t know the answer, I’ll find someone who does. You can either email me or ask me when we’re supporting the children at a competition. I’ll also try to include answers to some of the questions in the newsletter – because if one parent is asking me, there will usually be others who are also interested in the answer.

SHONA SKAKLE
 

RECENT RESULTS

IAIN MACFADYEN MEMORIAL GALA
5.09.15
 
This is an annual gala which we always take part in as Iain Macfadyen was a founder member of Inverleith. It is a super competition which we won for the first time ever last year. This year we came fourth with only 16 points separating the first four teams.
 
The morning session saw Inverleith swimmers produce 24PB’s with another 31 in the afternoon. Two of the biggest PB’s came from Rachel MacLeod in the 100BR improving by 21secs & Kerr Duncan in the 100IM by 22secs.
 
Ines Donald also set a meet record for the 50BR taking Carla Lovells record which she set last year.
 
Places as follows:
 
Gold – John Mander 100B/C / 100 F/C
            Joshua Mitchell 100BR / 100 IM
            Ines Donald 50BR
            Michael Skakle 50BR

Silver – John Mander 100BR / 100 IM
             Orla Kennedy 100IM
             Joshua Mitchell 100F/C
8-10 Medley Relay – Isabelle Roe, Michael Skakle, Nathan Broadley, Ines Donald

Bronze – Ines Donald 50Fly / 50 B/C / 50F/C
                Michael Skakle 50B/C / 50 F/C
                Holly McCluskey 50B/C
                Orla Kennedy 50Fly / 100 F/C
                Joshua Mitchell 50Fly
                8-10 Free Relay –
                Morgan Reid, Nathan Broadley, Ines Donald, Michael Skakle
                11/12 Free Relay –
                Holly McCluskey, Finlay McDonell, Orla Kennedy, John Mander

4TH – Tom Eccles 100B/C / 100 IM / 50 FLY
          Michael Skakle 50Fly
          Orla Kennedy 100BR
5TH – Ellie Hunter 100B/C
          John Mander 50Fly
          Lucy McDonald 50F/C
          Tom Eccles 100F/C
11/12 Medley Relay –
          Ellie Hunter, Sam Drainer, Joshua Mitchell, Holly McCluskey
6TH – Ellie Hunter 50Fly
 
Well done everyone. Thanks to Leanne Reid for help on the poolside.

HADDINGTON 100’S 20.09.15
 
Congratulations to everyone who took part in this competition. We had some great swims with 29 PB’s in the morning & another 29 in the afternoon. In the morning session Ted O’Connor took a massive 32 seconds off his 400F/C swim, Leo Bryce took 18 secs off his 100BR, Joshua Mitchell 16 secs off his 100B/C & Gavin 15 secs off his 100BR. In the afternoon Adele McDaid improved her 400IM by 16 secs, Leo Bryce took 13 secs off his 100F/C, Stuart Crawford lowered his 400IM time by 22 secs & Angus Allison improved his 400 IM by12 secs.
 
Places as follows:

Gold – Cameron Alexander 100BR, 100Fly
            Angus Allison 100BR, 100Fly
            Ines Donald 100BR, 100Fly
            Carla Lovell 100BR
Silver – Angus Allison 100B/C, 100F/C
             Claire Dow 100Fly
             Cameron Alexander 100F/C
             Ines Donald 100F/C
Bronze – Ines Donald 100B/C
                Claire Dow 100B/C
               Cameron Alexander 100B/C
               Felix Hale 100B/C, 100Fly, 100F/C
               Scarlett Donald 100BR
4TH – Stuart Crawford 100B/C
          Joshua Mitchell 100BR, 100Fly
          Adele McDaid 100Fly
5TH – Danny Penman 100B/C, 100F/C
          Felix Hale 100BR
          Adele McDaid 100BR
          Ted O’Connor 100Fly
          Stuart Crawford 100F/C
6TH – Ted O’Connor 100B/C
          Orla Kennedy 100BR
          Gavin Tennant 100Fly
 
Well done everyone. Apologies if I have missed anyone but results have not come up on swimscotland website for me to check.
 
EAST DISTRICT TIME TRIALS 4 & 5.10.15
 
A number of Inverleith swimmers took part in the above meet in order to try & achieve Consideration times for the East District Age Groups. We had a very busy weekend managing 39 PB’s & 20 consideration times.
 
Our swimmers did some amazing swims with huge PB improvements in some of the longer swims. In the 400F/C Orla Kennedy & Adele McDaid improved their times by 27 secs, Scarlett Donald took 30 secs off & in the 800F/C Carla Lovell improved by 31 secs. Stuart Crawford did a brilliant 100F/C going sub sixty for the first time despite having an injured wrist, what can he do when fully fit!!
 
As this was only a time trial there were no medals which is a great pity as Inverleith swimmers would have been jingling all the way home.
 
Well done everyone. 

SO WHAT IS THIS ELUSIVE BRONZE SQUAD AND HOW DO YOU GET INTO IT?!
 

At the Annual Dance last year the coaches gave a special prize to the swimmers who had been selected for the Bronze Squad. Many people have no idea what it involves and even those who know how you get selected don't understand what you do when you get there. We asked Cameron Alexander to tell us more about it:

For the 2015/16 season Felix Hale, Angus Allison and I have been lucky enough to be selected for the District Regional Programme (DRP) which is also called the Bronze Squad. This is Angus’s 2nd year in the programme and he was joined last year by Carla Lovell and Danny Penman.
 
The DRP is a squad of swimmers that meet for 3 full days of training over a few months. The training days are a mix of swimming training, land training and classroom learning. The days are run by a lead coach and assistant coaches, from other clubs and Fiona also has to attend.
 
So far we have had one of the days and the other 2 are in November and December. They are being held at Forrester High School. The 1st day was the same day as the Gavin Fulton relay and we only just made it back in time to race!
 
To be selected for the DRP we had to swim faster than the consideration times for 4 events, 2 of which needed to be 200m or longer.
 
In our group there are other swimmers from clubs all over the East District, such as Hearts, East Lothian and Midlothian. For the DRP we needed to buy some new equipment: a snorkel and a yoga mat. It’s good to train with swimmers that we meet at competitions and see how other coaches do things. We learn new drills and stretches for before and after training that we are supposed to share with the swimmers back at our club.

If you want more information about the DRP you can find it on the East District Swimming website: http://www.sasaeastdistrict.org.uk/swimming/selection-policies


 

THE CLUB SHOP

Judith (who like the Queen prefers to refer to herself in the third person) would like to thank everyone very much for their continued support of the shop throughout the year and in particular for the huge number of orders for t-shirts which she received prior to and on the day of the Gavin Fulton gala.   It really is great to see everyone wearing the club colours.  Unfortunately, Stanno have decided to stop producing the Montreal t-shirts and they have already run out of unisex small sizes so we are having to source a replacement going forward and also to meet a small number of the recent orders, which have suffered a slight delay as a result.  There is a new Tshirt which looks to be the front runner for the replacement and we will of course get these printed up with the club logo and the swimmer’s name so they won’t be too different.  There will also have to be a small price increase to both the t-shirts and the hoodies.  Although we try to keep these affordable, we do need to make a small profit for the club funds.  

Look out shortly for some new club tattoos (not permanent!) which should go down well for competitions.
 
As usual Judith can be contacted for orders at various training sessions or by email, judithhetherington@blueyonder.co.uk

AND FINALLY...

We have just found out that there are going to be major disruptions due to the Forth Road Bridge being closed which will affect the Carnegie meet in Glenrothes on Sunday 25/10 and the first round of East Districts. Clubs from South of the Forth will therefore need to use the Kincardine Bridge to travel North. Please allow enough time to get to warm up without sending the swimmers' stress levels sky high!

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Inverleith Amateur Swimming Club,
58 Easter Hermitage,
Edinburgh EH6 8DR