Newsletter

August 2010

Welcome back from the summer holidays everyone and for those of you who attended the summer training sessions when in Bradford, Well Done! You should have an advantage when normal training resumes.

Back to School and Back to Normal?

A few parents may be pleased that a new term is about to start and, delightful though it has been to have the children around the house all these weeks, it will be very pleasant have them back at school so that you can establish your normal routine again.

Our return to normal training sessions after the summer timetable begins on Friday 3^rd September; if during the heat of summer you have forgotten when these are for your group please see the ‘Sessions’ page on our web site. A reminder to Prior Park swimmers that we are no longer using this school pool and your session is now 7.00 to 8.00 p.m. at the University of Bath pool unless you have been notified of a move to another group..

Two Important Messages from Our Chairman

Head Coach

As you are all probably aware Andy Harris has resigned as Head Coach at the club. 

It may seem that we have had a high turnover of coaches in the last 18 months, but of course two of our coaches were “head hunted” and moved on to full time coaching positions at larger clubs.

We have four volunteer coaches who will continue to take the sessions, helped out by all of our other volunteers.  I would like to thank them all for “stepping in to the breach” so that the sessions continue to run smoothly.

We are hoping to use coaches from outside the club to cover some of the senior squad sessions, so you may see some new faces on poolside.

No changes are planned to the sessions except that from September the Monday evening swimming will start at 6.00pm instead of 6.30pm, and we will stop swimming at Prior Park and instead be at Bath University 50m pool from 7-8pm on Wednesdays.  We hope to confirm these changes shortly.

If you have any questions please speak to me or another committee member.

Coaching News

As most of you have now seen, Jamie Forrest has taken on the role of coaching our senior squads.  Jamie is based in Bath, where he has been swimming and recently completed a degree in pharmacology.

Jamie has swum to a very high level, being a member of the Great Britain and the Scotland swim teams from 2002 – 2009.  Most recently he has represented GB at the 2008 European Open Water Swimming Championships in Croatia.  Jamie’s list of other swimming achievements and awards is long and distinguished!

Jamie has recently completed the level 2 coaching swimming course.

After the summer break Jamie will continue to coach the senior squads, but will also attend some of the more junior squad sessions to help with the coaching of some of our younger swimmers.  He plans to stay with us until he finds a graduate job in pharmacology.

Please continue to make Jamie feel welcome, train hard and benefit from his experience of training and swimming to these high levels!

John Carling, Chairman, BoA ASC

We hosted the 3rd Round for Division 6 in Bradford and entertained Corsham, Devizes and guest team Calne Alpha. Our B Team, reformed this year, provides competitive galas for swimmers who are young in their year, are not involved in the intensive training programmes, or have missed training owing to exams, university, work, etc.

As in the previous rounds our swimmers proved to have too great a strength in depth for the other teams and there were some excellent individual performances, including some from swimmers who have not been able to do much training recently. Out of 50 events we won 29 although swimmers from both Corsham and Devizes gave some very good performances in some age groups.

The result was; Bradford on Avon B 117 points, Devizes 84, Corsham C 83. Corsham rallied well towards the end but could not quite catch Devizes while the Calne swimmers put in good performances and we hope they will be in the Moonraker Leagues in future.

As you are all probably aware Andy Harris has resigned as Head Coach at the club. 

It may seem that we have had a high turnover of coaches in the last 18 months, but of course two of our coaches were “head hunted” and moved on to full time coaching positions at larger clubs.

We have four volunteer coaches who will continue to take the sessions, helped out by all of our other volunteers.  I would like to thank them all for “stepping in to the breach” so that the sessions continue to run smoothly.

We are hoping to use coaches from outside the club to cover some of the senior squad sessions, so you may see some new faces on poolside.

No changes are planned to the sessions except that from September the Monday evening swimming will start at 6.00pm instead of 6.30pm, and we will stop swimming at Prior Park and instead be at Bath University 50m pool from 7-8pm on Wednesdays.  We hope to confirm these changes shortly.

If you have any questions please speak to me or another committee member.

John Carling

Chairman, BoA ASC.

More National qualifying times were achieved by Bradford swimmers recently. Charlotte Patmore gained the time in the 50 metre freestyle and Chloe Flower in the 200 metre butterfly in a time of 2.32.18. Well done girls

Chloe's time came at Newport where she won the Open event and a prize of £15.00. Father Steve thinks that they may well go again next year.

Ellie Hine went to the Bracknell and Wokingham Open Meet at Aldershot and gained her time in the 100 backstroke with a time on 1.12.43.

Together with the 200m Breaststroke time Jess Foster achieved in December, she has now also qualified for the 100 metre Breaststroke, which she accomplished on her birthday at the Taunton Deane Open meet and the 200 metre Individual Medley which she swam at the District Youth Championships also in April.  Last weekend she added the 400 metre Individual Medley event to her national qualifying times, which she achieved at the Tigersharks Last Chance Meet.

Well done girls for these and the other National Qualifying times you have achieved. Enjoy yourselves in Sheffield.

Bradford on Avon A

Owing to the difficulty of booking pools Rounds 1 and 2 for the top divisions in the Moonraker Summer League were swum on consecutive weekends. In addition all divisions competed on Saturday 15th May, which stretched the supply of Wiltshire officials nearly to breaking point!

Saturday 8th May saw us competing in Round 1 at Trowbridge against our fellow Division 1 clubs, Swindon Dolphins A, Trowbridge A and Salisbury Stingrays. For various reasons we are missing several swimmers from our 2009 team and we know that this is going to be a very tough competition for us this year. Many swimmers swam up an age group and were swimming against compeditors up to two years older than themselves. We achieved 3 first places thanks to various combinations of our Under 14 girls, Chloe Flower, Jess Foster, Rebecca Hawkins and Flo Legg in relays and individual events. However on average we were mainly in third or fourth place.

Although only six points behind third placed Salisbury after 20 events we gradually slipped back and were 24 points in arrears after all 50 events. Final scores were;

Swindon Dolphins A    157

Trowbridge A              152

Salisbury Stingrays       106

Bradford on Avon A      82

We hosted Round 2 on 15th May at the Monkton Combe pool, which received favourable comments from Salisbury officials despite their coach (motor variety) having taken them to the senior school and then reversed out with some difficulty. We only had a few changes to our team of the previous week but there was a substantial difference in performance, although it was noted that our squad was somewhat smaller that those of the other three teams.

This time we gained 7 first places and a handfull of seconds. Charlotte Patmore showed our intentions by winning the Open 4 x 1 I.M. closely follwed by Jess Foster winning the Under 14 breaststroke. Although 4 points behind Salisbury after 10 events, wins in the girls' Under 14 freestlye and Under 12 breaststroke saw us edge into third place after 20 events. The meet then developed into two individual races for the teams for first and third places; Swindon were always leading Trowbridge but Salisbury and ourselves had a nail biting battle.

Again several of our swimmers were competing in the age group above their own and I observed that not only were the Swindon and Salisbury Under 16 boys much bigger than our own but they were also mostly larger than our Open swimmers. However all our swimmers swam really well ; for many of them it hurt  and we know that they were giving it all they had.

Further wins for the Under 14 girls' medley relay team and individual wins in the boys' Under 14 backstroke and the girls' Under 14 butterfly [names will be added later but I was turn judge in the far corner without a team sheet and didn't always recognise the swimmers!] along with some good second and third places kept us ahead for most of the time. Final result was;

Swindon Dolphins A    157

Trowbridge A              143

Bradford on Avon A    102

Salisbury Stingrays         96

Well done Bradford; we are still 18 points behind Salisbury after 2 rounds but we won't give up our place in Division 1 without a fight!

Bradford on Avon B

This is a really strong team and all swimmers proved this when they swam the first round; in fact some equaled or bettered time set in the A Team’s first round! It was also great to see many siblings and families swimming for the club. Also great to see Andrew Harper again encouraging and exhorting swimmers in the Summer League. Out of 50 events we gained 27 first places and these included doubles for the following relay teams;

Under 12 Girls – Naomi Griffiths, Caitlin Wosika, Yemi Sawyerr, Emily Harrison

Under 14 Girls – Esteher Archer-Brown, Francis Pengelly, Poppy Mumford, Sophie Mumford

Under 16 Girls – Megan Cookson, Sinead McCambridge, Emily Cowles, Neomu Bedoya

Open Girls – Sophie Flower, Emma Philpott, Anne-Marie Withers, Hannah Missen

Open Boys – Chris Archer-Brown, Jon Knee, Chris Hine, Keith Withers

In addition the Under 16 Boys (Kofi Sawyerr, Peter Dyer, Eli Woods and James Missen) won the freestyle relay. Individual first places were gained by Chris Archer-Brown (2), Sophie Flower, Ellie Dorsman (2), Hannah Missen, James Missen, Poppy Mumford, Emma Philpott (2), Neomi Bedoya, Sinead McCambridge, Tokes Sawyerr, Yemi Sawyerr, and Emily Cowles. Everyone swam really well and there were lots of second places for teams and individuals.

Needless to say Bradford won round one with the final scores being;

            Bradford on Avon B              119 points

            Devizes                                     99 points

            Corsham C                                78 points

With this strength in depth why have we been without a B team for the last few years? It provides many more swimmers, including a few Masters who swam some good times, with the opportunity of competing and encourages all swimmers to keep on training when there are two teams to swim in. Being a new team they had to enter the lowest division but after this performance there’re on their way to Division 5!

Nine Bradford on Avon swimmers descended on Cardiff International Pool for the Tigerbay LC Open Meet. Despite a very long and hot weekend the young BoA swimmers once again produced some outstanding swims.

 Kara Mackintosh (9) got the weekend off to a fabulous start with a fantastic swim in the 100 Freestyle to collect a gold in her age group. She also collected a Silver medal in the 200 Backstroke and a Bronze medal in the 50 Backstroke.

 The highlight of the weekend came when Georgia Keen (9) stormed to victory in her age group in the 200m Backstroke and also smashed the age group championship record. Georgia also picked up Gold in the 50 Butterfly and Silver in the 200 Freestyle.

Alex Keen (12), Jordan Ludham (9), Wilf Lapes (13), Caitlin Wosika (10), Craig Harris (11) Edward Hames (11) and Emily Harrison (9) continued to astound their parents and the coach with continued improvement and a collection of PBs.

All the swimmers enjoyed the experience of racing at Cardiff International Pool and can’t wait to return next year, older and stronger.

Newsletter

March 2010

Remember – log on to www.boaswimming.org.uk for the latest news

Congratulations to all our team who swam so well in the Winter League final. Many of our swimmers were swimming up in older age groups while others were the youngest possible age in their group. They swam their hearts out but the opposition was just too strong with the other teams having far more older swimmers than us.

We did achieve one first place - the Girls' Open Freestyle team of Charlotte Patmore, Lucy Carling, Bethan Smith and Rebecca Smith - and one second -the Girls' 9-12 Backstroke team of Flo Legg, Jessie Foster, Chloe Flower and Ellie Hine. Otherwise we were 4th, 5th or 6th, not surprising considering the current squads of the three top clubs.

The boys were also working hard but without such success. Whereas in most teams a swimmer would expect to compete in 4 or 5 events Michael Sealey, James Marshman and Max Hazell swam between 7 and 9 apiece while Wilf Lapes, aged 13, was swimming in Under 17 races.

The final result on the night was:

1st     Swindon Dolphins A       197 points

2nd    Trowbridge A                 183 points

3rd    Tigersharks A                  168 points

4th     Salisbury Stingrays          104 points

5th    Chippenham                       91 points

6th    Bradford on Avon              71 points

We are still in the top 6 in the county and the Summer Leaugue and Southern Junior League are to come so keep training everyone!

The hard work continues now in preparation for Regional Championships and Clevedon & Chard Open meet.

Thank you, to all involved in making this year’s Wiltshire BAGCATS a success for BOA.

Andy

Head Coach BOA

The hard work continues now in preparation for Regional Championships and Clevedon & Chard Open meet.

Thank you, to all involved in making this year’s Wiltshire BAGCATS a success for BOA.

Andy

Head Coach BOA