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Doha 2024 Highlights
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Information
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2024 & Age Group Competitions Updated 5 Feb
14 Jan, 20 & 21 Jan, 3 & 4 Feb
24 & 25 Feb and 16 & 17 Mar 2024
Isabel Blight, Championships Volunteer Co-ordinator recently advised that 22 people had so far signed up as volunteers to cover 100 slots. Guess how many more signed up over 3 and 4 Feb to help us fill over 150 remaining vacancies?
Not 150. Not 50. Not 10. Not 5. Not 3. Not 2. ONE!
We thank every volunteer but it is really important to get the message out in your Club that without volunteers and officials, there would be no County Competitions. Please share widely Isabel’s messages from 3 Feb and 26 Jan asking for your help and volunteers to step up!
View message from Chris Metcalfe, Somerset Officials Panel Secretary on 27 Jan asking for your help to ensure we have enough officials sign up!
View messages from Kelly Podbury, Somerset ASA Swimming & Competition Secretary (Swimming) on
- 3 Feb (Confirmation of balances due from Clubs)
- 24 Jan (Withdrawal links sent)
- 22 Jan (Amended Programme and Conditions, with Hytek file for 800m & 1500m event for Club Meet contacts) and
- 19 Jan (Rescheduled dates).
Please check out and bookmark the official Somerset ASA merchandise for our 2024 County Championships from Wyvern Swimwear:
- Hoodies (£35)
- Joggers (£33)
- T-shirts (£18)
- Swim Hats (£8)
Please note the pre-order dates for items to be collected from their swim shop at this event.
- Swim England launch Club Financial Forum to support sustainability of aquatic clubs. View details
- From 1 Nov 2023, attendance on both the Chair and Welfare workshops will be mandatory for affiliated clubs and will form part of the required evidence for Club Affiliation and SwimMark renewals. Workshops are available to access at: https://www.swimming.org/swimengland/running-your-club/
- Swim England have put together a Good Governance Guide for members to benefit from and support Swim England to cascade good governance throughout affiliated bodies. It also enables affiliated organisations to improve understanding of why policies and procedures are implemented and its relevance to Swim England’s compliance standards. This is available to access at https://www.swimming.org/swimengland/running-your-club/
- Guidance to clubs for entering competitions and running your own competitions both internally and licensed meets is available to access at: https://www.swimming.org/swimengland/running-your-club/
- Protecting children and adults is a vital responsibility of all clubs. The following pages provide Swim England guidance for safeguarding matters: https://www.swimming.org/swimengland/running-your-club/
CDP Block 2: Info on three session dates -
12 Feb (50m) at Millfield Senior School
18 Feb and 18 Mar (25m) at Millfield Prep School
has been released. Invites for swimmers and information for Home Club Coaches has gone out via email. View details. Please respond promptly to register and accept places.
View images and set* from Block 2 Session 1 of Somerset County Development Programme 2023-24 delivered by coaches Rachel Aldington and Pat Leaman.
* Coach Dale: This is gold dust! If passionate about your athletes technical. Somerset ASA coaches come and observe #BetterTogether
Para Hub: Team Bath AS are working with Martin Lees from Swim England and Bath University Tribe Swimming with the aim of setting up a new Para Hub in Somerset. This is in a very early stage.
Coaches: Watch a video from one of workshops Swim England delivered to coaches about the awareness of disordered eating and eating disorders, and how to signpost for further support.
Networks: View presentations from Wesport's 2023 Sport and Physical Activity Network: "Everyone’s talking about place" event.
Funding: The GLL Sport Foundation is an athlete focussed support programme providing athletes across the UK with tangible support to aid their sports performance. Any athlete competing at a Regional level or above can apply and we ask you to share this grant opportunity for talented athletes with swimmers / coaches / clubs that are based or train in Bath and North East Somerset.
Other Grants / Bursaries: Clubs are encouraged to apply to us for support if, individually or jointly, they have a project or initiative which meets the County’s objectives and priorities. Bursaries are also available to support teacher / coach education. Swim England South West updated their Bursary application form on 14 Dec to correct the email address shown for Mike Coles. Please check with us to ensure we received and are processing any recent application. View Regional Funding Sources for Courses and more info on County Funding.
Presentations from the main part of the European Aquatics Learn to Swim Conference 2023 (11 & 12 Nov in Jurmala, Latvia) were recorded and can be viewed here.
Governance: View
- Summary of Good Club Governance Workshops and Forums
- 24 Jul regional update on OMS, Courses and Workshops.
Tool: The Swim England Club Health Tracker for year two, beginning in October 2023, is currently open for clubs to access and complete until February 2024. The tracker is an online tool for clubs to easily examine their development work and hone in on any of the six core areas of club life – coaching and teaching, financial management, pool operator relationships, governance and standards, growth, and volunteers.
View Swim England Club Health Tracker Introduction Recording
Clubs have the opportunity to complete the tracker once annually and by doing so, can clearly see and quantify progress in specific areas. All club secretaries will receive log in details via email.
Statement: Welfare and Safeguarding is everyone’s concern and responsibility and applies consistently and without exemption across our membership, at all levels.
Our organisation acknowledges the duty of care to safeguard, protect and promote the welfare of children and adults across all of our sports and activities.
We are committed to ensuring safeguarding practice reflects statutory responsibilities, government guidance and complies with best practice and Swim England’s policies and requirements.
There are countless things Committee members in our affiliated Clubs could be working on, a few things they should be working on, but only one thing that should be their top priority. And that is to offer safe environments for the children, young people and adults who engage in swimming and aquatic sport.
Competitions: Please can all Clubs and competition organisers and promoters not post results in changing rooms. Read why.
Reminder: New Codes of Conduct were introduced in the updated Wavepower 2024. Please ensure the most recent versions are used for future membership renewals.
Plans: Swim England South West has launched its Safeguarding and Diversity and Inclusion Action Plans (links).
Support: We thank Welfare Officers from Somerset for attending the Regional Welfare Officer Development Day in Taunton on 6 Jan. There were some great conversations with Swim England Safeguarding Team facilitating delivery.
Wavepower has been updated on 3 Jan 2024 and is available to view here. All Swim England affiliated clubs and organisations are required to adopt Wavepower. View key changes and sign-up for one of the drop-in sessions led by members of Swim England’s safeguarding team
Refresher Modules are available to those who have completed the full Swim England face-to-face / online CPD:
- The ‘Creating a Safe and Proactive Culture Module’ module. View content.
- The ‘Mobile devices in the Sport setting’ module covers online safety, appropriate use of the internet as well as guidance available to clubs and members. Book your place.
- The ‘Mental Health and Self-harm’ module gives an overview of what safeguarding and child protection means and how to apply that in the practical situation of a club activity. View details.
Reminder: View Swim England announcements on
- safeguarding training requirements
- new policy on club supervision ratios
Briefing: Listen to a Swim England briefing session from Aug 2023 on the Team Manager, Coach and Chaperone Policy and related FAQs. The policy became mandatory from 1 Sep 2023.
Courses: View
- Safeguarding Training Dates in Jan to Mar 2024
- Time to Listen Training Dates in Jan to May 2024.
View updated guidance from the Child Protection in Sport Unit on safeguarding d/Deaf and disabled children and young people who face the same risks as all children and young people, but are at greater risk of some types of abuse.
Reminder: Without the relevant and appropriate required DBS checks and safeguarding training, you must not be on poolside. If you are unsure whether you need a DBS check or safeguarding training, please consult WavePower or contact your Club Welfare Officer. Click here to book onto a safeguarding course.
Accreditation: The Swim England event accreditation system available via member options is now checking that the barred list check is in place as well as the date this expires. Due to this, members may see an in-date DBS but this element showing as a fail. Should this occur, the DBS was not one with a barred list check. If this is the case, you will need a new DBS for the appropriate role.
Confirmation from Swim England of dates of 2024 national events.
County Swimming Meets
- 2024 LC County Championships & Age Group Competitions
14 Jan, 20 & 21 Jan, 3 & 4 Feb
24 & 25 Feb and 16 & 17 Mar 2024- View message from Chris Metcalfe, Somerset Officials Panel Secretary on 27 Jan asking for your help to ensure we have enough officials sign up!
Please share widely messages from Isabel Blight, Championships Volunteer Co-ordinator on 3 Feb and 26 Jan asking for your help and volunteers to step up!
View messages from Kelly Podbury, Somerset ASA Swimming & Competition Secretary (Swimming) on
- 3 Feb (Confirmation of balances due from Clubs)
- 24 Jan (Withdrawal links sent)
- 22 Jan (Amended Programme and Conditions, with Hytek file for 800m & 1500m event for Club Meet contacts) and
- 19 Jan (Rescheduled dates). - The 100m IM and Relays Championship will be held in October 2024, similar to the Relay event we held in Oct 2023.
Please check out and bookmark the official Somerset ASA merchandise for our 2024 County Championships from Wyvern Swimwear:
- Hoodies (£35)
- Joggers (£33)
- T-shirts (£18)
- Swim Hats (£8)
Please note the pre-order dates for items to be collected from their swim shop at this event.
Events: All disciplines
- 2024 Citi Para Swimming World Series - Leg 1 (1 to 4 Feb, Aberdeeng)
View stream, reports and results - Euro Meet 2024 (26 to 28 Jan, Luxembourg)
View stream, reports and results - Flanders Swimming Cup 2024 (19 to 21 Jan, Antwerp)
View streams and results - 57th Geneva International Challenge Meet 2024 (19 to 21 Jan, Geneva)
View preview, stream and results - Women’s European Water Polo Championships 2024 (5-13 Jan, Eindhoven)
View preview and results, streams and reports - Habawaba international U14 tournament (2 to 4 Jan, Barcelona)
View results and reports
[The 2023 and 2022 Competitions Round-Up are under the Results sub-menu. If there are any newsworthy omissions in the daily reports and analysis of many thousands of swims, it is unintentional. Please let us know if you spot any].
Counties: View message from Chris Metcalfe, Somerset Officials Panel Secretary on 27 Jan asking for your help to ensure we have enough officials sign up!
Licensed Meets: Reminder: The Open Meet Licensing Criteria Officials’ Requirements (effective from 2 Oct 2023) requires a copy of the meet expenses policy to be made available to all officials at the point of invitation to allow an informed decision to be made on whether to volunteer. View all Licensed Meets documentation.
J2 Training: Download Swim England South West Fact Sheet (v3) which details eligibility and training dates in 2023/2024.
Requests: With a lot of Somerset clubs seeking to license their own championships or running Meets, Kelly encourages you to use the services of swim-meet.com if you are ever short of officials or volunteers which your Club can then promote via your website and social media.
Guidance: View Swim England announcement on 16 Oct 2022 confirming a change in technical officials training and uniform guidance and further guidance on 4 July 2023 on uniform expectations when officiating at Swim England National events.
Note: Swim England Water Polo Referee Dress Code Update.
Website: With no championship sessions in Jan 2024 compared to 3 in Jan 2023, unique visitor numbers were 8.2% down and content viewed 11.8% down over the month.
You can enjoy over 8600 articles, often with multimedia, in our news archive. Answers in our Knowledgebase have received over 365,000 views. In addition there are over 3600 curated videos in the library on our website which in total have racked up over 6.68 million views. You don’t have to be sick to get better.
Social Media: While we do post regular social media updates on Facebook, our use of the platform X (formerly known as Twitter) is currently paused for safeguarding reasons until its moderation and compliance standards improve (see Washington Post, BBC News and NPR articles).
It is for other organisations to determine which social media platforms they still feel comfortable supporting.
News
- Doha 2024 Artistic Swimming Day 4: Technical Duet Silver for Shortman and Thorpe
- Doha 2024 Artistic Swimming Day 3
- Swim England launch new Coaching Hub
- Doha 2024 Women's Water Polo Day 1 - Great Britain 10 Italy 22
- Sports Think Tank's 'The Road to the 2024 Election Manifesto.'
- Children’s Mental Health Week 2024
- ParalympicsGB and Team GB athletes mark six months to go until Paris 2024
- Doha 2024 Open Water Swimming Day 2
- Doha 2024 Open Water Swimming Day 1
Events
Videos
-
Active Lives Survey for Somerset - Nov21-22
Author: SASP - Somerset Activity & Sports Partnership
Duration: 00:52:07
Requests: 361
-
Impact Report 2023
Author: Youth Sport Trust
Duration: 00:03:07
Requests: 194
-
"There's a narrative if you have a disability there's no way you can be the caregiver" - Grace Harvey
Author: ParalympicsGB
Duration: 00:05:53
Requests: 255