A warm hello to all of our Members right across this great State of ours! Wasn’t it wonderful to see many of our Members back competing in the 2020 SWA Short Course season opener over the weekend of July 25th and 26th at HBF Stadium? Over 460 athletes took part and I must compliment the work of our Coaches and Technical Officials who made the first Meet of the Short Course season such a positive experience to all concerned.
As more of our Clubs return to training and operations, our very best wishes to those Clubs who will participate in a ‘Virtual Club Participation Meet’ starting this coming weekend. All the information is on the SWA website, so register today!
Our Members may have seen the positive announcement that I made late last week in relation to supporting our Clubs and Coaches. The success of our sport as we navigate our way through the COVID-19 pandemic will rely heavily on our Clubs and Coaches. In recognition of that fact, the Association has set aside an additional $55,000 (on top of what we already invest into WA Coaching), to support our Coaches in 2020/21. The investment has three (3) components that will see Coaches assist SWA in the delivery of the Performance Pathway Programme and coach mentoring services for country coaches. There will also be financial support for SWA Clubs that are able to support our efforts to identify and nurture talent. Expressions of Interest have been released for Clubs and Coaches to apply for. For all of the information, please visit the SWA website or call Luke Gavin on (08) 9328 4599.
It was great to see a large number of Clubs attend the July SWA Presidents’ Forum and hear from our CEO on the SWA COVID-19 Response Plan for 2020/21. The Association is very keen to resume operations as fully as possible, but as explained at the Forum, this pandemic has had a detrimental effect on our society at a variety of levels and things will not return to anything like ‘normality’ for sometime yet. The key in this crisis is communication, so please do let the team know if your Region or Club requires support and we’ll do our best to assist.
The 2020/21 Summer Almanac and calendar are being finalised in the next week or so, with the Competition and Planning Committee finalising the SWA Sanctioned Meets for the summer. The calendar will be smaller than last year for a number of reasons, not the least being that last year’s calendar was cluttered. This is not a surprise given the growth in our sport in the past few years, so the Association must balance demand for Meets with development of our most precious resource, our swimmers. It will be an exciting summer of swimming based on quality, rather than quantity.
Finally, SWA was pleased to receive a grant under the DLGSC Sector Support for Resilient Organisations recently. On behalf of all our Members, thank you most sincerely to DLGSC Director General Mr. Duncan Ord and the Department for your support at this most challenging of times. Swimming is determined to emerge from the pandemic stronger and this financial support assists in that effort.
Wishing you all a wonderful August.
Best wishes,
Louis van Aardt
SWA President
