Bronze Licence Coaching and Technical Officials Course A Great Success

From Friday 11th through to Sunday 13th of October the West Coast Swimming Club with the support of Swimming SA facilitated a bronze licence coaching course, official’s theory session for beginning stroke judges and inspector of turns and support session for parents who are involved in administering our meet manager software. 

Over the three days over 20 club members were involved in training sessions to increase the capacity of the club to coach, officiate and administer club activities to a high level. This was the first time since the early 1990’s that the club has been in a position to offer this support to parents. The weekend provided many opportunities for individuals to build their knowledge of swimming stroke technique, fitness training and season planning, technical rules of competitive swimming and innovations in event organisation. State Team Coach, Mr Paul Dennis facilitated many of the practical pool sessions and his wealth of knowledge as to how to improve stroke efficiencies, maintain swimmer engagement with creative session planning and exceptional on land practical demonstrations of stroke technique made for a highly valuable experience. Our own silver licenced coach Mrs Carol Veldhuyzen also lead many of the theory sessions and was able to encourage those parents new to coaching, by clarifying the important teaching points for each stroke. 
 
The club was eternally grateful for the support of the Sarin Group in providing lane and pool space as well as meeting rooms to host the event at the Port Lincoln Pool. Staff members from the Swim School were also able to access this expert knowledge which will have obvious flow on effects to the quality of their individual teaching programs. The club also welcomed volunteers from the Roxby Downs Swimming Club, Vitor Renmark Swimming Club and Port Lincoln Triathlon Club.  

All of those potential coaches and officials now have theory booklets to complete and poolside hours to log over the coming months. All left the course with a much better understanding that 'perfect practice makes for perfect performance’. The club looks forward to the addition of Matt Hamnett, Sonia Ford, Belinda Adams, Bernadette Dale, Levi Proude, Luke Andrews, Gabby Zerk, Nardine McInerney and Kate McShane to our accredited coaching staff. Also showing commencing their officiating journey are trainee officials Todd George, Anne-marie Hammond, Annette Meseke, Simon Clark and Sonia Ford who are now able to participate as Judges of Stroke and Turns after spending a day with presenters Phil Bowen and Janine Molloy from Swimming
SA. All of our parents will be working towards gaining their accreditation either as coaches or officials by the commencement of the 2014 Country Championships.

Membership for the new 2013 / 2014 swimming season is now due and with membership now surpassing 100 active competitive swimmers it is important that parents review the upcoming competition opportunities that have been presented by our club nominations officer. The 2013 Lower Eyre Peninsula Primary Schools Championships will be hosted by the club on Friday 1st of November at the Port Lincoln Pool and all swimmers are invited to register with www.goswim.orgto be in the running to receive promotional material from  Swimming Australia.

Thankyou to Paul Dennis for his support!

Link to the Port Lincoln Times Article