Survey Response

Dun­bar Ama­teur Swim­ming Club

Com­ments to some points raised in Survey

The fol­low­ing com­ments are to address points raised in the recent survey.

• Queries regard­ing qual­i­fied instruc­tors – all coaches are vol­un­tary but have recog­nised swim­ming qual­i­fi­ca­tions.  Pro­grammes are set by the coaches and all children’s progress and devel­op­ment is mon­i­tored by the coaches.  Even if a lane is being taken by a par­ent helper, a coach is always present to assist.
• Qual­i­fied coaches:
• Fiona Mor­ris — Head coach
• Ben Arnold
• Brian Bap­tie
• Elaine Alsop
• Matthew Alsop

• The club also ben­e­fits from the coach­ing skills of some reg­u­lar par­ent helpers and  older swim­ming mem­bers, and there is rota sys­tem for life­guards – par­ents who have vol­un­teered and taken the rel­e­vant qual­i­fi­ca­tions and training.

• Start on time – the coaches strive to start each ses­sion on time, but it can be dif­fi­cult to put the lane ropes in quickly at the start of ses­sion one as we do not have access to the pool until 6pm.  It is also time con­sum­ing if there are only a few peo­ple putting the ropes in.  Any help from par­ents drop­ping chil­dren off would be greatly appreciated.

• Par­ent helper rota/duties – rotas are posted on the web­site and an email is sent out when the new rotas are drawn up.  There were com­ments on the sur­vey about fur­ther emails regard­ing remind­ing par­ents of duties.  The com­mit­tee has been dis­cussing how best we can encour­age par­ents to remem­ber they are on duty.  The club is run by vol­un­teers only, and it is not fea­si­ble to sug­gest that some­one should be remind­ing par­ents of duties on a weekly basis.  We hope that by hav­ing the rota on the notice board and the web­site, this will be suf­fi­cient.  If on duty, any of the coaches or life­guards will be able to explain what duties involve.

• Com­mu­ni­ca­tion – we are work­ing on this.  Com­mu­ni­ca­tions are reg­u­larly updated on the web­site and we are in the process of speak­ing to the leisure cen­tre regard­ing a notice board.  We also hope to hold an event, maybe linked to the Christ­mas Fun Swim, where we can address par­ents ques­tions.  The Com­mit­tee are also con­sid­er­ing hav­ing a point of con­tact for each ses­sion.  Please note that all coaches are very approach­able and happy to help if you have any questions/concerns or would like some information.

• Warm-up – there was a com­ment regard­ing encour­ag­ing chil­dren to warm up before they swim.  The first ele­ment in a swim­ming ses­sion is a warm-up.  The pro­grammes are drawn up by qual­i­fied coaches and the children’s well-being is all impor­tant and always safeguarded.

• Chil­dren wait­ing around – one com­ment noted chil­dren are wait­ing around and could they play swim­ming games while wait­ing.  The chil­dren are put into lanes accord­ing to their abil­ity.  They need reg­u­lar rests to ensure they can put enough effort into the required activ­i­ties.  The coaches make sure the pro­grammes are to the cor­rect level of the swim­mers and so there should not be any unnec­es­sary wait­ing around.  It would be dif­fi­cult to have swim­mers involved in swim­ming games while the rest of their lane were com­plet­ing their activ­ity as this would be dis­tract­ing.  As noted above, the swim­mers wel­fare is of prime impor­tance so the coaches are con­stantly mon­i­tor­ing their swim­mers to ensure full involve­ment with the activities.

• Goals to strive for – the new coach­ing team have only been in place since the sum­mer, but they are already putting pro­ce­dures in place which will help moti­vate the swim­mers, such as timed swims.  This is an on-going area for devel­op­ment, and will be some­thing that all chil­dren, par­tic­u­larly those who swim reg­u­larly will be able to ben­e­fit from.

• Fun swims – the first Sat­ur­day of the month is always a fun-swim, but from the com­ments to the sur­vey, this fact may not be uni­ver­sally known.  We always have fun-swims for cer­tain events – such as Hal­loween and Christ­mas.  Club ses­sions them­selves are struc­tured to have fun-elements within them, such as races, life-saving skills, water-polo and other water based activ­i­ties.  The focus of the club is very much on swim­ming for fun.

• Pre­sen­ta­tion evening at swim­ming club cham­pi­onships being very long/awards evening split – this has been noted and will be con­sid­ered when plans for the 2012 cham­pi­onships are made.

• Fees – response to sur­vey and action to be taken to be com­mu­ni­cated separately.

• Increas­ing com­pet­i­tive ele­ment of club, for exam­ple with inter-club gala – the response to this was pos­i­tive – the coaches are look­ing into oppor­tu­ni­ties and how this can be implemented.

• Some pos­i­tive com­ments included:
  • Good coach­ing, enthu­si­as­tic, hard-working; ded­i­cated coaches and helpers
  • Ses­sion 1 class sizes are good which allows pos­i­tive tuition for the child
  • Very friendly and enthu­si­as­tic; par­ent engage­ment, activ­i­ties, parties
  • Chil­dren enjoy it
  • Ses­sions gen­er­ally very well run
  • High level of com­mit­ment from coach­ing staff, life­guards, com­mit­tee and gen­er­ally every­one involved
  • Encour­ag­ing chil­dren no mat­ter their abil­ity to keep devel­op­ing their skills

We hope this has helped address some of the com­ments regard­ing the club and its oper­a­tions.  Please ask any mem­ber of the com­mit­tee or coach­ing staff if you have a con­cern or query.  Names are listed on the web­site, and there will always be some­one at the club who can point you in the right direction.