President's Prattle - May 2019
Due to the fantastic fundraising events instigated by Wayne Cable through Alcoa, the club is able to trial waiving the $2.00 lane hire fee on Tuesday and Thursday nights. This will start on 4th June and the trial will continue until June 30th, 2020. Des and/or his coaching staff are on deck each session so come along and join in for free!!
Please note the new starting time of 6.00 pm for Tuesday night outdoors and Thursday nights indoors (for the winter months).
Wayne is currently organising the next Tree Planting event, which is to be held on Sunday 21st July starting at 9.00 am. This is an excellent opportunity to help regenerate our sand dunes, help the club and enjoy the generous Morning Tea provided by the City of Mandurah. More details will be posted on the website as they come to hand. We need as many members, family and friends to come down and volunteer. If you can spare a few hours, it would be much appreciated.
Congratulations to the twelve enthusiastic members who competed last week at the Stadium Snappers Meet. Whilst we were happy to come 3rd with our small group of swimmers, we won with the “Raffles” as five swimmers were lucky to win prizes. Thank you to Kim Bennett who was on timing duty all morning and Ivan for resuming his role as photographer.
The State Swim is on in two weeks’ time and good luck to John, Mike, Ken, Gerda and Jannie who will be competing.
Swimmers at Doddi’s are enjoying a variety of conditions, with the beach changing shape daily. It is timely to remind members who swim at Doddi’s that, as they are designated club swim sessions, we have to comply with Masters Swimming Australia’s National Safety Policy for insurance purposes.
Below are a few of the safety measures we have put in place:
Providing a 1st Aid Kit and Defibrillator on the beach;
Providing brightly coloured inflatable Swim Tow Floats;
Encouraging swimmers to:
Only swim if you are comfortable with the conditions and confident in your ability;
Swim wearing a brightly coloured swim cap;
Swim with a buddy of similar speed;
Look up regularly and be aware of people and obstacles in the water;
Swim within the boating exclusion zone; and
To take a turn as a "Spotter" keeping an eye on swimmers
Our main aim of course is to keep everyone safe. Please Click the following links to find more information about our Open Water Training and Swimming Policy and Managing the risk of hypothermia.
It is that time of year where many members are lucky to be heading off for holidays. People will be going (or have already gone) east, north and overseas. If you are lucky enough to have a swim somewhere, we look forward to your posts on the Facebook site.
Below is a photo of five of six Mannas (Wayne was still driving there) who turned up to the Denmark Ocean Classic Swim only to be informed it had cancelled due to the rough conditions. We didn’t think it looked that bad, after all we have swum at Doddi’s in rougher seas. However, we all agreed that the visible rips could be a bit of an issue so we adjourned to a local café for the obligatory coffee and cake. Spare a thought for both Wayne and Ross who had trained so hard for the Albany Harbour 4km swim only to have that cancelled as well. There has been talk of a return visit next year to try again.
To finish off, we currently have 99 members which is very healthy. Who will be the 100th this year?
Keep swimming and I hope to see you either at the pool or the beach.
Deborah