Honorary Life Member Des Seery

The Major Award at the 2022 Mandurah Masters AGM was the Endorsement of the "Life Membership" for Des Seery, in appreciation of his huge contribution to the Club and State Masters Swimming.

Club Captain Mike Bennett nominated Des. The following is a synopsis of the nomination.

It will become very obvious, in the matter of a few paragraphs, as to who the nomination applies so rather than try and keep it a secret for a ‘great reveal’ at the end I will tell you now that it applies to Des Seery.

Des initially joined Masters Swimming as a member of the Riverton Club in 2004, he finally saw the light and joined our club in 2009. During his membership Des has competed for the Club in various Open Water Swim meetings, (in the 2009/2010 season he finished in the top 20 Open Water swimmers for what is now MSWA) as well as pool competitions and relay events, (where he still currently remains a member of one of our clubs State Record holding teams).

Des’s service for the club since joining basically breaks down into 3 categories – the service he has provided by involvement on the club’s committee, service he has provided to the club in a general sense that does not necessarily involve sitting on the committee and then service he has provided to both the club and Masters Swimming WA by way of being an MSWA Official. This servitude to MSWA also counts towards this nomination for Honorary Life Membership of Mandurah Masters Swimming Inc, as per the Club By-laws Appendix A.

In pretty much all of these instances there are overlapping layers through the years and hopefully you will see and appreciate the number of rolls Des was fulfilling at the same times.

From a committee perspective Des initially served on the Mandurah Masters Club Committee as the Club Treasurer for 3 years (2010, 2011 and 2012).

In 2013 Des was the Kathy McLeod Award winner as Best Club Person.

Des also served as the Club Director of Coaching for two periods, 2013 and 2014 and then again 2019 and 2020.

In 2013, Des also served as the Club Registrar. In 2014 and 2015 he was the Club Public Relations Officer and for a period of 4 years, from 2013 through to 2016 Des also collated, produced and posted by email the Clubs Monthly Newsletter for the benefit of Club Members. This latter being in the days before our club website, WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram etc. came into being.

In a more general sense of service, Des has served the club in the capacity of a Club Coach from 2011 to 2021, giving freely of his time and travel during this period to attending training sessions, producing training programs and conducting other sessions explaining the rules of swimming and technicalities of individual race starts/turns as well as relay changeovers. He also gave his time in attending and completing coaching courses during this period in order to improve his knowledge and better provide coaching service to members.

Des has also over the years, regularly attended the pool on Sunday mornings in order to time swimmers wanting to complete Vorgee swims.

Again, and for the benefit of the Club, back in 2017/2018, Des virtually single-handedly over a period of some 18 months, massaged and re-wrote the Club Constitution, Rules of Association and Club By-laws so that they meet the Government Statutorily required changes to in order to comply with the Associations Incorporation Act 2015.

During much of the above period Des has also served in the capacity of a Meeting Official for Masters Swimming WA.

In 2010 he initially qualified as a Timekeeper and then quickly in the same year added Chief Timekeeper, Inspector of Turns, Judge of Strokes and Starter to his accreditations. In 2013 he added Clerk of Course and Check Starter to his qualifications. In 2014 became a Marshall and in 2015 became an Event Referee and a Meet Referee. As part of his Referee Accreditation Des is also qualified to undertake Technical Official duties at Open Water Swim meets and does so. He has been active as a Pool Meetings official since 2010.

Des is also a member of the MSWA Technical Committee and contributes constructively to the role of the Committee which the current Director Technical of the MSWA Board of Management, Lynn Duncan, expresses she is extremely grateful.

Des has used the benefit of his experiences in these rolls to help educate our Club Members.

Given all the above I personally believe that Des Seery is more than worthy of the nomination for Honorary Life Membership of the Mandurah Masters Swimming Inc club and I submit the nomination to you for endorsement.