President's Prattle - October 2016

Well we are back from our caravanning with a renewed appreciation for the great facilities we have in town, not just for swimming, but for living in general. Our winter swimming was good preparation for the wintry weather that accompanied us, with 10 degrees our maximums at times. The good news is “things swimming” continued to progress in our absence back on the home front. Thanks to Steve F for holding the fort.

Mike reported from the Club Captain’s meeting in Perth that the 2018 National titles will be swum in Mandurah as a short course event. Great news that will no doubt require all hands on deck as the planning progresses. This will certainly give a focus for training. To become familiar with the setup, we are also moving the Club Challenge for 2017 to an outside pool short course event in early April next year allowing the use of our great new facilities.

Wayne and his committee are powering along with the preparations for the Australia Day swim. This will feature new distances, so put it in your diary and get involved. As a practice, it will be fun to swim in the inaugural “Doddi's Dash”. This handicap event is already sparking excitement. Rumour has it that the handicapper is a decent, honest fellow (who will do anything for a glass of quality red??) This should be a fun club day with barbeque to follow.

This month Wayne is our Club’s nomination in the City of Mandurah Sports Awards for “Volunteer of the year” We all know the great work he is doing, so hope he can emulate Ken’s efforts last year in this award.

Great to see so many take advantage of the free training session that John ran with its focus on Open Water Swimming. Had more than two dozen take part. The "crowd swims" in the two lanes provided laughs. We genteel gentlemen were mauled by the ladies who took no prisoners!! As usual for the last Sunday of the month, this was followed by coffee and morning tea. An excellent club event!

Great to see the numbers in the ocean swims continue to be strong. A few are even starting to build up the distances. Roll on summer so these become a little warmer.

Keep swimming and look after each other.

Steve C