Taking place on Thursday 4th March 2010, the third ASA Swimming Teaching Conference will be held at the Heritage Motor Museum in Warwickshire.

The conference is open to all swimming teachers but is particularly aimed at swimming teachers and co-ordinators working on the delivery and improvement of school swimming.

Marc had his left leg amputated because of cancer when he was just 17-years-old but was still able to fulfill his dream of being the best that he could be and just 18 months after he finished his chemotherapy he was selected to represent Great Britain.

He subsequently competed at European & World Championships and Paralympic Games. In his 17 years of competition he won a staggering 12 Paralympic medals from 5 Games, 4 of those medals being gold. Marc also won a further 21 medals from European and World Championships.

There will also be a range of informative and inspirational workshops including:

Using different teaching styles for school swimming - focuses on the 4 strands of the National Curriculum and how to use different teaching styles that can be adopted to improve school swimming.

Effective school swimming - looking at the programming, delivery and monitoring of swimming programmes within school swimming.

Teaching swimmers with disability/challenging behaviour - explains the conditions, syndromes and disorders and gives strategies for managing the behaviour of a swimming teaching environment. 

Click here for further information, prices and booking details.

 

Aquasplash is an aquatic festival aimed at 5-11 year olds which is designed to cater for both swimmers and non-swimmers and your organisation or club could host their own.

The festivals are based upon recognising and celebrating the skills young people have achieved during their school swimming lessons through fun, inclusive, multi-skill activities which are designed to encourage them.

Aquasplash festivals are intended to be integral to a young person’s progress from swimming lessons into other aquatic opportunities. They are ideal for local swimming clubs and leisure centres to deliver in partnership with other members of local swimming development groups.

Feedback from previous festivals has been fantastic with children and teachers alike being very positive.

Jane Sheridan, Senior Competition Manager for Lancashire recently organised a successful festival. She said; “We held an Aquasplash festival recently in South Ribble for the weakest swimmers in the educational swimming programme. When the children arrived they were shying away from the water, not wanting to get their faces wet. By the end of a couple of events, that kept the children in their comfort zone of depth etc, they had forgotten their fears and were taking part as enthusiastically as a child that loves swimming. Indeed the water polo match that we ended with was so hotly contested that everyone on the side ended up getting wet as well!”

Teachers have also praised the festivals and the enjoyment children have gained from them. A teacher from North Reddish Junior School in Stockport commented on a recent festival in their area; “All the children thoroughly enjoyed themselves. It is not often the younger children in our school get a chance to represent their school, and they were delighted to get the chance. It gave them the opportunity to show off skills they didn’t realise they had!”

Most importantly the children that have taken part have really enjoyed the experience. Two pupils from schools in Huddersfield said; “It’s been really good. Ten out of ten!” and the other said; “I would like to come back and do the other activities that I didn’t do today.”

If this sounds like a great idea to you, why not host your own Aquasplash festival? The Aquasplash website, www.aquasplashfest.org, is full of useful resources and supporting documents to help you run your event.

-ENDS-

For more information contact the ASA Marketing Officer Esther Hope on 01509 632247, 07917 876459 or email esther.hope@swimming.org.

The ASA is the English National Governing Body for Swimming, Diving, Water Polo, Open Water, and Synchronised Swimming. It organises competition throughout England, establishes the Laws of the Sport and operates comprehensive certification and education programmes for Teachers, Coaches and Officials as well as its renowned Learn To Swim Awards scheme. The ASA supports 1,220 affiliated swimming clubs through a National/Regional/County structure. The ASA aims to ensure everybody has an opportunity to learn to swim.

About British Gas
British Gas is Britain's favourite domestic energy supplier. As well as providing gas and electricity, it also installs and maintains central heating and gas appliances in millions of homes throughout the country. British Gas is very proud to be the principal partner of British Swimming and home countries: The ASA, Scottish Swimming and Swim Wales. British Gas is supporting the team's quest for medals on the world and Olympic stage - and giving as many people as possible the opportunity to learn to swim and use swimming as part of a healthy lifestyle. British Gas wants to ensure local pools remain at the heart of our communities. By using its expertise, it can help them reduce costs by being more energy efficient and safeguard the facilities for this and future generations. For more information visit www.britishgas.co.uk/swimming

About Kellogg’s
The Kellogg Company was founded in 1906 and today produces 40 different cereals including popular brands such as Special K, Cornflakes and Coco Pops, and 56 different snacks including brands such as Nutri-Grain and Special K snacks. Kellogg’s has been a partner of the ASA and British Swimming for 13 years, sponsoring the Kellogg’s ASA Awards and enabling over 50,000 people to take up swimming as part of an active lifestyle.

About Speedo®
The world’s leading swimwear brand, Speedo® is passionate about life in and around the water, creating revolutionary new technologies, designs and innovations. Supporting swimming from grass-roots through to elite level, including the phenomenal Michael Phelps, Speedo® is owned by Speedo Holdings B.V and distributed in over 170 countries around the world; SPEEDO, the ARROW device, FASTSKIN, LZR PULSE, SPEEDO ENDURANCE, FLIPTURNS, FASTSKINFSII, SPEEDO BIOFUSE, SWYM and LZR RACER are registered trademarks of Speedo Holdings B.V. The LZR RACER suit has worldwide design rights and patents pending.

The Water Polo Conference “Your Sport – Help Shape the Future” due to take place on Sunday 17th January 2010 has been postponed. A new date will be circulated shortly.

For more information or to register your place please email Andy Bell at andrew.bell@swimming.org or call 01509 632263.

-ENDS-

Clubs are reminded that the ASA is looking for up to three swim21 accredited clubs to put forward for the CCPR Sports Club of the Year award.

The awards, in association with the Foundation for Sport and the Arts (FSA) and runningsports, recognise sports clubs which have made an outstanding contribution within their community.

The ASA can nominate three clubs for the award, all of which must have swim21 accreditation. The successful aquatic candidates will compete against nominations from other governing bodies.

There are substantial prizes up for grabs with the winning club receiving £6000. There are two second prizes of £3000 each and three third place prizes of £1000.

Clubs who already have swim21 accreditation – the ASA’s ‘quality mark’ – are being asked to throw their names into the hat if they feel they provide opportunities for athletes, coaches and volunteers to experience quality activities at all levels. The CCPR are also looking at those who take an innovative approach to the promotion of the club.

To see if your club matches the criteria for applicants please CLICK HERE. If you feel you do meet the criteria please fill in an application form by CLICKING HERE.

Application forms can be submitted electronically to lesley.hill@swimming.org or by post to: Lesley Hill, ASA West Midland Region, Unit 3 Kingfisher Enterprise Park, 50 Arthur Street, Redditch, Worcs, B98 8LG.

Applications from clubs must reach the ASA West Midlands Office by 5pm on Friday 5th February 2010. Clubs without endorsement from the ASA will not be accepted by the CCPR.

-ENDS-

Mavis Bent, who has been involved in swimming and water polo for 28 years, has been named a Member of the Order of the British Empire in the New Year Honours.

Mrs Bent was officially given the honour for her “voluntary service to Swimming and Water Polo in Greater Manchester”, although specifically it was for her work with Tyldesley Swimming and Water Polo Club and Manchester & District Swimming and Water Polo Association.

Mrs Bent, now aged 67, became involved in the club in 1973 when she took her son Colin along to try swimming.  Colin soon became a keen water polo player and event went on to represent England.

But it was in 1978 that she began assisting the development of the senior water polo team, a role she has continued, and in 1998 she saw the Tyldesley team crowned National League Division 2 Champions and secure promotion to Division 1.

She was named President of the club in 1996 and since then has encouraged others to develop through coaching and officials courses.

In January 2005, she was elected President of Manchester & District Swimming and Water Polo Association and from January 2007 has served as a Vice President.

Her achievements were also acknowledged in the House of Commons, when in 2005 Barbara Keeley (the then newly elected MP for Worsley) said: “Even the best facilities need the commitment of people such as Mavis Bent and Gwyn Pierce, who run the Tyldesley swimming and water polo club.”

Mrs Bent is also a qualified assistant water polo coach and was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award in the ASA North West Region Aquaforce Volunteer Awards in 2007.

'I am amazed and very honoured,” said Mrs Bent.

There were also MBEs for Mrs Susan Clarke for her voluntary service to Disability Swimming in Stockton-on-Tees and for Mrs Janice Naylor for her services to swimming in Penicuik, Midlothian.

-ENDS-

For more information contact the ASA PR Manager Sharon Rose on 01509 632262, 07876 652318 or email sharon.rose@swimming.org

The ASA is the English National Governing Body for Swimming, Diving, Water Polo, Open Water, and Synchronised Swimming. It organises competition throughout England, establishes the Laws of the Sport and operates comprehensive certification and education programmes for Teachers, Coaches and Officials as well as its renowned Learn To Swim Awards scheme. The ASA supports 1,220 affiliated swimming clubs through a National/Regional/County structure. The ASA aims to ensure everybody has an opportunity to learn to swim.

About British Gas
British Gas is Britain's favourite domestic energy supplier. As well as providing gas and electricity, it also installs and maintains central heating and gas appliances in millions of homes throughout the country. British Gas is very proud to be the principal partner of British Swimming and home countries: The ASA, Scottish Swimming and Swim Wales. British Gas is supporting the team's quest for medals on the world and Olympic stage - and giving as many people as possible the opportunity to learn to swim and use swimming as part of a healthy lifestyle. British Gas wants to ensure local pools remain at the heart of our communities. By using its expertise, it can help them reduce costs by being more energy efficient and safeguard the facilities for this and future generations. For more information visit www.britishgas.co.uk/swimming

About Kellogg's
The Kellogg Company was founded in 1906 and today produces 40 different cereals including popular brands such as Special K, Cornflakes and Coco Pops, and 56 different snacks including brands such as Nutri-Grain and Special K snacks. Kellogg's has been a partner of the ASA and British Swimming for 13 years, sponsoring the Kellogg's ASA Awards and enabling over 50,000 people to take up swimming as part of an active lifestyle.

About Speedo®
The world’s leading swimwear brand, Speedo® is passionate about life in and around the water, creating revolutionary new technologies, designs and innovations. Supporting swimming from grass-roots through to elite level, including the phenomenal Michael Phelps, Speedo® is owned by Speedo Holdings B.V and distributed in over 170 countries around the world; SPEEDO, the ARROW device, FASTSKIN, LZR PULSE, SPEEDO ENDURANCE, FLIPTURNS, FASTSKINFSII, SPEEDO BIOFUSE, SWYM and LZR RACER are registered trademarks of Speedo Holdings B.V. The LZR RACER suit has worldwide design rights and patents pending.

The 50m pool will include international diving facilities and forms part of a major leisure complex to be built at a cost of £60 million on land close to the National Indoor Arena in the city centre. 

Scheduled for completion in early 2012, the new leisure complex will provide much needed aquatic facilities for the population of Birmingham and the West Midlands.  It will also enable the city to host major swimming events and will play a major part in their bid to host the Commonwealth Games in 2018.

This significant development project was initiated following detailed strategic analysis of the needs of the locality carried out by Sport England’s Facilities Improvement Service.  Fully supported by the ASA as a member of the Working Group, the Service is designed to offer support to local authorities in strategically planning for sports facilities.

Lesley Hill, West Midlands Regional Director for the ASA said: “This is excellent news for the swimming community in the West Midlands and the residents and communities that the new leisure complex will serve.  It will provide both world class training facilities for the region’s competitors and a much needed location for every day participation for the general public.  It is going to be a wonderful boost to getting more of the local community involved in aquatic activities and the fact that it will be completed in the year when the Olympics will be hosted in England, when swimming and all its disciplines will be highly prominent, makes it even more of a positive development.”

-ENDS-

For more information contact the ASA PR Officer Claire Freeman on 01509 632265 or email claire.freeman@swimming.org

About the ASA
The ASA is the English National Governing Body for Swimming, Diving, Water Polo, Open Water and Synchronised Swimming. It organises competition throughout England, establishes the Laws of the Sport and operates comprehensive certification and education programmes for Teachers, Coaches and Officials as well as its renowned Learn to Swim Awards scheme. The ASA supports 1,220 affiliated swimming clubs through a National/Regional/County structure. The ASA aims to ensure everybody has an opportunity to learn to swim.

About Kellogg’s
The Kellogg Company was founded in 1906 and today produces 40 different cereals including popular brands such as Special K, Cornflakes and Coco Pops, and 56 different snacks including brands such as Nutri-Grain and Special K snacks. Kellogg’s has been a partner of the ASA and British Swimming for 13 years, sponsoring the Kellogg’s ASA Awards and enabling over 50,000 people to take up swimming as part of an active lifestyle.

About British Gas
British Gas is Britain's favourite domestic energy supplier. As well as providing gas and electricity, it also installs and maintains central heating and gas appliances in millions of homes throughout the country. British Gas is very proud to be the principal partner of British Swimming and home countries: The ASA, Scottish Swimming and Swim Wales. British Gas is supporting the team's quest for medals on the world and Olympic stage - and giving as many people as possible the opportunity to learn to swim and use swimming as part of a healthy lifestyle. British Gas wants to ensure local pools remain at the heart of our communities. By using its expertise, it can help them reduce costs by being more energy efficient and safeguard the facilities for this and future generations. For more information visit www.britishgas.co.uk/swimming

About Speedo®
The world’s leading swimwear brand, Speedo® is passionate about life in and around the water, creating revolutionary new technologies, designs and innovations. Supporting swimming from grass-roots through to elite level, including the phenomenal Michael Phelps, Speedo® is owned by Speedo Holdings B.V and distributed in over 170 countries around the world; SPEEDO, the ARROW device, FASTSKIN, LZR PULSE, SPEEDO ENDURANCE, FLIPTURNS, FASTSKINFSII, SPEEDO BIOFUSE, SWYM and LZR RACER are registered trademarks of Speedo Holdings B.V. The LZR RACER suit has worldwide design rights and patents pending.

Taking place on Thursday 4th March 2010, the third ASA Swimming Teaching Conference will be held at the Heritage Motor Museum in Warwickshire.

The conference is open to all swimming teachers but is particularly aimed at swimming teachers and co-ordinators working on the delivery and improvement of school swimming.

Marc had his left leg amputated because of cancer when he was just 17-years-old but was still able to fulfill his dream of being the best that he could be and just 18 months after he finished his chemotherapy he was selected to represent Great Britain.

He subsequently competed at European & World Championships and Paralympic Games. In his 17 years of competition he won a staggering 12 Paralympic medals from 5 Games, 4 of those medals being gold. Marc also won a further 21 medals from European and World Championships.

There will also be a range of informative and inspirational workshops including:

Using different teaching styles for school swimming - focuses on the 4 strands of the National Curriculum and how to use different teaching styles that can be adopted to improve school swimming.

Effective school swimming - looking at the programming, delivery and monitoring of swimming programmes within school swimming.

Teaching swimmers with disability/challenging behaviour - explains the conditions, syndromes and disorders and gives strategies for managing the behaviour of a swimming teaching environment. 

Click here for further information, prices and booking details.

 

Presentations from the ASA's First Annual Council Conference are now online for those people who could not get to the event itself in Stratford-upon-Avon.

The ASA held its first Council Conference on October 10th 2009, entitled ‘Facing the Future Together’, to look at the current challenges it faces and to show its members and volunteers how together everyone can drive the organisation’s future development.

For more details or to view the presentations CLICK HERE.

A high level evaluation has shown the ambitious Everyday Swim project – that set out to get more people swimming over the past three years – has succeeded with a gain of over 10,000 adult swimmers across nine pilot schemes.

The report, published by the Sport Industry Research Centre at Sheffield Hallam University on behalf of the ASA and Sport England, presents key findings about how swimming participation rates have changed across the local authorities who each ran projects with a specific focus, dependent upon the needs in the community. 

Everyday Swim was a national pilot project led by the ASA and supported by Sport England and local partners which concluded its first phase at the end of March this year.  The key aim was to get more people swimming and find out ‘what works’ in getting more people into our pools. 

Two of the original Everyday Swim pilot areas were awarded the status of ‘Everyday Swim Good Practice Centres’ for a second phase of the project until March 2010. These centres, in Islington and Suffolk, will continue to build on the great work of Everyday Swim by sharing the common lessons learnt.

Everyday Swim Co-ordinators were set the target of increasing swimming participation rates by 3% in the final 18 months of the project – a very ambitious target not wholly achieved - but overall there have been positive increases in local participation rates and a gain of over 10,000 adult swimmers across the pilots.

The report states that it is clear that the projects have genuinely made a positive difference.  The Everyday Swim authorities as a whole have performed considerably better than the national average, determined by Sport England’s ‘Active People’ surveys (which interview residents in local authorities nationwide).

Of particular note is the Everyday Swim Good Practice Centre at Islington where they have succeeded in finding new ways to build an effective and entertaining pool programme of structured activities away from the traditional lane swimming, including Super Swim – events that take place over the summer holidays and include mini polo, diving, synchronised swimming, snorkelling and lifesaving. 

Islington has achieved an increase in its adult participation rate by taking a community-wide approach of ‘bringing the gym culture to the pool’.  The report states that Everyday Swim Islington has shown it is possible to increase participation in swimming, through paying attention to detail in all aspects of the business, being customer focused and responsive, marketing of the centre externally and having committed and dynamic staff on the ground driving the project forward.

Aquaterra Leisure is a charitable trust that manages Islington’s public leisure facilities in partnership with Islington Council. 

Their Chief Executive Jonathan Gibbs said: “This has been a great opportunity to develop innovative strategies to change pool culture, and measure the results. We’re excited to be able to continue our successes as a Good Practice Centre.”

The report presents three key themes which have emerged from across all of the pilots and are considered instrumental in helping to encourage more people into the pool;

• Structured sessions – particularly focused on teaching non-swimmers to swim or rebuilding the water confidence of those people who have not been swimming for a number of years.

• Culture change – changes to the way in which pool operators work such as performance management and customer service measures, establishing pool operators groups to share ideas and resources, making sure the workforce is fit for purpose and properly trained, programme analysis including assessments of unused pool time, ‘swim buddy’ schemes to give support to non swimmers and the use of swim diaries to provide feedback from pool users.

• Creative marketing -  including attracting new participants by promoting sessions outside of the leisure centre environment which are audience and context specific.

The results of the Everyday Swim evaluation are underlined by the take up rates of the Government’s Free Swimming initiative which show that more than a thousand local authority pools in England have been offering free swimming to 20 million under 16’s and over 60’s with more than 250 councils backing the scheme, including the Everyday Swim pilot areas.

David Sparkes, Chief Executive of the ASA, commented: “Careful investigation into the pilot projects run in each location, coupled with consultation with stakeholders and the public, has effectively gone a long way to prove the commonly held view that there are no ‘quick fixes’ which will lead to more people swimming. 

“To bring about a culture change in the swimming industry we need to build upon the excellent catalyst provided by the introduction of Free Swimming. We can now also use the valuable lessons learnt in Everyday Swim to release the high levels of latent demand for swimming and work with our stakeholders and partners to bring about a sustainable increase in participation.”

Lisa O'Keefe, Sport England's Director of Sport, said: "Everyday Swim is providing vital insight into what attracts people to swimming and keeps them coming back for more.

"Swimmers and the ASA have a significant contribution to make towards our goal of getting a million more people participating in regular community sport. The lessons learned from Everyday Swim will enable the ASA to focus on the most effective ways of driving up participation and satisfaction levels and ensure we get value for money from our investment."

Duncan Goodhew, Everyday Swim official ambassador, commented: “I am delighted at the continuing success of Everyday Swim and have thoroughly enjoyed my work with the pilot project schemes.  Although the main project has concluded, the Everyday Swim Good Practice Centres will continue to share their learning beyond the project areas and encourage others to emulate their successes.”

This was successfully implemented this month with more than 350 delegates attending one of the ASA’s five free national Everyday Swim Good Practice seminars to find out the lessons learnt from the pilot project.  Goodhew was a motivational and inspirational guest speaker who formed part of the Everyday Swim team who travelled to Manchester, Bristol, London, Newcastle and Birmingham as part of the second phase of the pilot project. 

The seminars were extremely well received by the audience of leisure providers, local authorities and county sport partnerships, with one attendee highlighting “the day was very informative and I found great value in being involved”.  Another stated “…fantastic examples of how we can support our pool operators in helping re-programme their pools, promote adult lessons and engage with their customers on a very real level to help entice new users into their facilities”.

The Everyday Swim Good Practice Centres will continue to build on these events by continuing to share good practice across the industry through other methods, including the offer of bespoke visitor days to the Good Practice Centre areas, Everyday Swim resources and email and phone support services.

The full Everyday Swim evaluation report can be downloaded from www.everydayswim.org or by clicking here.

-ENDS-

For more information contact the ASA PR Officer Claire Freeman on 01509 632265 or email claire.freeman@swimming.org

About the ASA
The ASA is the English National Governing Body for Swimming, Diving, Water Polo, Open Water and Synchronised Swimming. It organises competition throughout England, establishes the Laws of the Sport and operates comprehensive certification and education programmes for Teachers, Coaches and Officials as well as its renowned Learn to Swim Awards scheme. The ASA supports 1,220 affiliated swimming clubs through a National/Regional/County structure. The ASA aims to ensure everybody has an opportunity to learn to swim.

About Sport England
Sport England invests National Lottery and Exchequer funding in organisations and projects that will grow and sustain participation in grassroots sport and create opportunities for people to excel at their chosen sport.

Sport England is committed to creating a world-leading community sport system, and has set specific and measurable targets to achieve by 2012/13:
*       One million people doing more sport
*       A 25% reduction in the number of 16- to 18-year-olds who drop out of at least five key sports
*       Improved talent development systems in at least 25 sports
*       A measurable increase in people’s satisfaction with their experience of sport
*       A major contribution to the delivery of the five hour sports offer for children and young people.

About Kellogg’s
The Kellogg Company was founded in 1906 and today produces 40 different cereals including popular brands such as Special K, Cornflakes and Coco Pops, and 56 different snacks including brands such as Nutri-Grain and Special K snacks. Kellogg’s has been a partner of the ASA and British Swimming for 13 years, sponsoring the Kellogg’s ASA Awards and enabling over 50,000 people to take up swimming as part of an active lifestyle.

About British Gas
British Gas, the biggest energy supplier in the country, has the lowest carbon intensity of any of the major UK energy suppliers in terms of tonnes of CO2 emitted per megawatt hour of electricity supplied to customers.  The company is one of the biggest investors in renewable power generation, principally offshore wind. Its recently completed Lynn and Inner Dowsing development, off the Lincolnshire coast, is the UK's largest offshore wind development. British Gas is committed to energy efficiency.  Our Energy Savers Report provides free expert advice on how you can cut energy use in the home and, in turn, save money.  So far, the report has shown over 2 million people how they could make an average saving of £175 a year.  To complete a report go to .www.britishgas.co.uk/energy-efficiency/energy-savers-report

About Speedo®
The world’s leading swimwear brand, Speedo® is passionate about life in and around the water, creating revolutionary new technologies, designs and innovations. Supporting swimming from grass-roots through to elite level, including the phenomenal Michael Phelps, Speedo® is owned by Speedo Holdings B.V and distributed in over 170 countries around the world; SPEEDO, the ARROW device, FASTSKIN, LZR PULSE, SPEEDO ENDURANCE, FLIPTURNS, FASTSKINFSII, SPEEDO BIOFUSE, SWYM and LZR RACER are registered trademarks of Speedo Holdings B.V. The LZR RACER suit has worldwide design rights and patents pending.