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NEWSLETTER FEBRUARY 2020 NASA COUNTY CHAMPIONSHIPS 2020 WOW! What an event for DDSC. A final tally of 21 Gold, 35 Silver and 29 Bronze medals saw us finishing Second in the Men's Medal Table, Third in the Women's Medal Table and Third overall. Swimmers: You did your Club proud! Each and every one of you fought hard and swam with your hearts - something which I'm exceptionally proud to report was noted by Coaches from other Clubs who came across to our poolside camp specifically to compliment how fantastic they thought our swimmers had done. As a Club, we performed well across all disciplines and across most age groups. CONGRATULATIONS to all our medallists and especially to our first-time County Medal winners A special shout-out must go to our 13-15 YEAR OLD BOYS 200M FREESTYLE RELAY TEAM who not only bagged the Gold medal with a time of 1:48:08, some 3 seconds clear of the rest of the field, but they also bagged a County Record for the Club! Congratulations to (from left to right) Matthew Nattawidjaja, Ruben Snelson, Ryan Coles and Jack Coptcoat. 1 ..... which may take some time ..... so please bear with me! To Coaches Paul, Anthony and Tom H - for your poolside support and guidance, not just at the Championships but throughout the season so far. To Coaches Rupe, Mike, Julie, Rachel, Keely and Tom - for many of our younger swimmers, Counties is the pinnacle of their season, so thank you for working with and preparing your squads. To Kirstin McCleary - for keeping us all updated with Facebook results as well as your invaluable assistance poolside. To our Volunteer Officials - without whom there would be no competitions to enter! (We are always looking for more people to train as Officials - more about this later in this Newsletter) To our Volunteer Helpers - both on and off poolside - too numerous to individually mention but without whom things just wouldn't function as they do in our DDSC family. To our Swimmers - you're the reason we do this and you were all, quite simply, AWESOME. Your behaviour poolside was impeccable. You were spirited, full of boundless energy in the pool and showed superb support for your teammates poolside as well as respect to your fellow swimmers. And finally to Rose, our Team Manager. Whether you're helping them into their swim hat, high- fiving them on an awesome PB, comforting them because today just wasn't their day, or doing the "poolside dash" to make sure they don't miss their race, you are undeniably the face, heart and soul of Daventry Dolphins. (By the way, if anyone managed to video her "poolside dash" from the last Sunday's Finals, I hear the going rate for a copy is currently quite high!). It goes without saying that we haven't had an easy time of it at DDSC this season. There have been a lot of changes and many of us have had to adapt, and are still adapting; embracing new challenges and taking on new roles within the Club. One thing's for sure though, Daventry Dolphins has unlimited team spirit and this has never been more evident than this season. By pulling together, we appear to be emerging stronger than before and if our overall performance at the 2020 County Championships is anything to go by, it proves that we are still a Club to be reckoned with. So then ... onwards to Regional Championships we go! 2 While most of us were at Counties on Saturday 8th February, Allun Betts from our AQUA SQUAD made the journey across to the Isle of Wight to represent the Club in the MARLINS OPEN MEET 2020 MASTERS EVENT. In addition to equalling his 50m Breaststroke time of 40.01s and establishing times for 25m Freestyle (14.42s) and 25m Butterfly (16.56s), Allun won 5 Gold medals and 2 Silver Medals in his age group. Congratulations Allun from us all - a fantastic haul of medals. I gather Storm Ciara rewarded you with a long weekend over there by cancelling your return ferry, but I hope you made it back for Aqua Squad's Monday night session as we both know Coach Anthony would think a cyclone a feeble excuse to miss training for! SATURDAY 29th FEBRUARY 2020 WINTER LEAGUE ROUND 2 is almost upon us. Saturday 29th February 2020 will see the A Team travelling to Hinckley Leisure Centre, Argents Mead, Hinckley, LE10 1BZ and the B Team venturing just down the road to The Queens Diamond Jubilee Leisure Centre, Rugby CV22 5LJ. Both warm-ups commence at 6.00pm with racing starting at 6.30pm. Good Luck to both teams and PLEASE don't be late arriving SUNDAY 1st MARCH 2020 There will be NO regular training for BRONZE, SILVER, GOLD or OLYMPIC on Sunday 1st March. Instead, there will be an AWARDS' PRESENTATION to include CLUB CHAMPS, DISTANCE CHAMPS, CLUB RECORDS, TEAM MANAGER'S AWARDS (male and female) and the PERSONAL CHALLENGE AWARD. All our swimmers train hard, long hours and show exceptional dedication so please, please make an effort to attend this presentation and not just if you know an Award is headed your way but to show support for other swimmers too. It will be greatly appreciated. AND THEN .... AFTER THE PRESENTATION HAS TAKEN PLACE.... ... WAIT FOR IT ... WAIT FOR IT ... 3 ALL SWIMMERS ARE INVITED TO TAKE PART IN A FUN "RELAY" SESSION IN THE POOL!!!! Cheering is compulsory so Parents are invited to stay The Awards' Presentation will take place poolside and commence at 4.30pm. The Fun Session will run until 7.30pm (although if any of the younger ones need to go home earlier, you are of course welcome to take your swimmer out early). We really hope everyone from Bronze, Silver, Gold and Olympic will join us FRIDAY 6th - SUNDAY 8th MARCH 2020 By now, you will have all now seen the Accepted Entries List for the RUGBY OPEN MEET due to take place on Friday 6th, Saturday 7th and Sunday 8th March 2020 at The Queen's Diamond Jubilee Centre, Bruce Williams Way, Rugby, CV22 5LJ. Confirmed warm-up times and all other necessary information will be emailed to members and published on Facebook soon. SATURDAY 7th MARCH 2020 Allun Betts will be competing again on Saturday 7th March, this time in Stafford at the 2020 Staffordshire Masters along with 3 of his AQUA SQUAD teammates - Andy Rourke, Steve Rourke and Jonathan Page. They will not only be competing as individuals but also as a Relay Team. Please join with me in wishing them all the very best of luck. We look forward to hearing how you all get on. If there is anyone else from our AQUA SQUAD who would be interested in entering this event, the closing date for entering is Tuesday 25th February. The link for that event is here https://www.swimming.org/calendar/all/2020-staffordshire-masters/ or Andy Rourke is happy for anyone to contact him direct. FRIDAY 3rd - SUNDAY 5th APRIL 2020 ENTRIES NOW OPEN: Gold (1), Gold (2), Gold Squad and Olympic Squads swimmers are invited to submit their entries to the Derventio eXcel National Qualifier Level 1 Long Course Open Meet. This is set to take place at Ponds Forge International Pool in Sheffield on Friday 3rd, Saturday 4th and Sunday 5th April 2020. Closing date for entries is next 25th February 2020 at 7.00pm. 4 Have any of you thought about training to become an Official? It's not as daunting as it might look and can be very rewarding. There are no costs involved for you - entry to Meets is free, with food and drink provided, plus you are always guaranteed a poolside view! Your Growing as a Club means it's becoming necessary to diversify for meets and galas to ensure that the whole Club benefits and swimmers Club compete at the correct levels. Currently, the majority of our Officials are parents of swimmers in our higher level Squads - not that we Needs wouldn't welcome more to step forward from these Squads as well - but You we would especially welcome people with swimmers in our lower and entry level Squads. Ultimately, your swimmers are the Club's future. If you would like to know more about what's involved and the varied Becoming roles there are, please give Tunde Grindrod your details. She is our Officials Coordinator and can be contacted at [email protected] an It is hoped there will be sufficient interest to enable us to invite an Official Executive Officer from NASA to come to the Club in the near future to give a detailed and informative TALK on what's involved. Many of you will know that a new Club Committee was elected on 22nd January 2020 and everyone is now busy in their new roles. There remain some old, familiar faces alongside some new faces which we hope will work well in progressing our Club into the future. A full contact list for Executive Officers and other Committee members, as well as Non-Committee members can be found further on in this Newsletter. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us. If you have something interesting which you think might be relevant to pop in a Newsletter, please get in touch with the Club Secretary at [email protected]. As well as electing a new Committee, there have been a few changes with other Club Personnel too so, it was thought this might be a good opportunity to invite you to get to know a little bit more about the people who work hard behind the scenes running Daventry Dolphins ....