One day in August 1979 a small band of swimmers met in a pub and hatched a plan to form a new swimming club in Guildford. After a few rounds Wey Valley Swimming Club was formed, and the rest as they is history.

So the club is 30 this year and we will have a series of events to mark this occasion, the first dates for your diary are;

• 30th May - 7pm to 10pm The Big Wey Valley 30th Birthday Splash at the Guildford Lido
• 11th July - 7pm Family Quiz Night at the Varsity Centre Bar in aid of the Chase Hospice

More details will be released soon about the above and more events will be added over the coming weeks, if anyone knows of a venue that can hold 150 people, has a bar and an audio/visual system with a large screen then I would be delighted to hear from you.

Karen and Edwina for all of their hard work in getting all of the children and parents to the Spectrum on time for all of the various sessions of the County Championships. It was quite an undertaking and we are all very grateful for their hard work.

The last session of the Championships was the Relays and hundreds of parents crowded around every available viewing point in the Spectrum to see their children swim. It was so busy that two Wey Valley mums resorted to going up and down in the glass lift in order to get a view of their children's races. No names but think of George Bernard and the opposite of White.

One of the advantages of us being a well organised Swim 21 club is that we are always looking to develop and train our coaches/teachers and volunteers. In the past few months the following have improved their skill base.

• James Toone got his Level 1 teachers at the end of last year.
• Alan Bird, Jon Brayne, Kate Steele and Jeni Colbourne passed their national swimming teachers and coaches lifesaving award in January
• Trevor Marshall and Jeni Colbourne were trained in coaching disabled swimmers in the Autumn.

Many of you have recently heard from your coaches/teachers about forthcoming changes to swimming sessions which affect you. The committee thought you'd also welcome an explanation of what's happening overall and why we're doing this.

As you may be aware, Waverley BC aims to redevelop Godalming pool in the next couple of years. There are no firm plans yet, but there is a risk that we could temporarily lose the facility that currently provides 75% of our pool time. The committee has therefore decided to take up extra time we have been offered on Friday and Saturday at Guildford High School. In the short term, this allows us to teach more children and offer more pool time to our squad swimmers; in the medium term, it improves our resilience in the event that Godalming pool closes temporarily.

Here's a summary of the main changes, which take effect from Friday 17 April:

• We will have a new session at 5:30-7:00pm on Friday at GHS for senior squad swimmers who want to swim four times a week. This will replace our Friday evening session at Aldershot Garrison and our Saturday morning session at Godalming; there will be more capacity than in the replaced sessions, so more of the senior squad will be able to swim a fourth session
• The session currently running 4-5pm on Saturday (Competitive Development squad) will shift to 2pm on Saturday at Guildford High School and will be extended to 90 minutes
• The 3-4pm Saturday slot will remain unchanged. The freed-up 4-5pm session will become a technique-focused session for those swimmers who wish to progress to squad swimming. These two sessions will initially be populated by those currently swimming 3-4pm - as well as new recruits.

Please talk to your coaches/teachers if you want to know more detail.

These changes don't affect fees for the Summer Term, even though many swimmers will have the opportunity to swim more. We will announce fees for September onwards at the AGM in June.

Finally, here's a great opportunity for all those parents out there who wish they were ploughing up and down the pool as well. We want to use our freed-up Saturday morning slot at Godalming to offer a one hour adult training session - if there's enough demand! The session would be coached (probably by Jon) and is aimed at semi-decent swimmers (Olympic standard need not apply) who want to work on both technique and fitness. If you're interested and want to know more, please contact Jon by email (thebrayne@hotmail.com) or at poolside.

Last weeks Surrey Advertiser had a front page report stating that Godalming Council would start the process of planning the next Godalming Leisure Centre and that a Special Interest Group is being formed to create the initial plan. I thought that members would like to know that as a club we do have one of the 8 seats on that group and our voice will be heard.

The children in the Competitive Development Squad were recently tested for their Competitive Start Award. The test is a mandatory asa requirement and has to be passed before swimmers can take part in Open Meets or progress through to the Senior squad. Once a swimmer has passed the award we have to submit the information to the asa. There are children missing off the list below, this will be because they were away on the day that the test took place or they did not pass. Jeni and Jon know who they are and will be working with the children to bring them up to speed and there will be an another assessment before the end of the month.

Competitive Start Award passed in Feb. 2009

Black Nicola Cheese Eleanor Collinson Sebastian Davenport Shona Davenport Shona DeForest-Brown Aidan Doran Harvey Edwards Isabel

Esselen Nicholas Evans Kate Faulkner Robbie Gibson Yvette Hammersely Izzy Hewapathirana Shashi Hinkley Lara Hoslett Gwennie

Hoslett Megan Kate Evans Kearsey Alex Masterman Robert McCombe Finley Penfold Ciara Penfold Shauna Quick James

Rapley Zak Robinson Luke Taylor-Rose Oliver Thilakawardana Janith Wallis Connor Wilkinson Chelsea Wilkinson Imogen Wilkinson India

The following passed the award just before Christmas

• Frazer Shaw
• Jessica Schweitzer
• Danielle Robinson
• Honor Hodgson
• Hannah Matthews

Badges are available to purchase for this award. Currently the stock is with Jess so please see her on a Saturday to buy a badge.

You will have noticed that the leisure centre have moved our board to make way for a display of swimwear. I have discussed this with the centre and there is no-where else that they can find for the board, so for those that have not spotted it yet it is now to the left of the Godalming Swimming Club board. As compensation we have been given use of the blue board in the spectator area by the pool. I will start to duplicate information but please do try to read both boards just in case I forget to bring two copies of something or run out of space.

Since we are talking about competitive starts, which one of these two would you give the award to?

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/1975990/worst_swimming_pool_jump_ever/

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/1804263/in_the_swimming_pool/

Chris Michael