Author: Adrian Bell

Thanks very much to Australian swimming legend Ian Thorpe for visiting us at Drummoyne Swimming Club last Saturday.

Ian’s visit was as Patron of REACHOUT.COM as a result of our fundraising efforts in the Laps for Life Challenge.

ReachOut is the most accessed online mental health service for young people and their parents in Australia.

https://about.au.reachout.com/home

Noah Hale, pictured above with Ian was the club’s and Swimming NSW’s largest affiliated fundraiser.

Ian spoke brilliantly about REACHOUT.COM, his experiences and challenges as a swimmer and life in general. He offered some wonderful tips on both swimming and getting the most out of life.

A very attentive crowd for a change!

The Mayor’s Canada Bay Cup was swum and won last Saturday and this year’s champion team were from Drummoyne. Mayor Angelo was happy to hand the trophy over to some locals this summer.

Thanks to Mayor Angelo for presenting the trophy with Ian Thorpe.

Congratulations to all participants for a well swum race, including to our visitors from the Boolaroo Speers Point Swimming Club on Lake Macquarie.

We have a big and varied day at the pool for the second last week of swim club. As well as the regular racing program, we have the great Ian Thorpe visiting us, we have a monster raffle and we have a morning tea.

In the pool

Championship race	100M Backstroke Championship
Short distance Freestyle	100M Freestyle Molly Wark & Les Henry U/10 100m Freestyle – Week 6 35 and Over 100m Freestyle – Week 6
Long Distance Event	200M Freestyle
Relay	The Mayor’s Canada Bay Cup We’re joined this year by a group of swimmers from Boolaroo Speers Point Swimming Club on Lake Macquarie. Mayor Angelo Tsirekas will present the trophy to the winning team.

Out of the pool

Ian Thorpe

Ian Thorpe is visiting us as the Patron of REACHOUT.com after our excellent fund raising efforts last season in the Laps for Life Challenge. Ian will talk about the wonderful work that Reachout.com does on youth mental health. Following that Ian will assist Mayor Angelo to start the Canada Bay Cup and present the trophy. Ian will then stick around for a short while to meet swimmers and pose for photos.

Swimmers from Boolaroo Speers Point swimming club who also raised an extraordinary amount of money in the Laps for Life challenge will be joining us as well. It is great to be able to share Ian’s visit with them.

Huge Raffle

This week we have a huge raffle to close out fund raising efforts for the season: This week’s prizes include:

• 4 x Box tickets to watch the GWS Giants at Spotless Stadium. This prize has very generously been donated by Channel 7 and is valued at over $1,500.00
• A Learn to Sail voucher donated by Drummoyne Sailing Club. This is also a great prize and the Learn to Sail course provides an excellent introduction to sailing.
• A Ribs&Burgers Voucher
• A box of Vegan Chocolates
• A pair of Budgy Smugglers
• A bottle of wine

Morning tea

After swimming we’ll have a morning tea to meet and mingle with Ian and our visitors from Lake Macquarie. Lynette Brown has secured a supply of chocolates. Please bring a plate or cake to share.

New Registrar and Treasurer needed for next season

Swim club is a success because of the hard work put in by the volunteers that help run it. Every contribution is important, be it informal jobs like helping out with timing and setting up and packing up on Saturday through to the more formal jobs that come with being part of the club’s management committee.

After many years of service two committee members will be handing over the baton after this season.

Michael Donnellan our Registrar is stepping aside from that role. Michael has, on our behalf, successfully wrestled with the beast that is Swim Central to sort out our registration and membership data. Thankfully the system is much more user friendly these days for swimmers and the Registrar.

Phil Hayward has ably handled the accounts as Treasurer and will leave the role with the club in a strong financial position. Phil will continue with his other roles at the club – coaching and refereeing.

Thanks to both Michael and Phil for their contributions in the roles of Registrar and Treasurer.

The Registrar and Treasurer roles will need to be filled ahead of next season. If you think that you have the skills and capacity to assist with either of these roles please reach out to Adrian on 0424 561 831 for more information.

This week is a week to sort the real swimmers from pretenders. It’s a tough program with Butterfly and the Medley. At least there is a 50M Freestyle to keep the rest of us interested.

The program starts with the 200M Medley Championship races. A nice way to start the morning!

This will be followed by the 50M Freestyle event.

Then we have our last perpetual trophy for the season with the final of the  Fred Congdon 50m Butterfly (H’cap). Duncan Lyon won the trophy last season. WIll he bring the trophy back and hand it over?

This season’s finalists are:

1656	Yunos YAQUB
1587	Jude WILSON
1389	Hayden HOWARD
1357	Zoe ROMANIUK

Good luck to you all!

Regular Butterfly events will follow.

Upcoming

19 March	Ian Thorpe visit and Canada Bay Cup
26 March	End of season fun day
14 May	Presentation night

A full write up of the Battle on the Bay has has already been published here and results are available here. But here are a selection of photos to bring back some memories from a great day. [Apologies to everyone I missed or took a blurry photo of]

We’ve got a big weekend of swimming with regular swim club in the morning followed by the Battle on the Bay in the afternoon. I hope you are all feeling fit!

This week’s events

This week we have two hundred metre races with 100M Freestyle and the 100M Championship race as well as the 400M Freestyle.

CHAMPIONSHIP – 100m Breaststroke

Molly Wark & Les Henry U/10 100m Freestyle – Week 5

35 and Over 100m Freestyle – Week 5

400M Freestyle (plus 4 x 50M, 4 x 30M and 4 x 20M)

Battle on the Bay

We’ve amassed a very healthy team to swim in the 13th edition of the Battle on the Bay. It’s great to be hosting the event. Saturday afternoon promises to be a lot of fun even if it is raining cats and dogs. So get ready to scream your lungs out in support of your fellow Drummoyne swimmers!

As well as racing we will using the event as our major fund raiser for the year. We’re:

• Putting on a Ribs & Burgers BBQ. Our generous sponsor Ribs & Burgers are supplying the produce and a team of DSC chefs will be cooking up a storm of Beef and Vegan burgers.
• Holding a monster raffle with over $2000 worth of prizes
• We’ll also be collecting money for Laps 4 Life

Upcoming Events

6 March 2022 – Clean Up Australia Day

19 March 2022 – Ian Thorpe Visit to swim club

26 March 2022 – Last day of swim club: 800M Championship and family fun day

March is upon us and it’s time to get going with the Drummoyne Swimming Club Team in the Laps for Life Challenge. We’re raising money in support of youth mental health.

Laps for Life is a swimming challenge that raises money to support youth mental health initiatives by Reachout.com.

Sign up here – https://www.lapsforlife.com.au/fundraisers/drummoyneswimmingclub.

We’ve set a club challenge and, over the course of March, we’ll use Adult and Junior Squads to meet our collective goal. Please sign up and seek donations from friends and family along the way.