Update from the Chair
Update from the Chair, June 2024
Events Coming Up:
13/14th July 2024 - Derby Excel Summer Sizzler Open meet – Moorways
20-26th July - British Swimming Summer Championships – Ponds Forge
Monday 29th July to Sat 3rd August - English Nationals
Sunday 15th September - Derby Excel/Repton Season Opener sprint meet at Moorways
Adam Peaty Race Clinic – date TBC, likely to be one Wednesday in September
Summer Break
Last session Wednesday 31st July, (training sessions are available for national qualifiers on 1st and 2ndAugust)
First session back Tuesday 27th August.
Summer Sizzler Meet
This is next weekend at Moorways, with heats and finals for 50m and 100m events. Good luck to everyone competing! We will have SportySwim there selling swimming kit and equipment, and Butlers engraving to engrave your medals!
We are still short of volunteers – no previous experience necessary, please come along and help, it’s very rewarding being part of the team delivering these meets, and without helpers we wouldn’t be able to run these events. If you can help, please email Rachel Male: [email protected]
We need a few more officials – if you are interested in training as an official, you can shadow someone at our meet to see what goes on! Again no experience needed. Please email [email protected]
We are having a raffle, please bring any prizes along to the timing suite any day, or give to Rachel Male or any of the coaches. Bottles and chocolates more welcome J
Workforce Update
Derby Excel has three Trustees who oversee the running of our club – Babs Ingram (Chair), Pippa Hibbs (Secretary) and Nisha Bains (Treasurer). We have a working committee who help run the club, thank you to each and every one of you who help out in any way, we are so grateful for your support. We have a couple of vacancies:
Can anyone help us with press releases and social media posts?
Our Performance Pathway membership secretary Mike Hase will be standing down at the end of the season, if anyone can take this role on, please email Mike for more information: [email protected] or Babs: [email protected]
We are a SwimMark accredited club: https://www.swimming.org/swimengland/swimmark-accreditation-for-clubs/
We need a volunteer to prepare us for our next SwimMark (which won’t be for a while!) but again if you can help please email us.
Grant Applications
We frequently receive information inviting us to apply for various grants, can you help us apply for these please? Does anyone have experience in doing this? Please email: [email protected]
Presentation Night and Party
Saturday 7th September at Rolls Royce – ALL WELCOME!
This is open to ALL members of Derby Excel, whether or not you took part in the Club Championships. There will be food to purchase (pizzas etc), then a disco after the presentation of club awards.
Please come along – it promises to be a very fun night, and a chance for us to celebrate the achievements of last season by our incredible swimmers.
Pathway swimmers are very welcome! There are awards for your squads as well!
In addition to Club Championships trophies/prizes, the following prizes will be awarded:
Swimmers Swimmer of the Year - 1x per Squad
Coaches Swimmer of the Year - 1x per Squad
Most Improved Swimmer - 3x total (Perf Squads/Excel+AgeGroup/Dev+Academy)
Performance Swim of the Year - 1x male/1x female
Club Swim of the Year - 1x male/1x female
Trophies
We are keen to increase the number of trophies the club have and present every year – if you or your company want to donate a trophy, which can be named after you/your swimmer/your company, please contact Babs: [email protected]
iPad
We have heart rate monitors which need to an iPad to process the information – does anyone have an unwanted/old iPad they can donate to us please?
Schools Gala
A schools gala was held at Moorways last month, which was very well supported and a lot of fun. Our Director of Swimming John Adye did a presentation to swimmers, supported by our British Champion swimmer Georgie Pryor.
We ran a taster session on the back of this, and had 28 swimmers come for a trial with us, 21 of which have been offered places. Thanks to all involved.
Our next taster session will be in October.
We will also launch a ‘Refer a Friend’ scheme next season, more details to follow.
Parent/Swimmer Talks
We’ve been running a series of talks to parents and swimmers on a variety of topics, including nutrition and how to be a swim parent! Thank you to Wendy Flint and Leanne Whittle for their help with these. Their talks are on the website in the Members only section.
Another topic we intend to cover soon is swimmers and periods, how they impact swimmers, and how to manage them. More information to follow but meanwhile this podcast might be helpful, by Hannah Miley, ex Olympian:
New Timetable and Training Fees
You’ll have seen that we have a new timetable from September, including changes to some squads. There are some alterations, taking into account the various squad numbers and abilities we currently have.
We currently benefit from a discount on our pool fees, but this is being phased out unfortunately. From June, Everyone Active are charging us an additional £30,000 for identical pool time compared to last year, which is causing us some major financial pressure. Fortunately we have had some very successful Open meets this year, which has helped meet this shortfall, but we are still having to tighten our belts and make sure all pool time is used effectively. We’ve had to let some of our pool time go, mainly in the mornings, as it was being under-utilised which was costing the club a lot of money.
We will be increasing training fees from September, mostly by an inflationary amount, but also taking into account the hours each of the new squads are training. We feel the fees charged are fair and appropriate – we are fortunate to train in an exceptional facility with an outstanding coaching team.
Social Events
We have a newly appointed social secretary: Lawrie Johnstone. Welcome Lawrie.
Lawrie has some great ideas for social events for early next season, we will circulate details in due course!
Moorways Housekeeping
Please do not enter or exit via the fire doors near the timing suite. This is strictly prohibited by Everyone Active.
As per Swim England rules, there is to be no use of phones in changing rooms whatsoever. Breaching this rule will lead to sanctions being taken.
There is some lost property in the room behind the timing suite – various items of clothing and some drinking bottles. If you think anything might be yours, please ask the coaches to check in the room for you.
And Finally…
Thanks to our hard working coaching team, our Trustees, Committee members, squad reps, Team Managers, and everyone has volunteered their time to Derby Excel over the past 12 months.
Good luck to everyone for your end-of-season meets, we wish you every success!
Babs Ingram
Chair, Derby Excel
