What do officials do?

Why are officials needed?

To run a meet it needs to comply with Swim England licencing. This means that it needs qualified officials in place to ensure that a meet runs smoothly and fairly according to World Aquatics rules.
Officials are mostly the parents of swimmers in the club.
That means that we always need a bank of officials to volunteer their time.
Older swimmers (14+) are welcome to start their journey to becoming officials too - looks great on CVs and university applications.

Duties: Timekeeper, Chief Timekeeper and Inspector of Turns. They're based at either end of the pool and they observe starts, turns and finishes, as well as recording manual times via a stopwatch.
You'll need to pass your Timekeeper assessment, an online training module and gain practical experience working on the poolside with a mentor and complete a workbook.
You'll be assessed by a Referee and asked questions about applying the rules.
When you pass this, you're officially a licensed official!

Duties: Observe swimmers' stroke technique per World Aquatics rules
The minimum age is 16 years, and you must have already qualified as Judge Level 1 with 20 hours of experience in that role.
You'll need to pass an online training module, gain practical experience working on the poolside with a mentor, and complete a workbook.
You'll be assessed by a Referee and asked questions about applying the rules.

Duties: Responsible for fair starts to each race per World Aquatics rules
You'll need to be a Level 2 judge and have completed at least 20 hours of post-qualification experience.
Training is via a prescribed number of practical experiences as a Starter and a formal practical assessment.

Duties:: In overall charge of the race and meet
You'll need to be 19+ (as long as you are 20 at 30th November in the year of the theory examination) with poolside experience at Judge Level 1 and Judge Level 2 and qualified as Judge Level 2S for at least 1 year with a minimum of 10 hours post qualification experience in that role at the time of application.
This course contains theoretical instruction and practical experience. It is followed by a formal examination in November, after which successful candidates take a final poolside practical assessment leading to qualification as a British Swimming Referee.

Parents are often discouraged by the idea that they will have to DQ (disqualify) swimmers, but the truth is that, unless you are a referee, no, you don't!
If you see something that doesn't look right, your job is to report this to the Referee, and they will decide in accordance with the Worldr Aquatics rules.