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This is our first newsletter for some time and we would very much like to make it a regular feature to let you know what is going on at Ringwood Seals Swimming Club. However, I am sure you will appreciate that this requires time to pull together so any volunteers to help out will be very welcome!! Please contact any committee member if you are interested in helping with communications for the club.

We will be putting a list of committee members’ names and pictures on the Board for your information and we do of course have this website where you can find out all the up-to-date information on the club.

Coaching update

We are very pleased to formally welcome back Anne Nugent , Swim Director, after her enforced break for health reasons. This has enabled us to resume our normal swim times, which is fantastic. We would also like to take this opportunity to thank Jeanette Francis who stepped in at short notice to help coach Session 3 whilst Anne was off. Jeanette has offered to continue to coach this session and will therefore be staying on, thank you Jeanette!

Unfortunately Mike Sussman, has recently and reluctantly decided to give up the position of Swim Coach for the club. This is due to his increasing work commitments which mean that he cannot devote the time and energy that this position requires. He is very sad to leave our excellent club (his words) and hopes that he may be able to return to coaching at some time in the future. We would like to take this opportunity to thank Mike for all his hard work and enthusiasm he has shown over the last few years and wish his family and business well. We hope we can welcome him back in the future. This does mean that the role of Swim Coach will not be filled at this time.

Meanwhile though we have good news in that we can formally welcome the following members to the coaching teams. These are:
Alan Manns ( sessions 1 and 2 )
Jill May ( sessions 1 )
Andy Small ( session 1 )
Nicki Bedford ( session 1 )
Richard Lines ( session 1 )
Becky Spry ( session 3 )

We also have 2 of our swimmers who are working towards their Junior Swimming Award. They are Hannah Clancy and Sam Rogers. It’s great to see swimmers wanting to teach, so thanks to you two!

Finally of course we would also thank Annette and Carole who continue to show fantastic commitment and dedication to the club, week in week out.

Well done and thanks to all of you unpaid volunteers, the club would not exist without you.

We are also pleased to be able to confirm that we will be arranging a training course early next year for those coaches that require it, to ensure that the club has sufficient trained coaches with the appropriate qualifications.

Fundraising

Training costs money and as you may remember we received an award of £1000 from JP Morgan which will be used to fund this training. We are also looking at Lottery funding, so fingers crossed.

We are very excited to announce a fundraising opportunity that is happening during November that you as parents can participate in!

Waitrose in Ringwood have selected Ringwood Seals as 1 of the 3 clubs that will benefit under their Community Matters scheme. For those who don’t know how the scheme runs, Waitrose pledge £1000 that is split between 3 worthy causes per month, based on shoppers’ feedback. Shoppers vote for their favourite cause using a green button that they are given at the checkout each time they shop.

So you can help raise money for Seals by shopping at Waitrose during November and voting for us!!

Home championships

In order to help keep our membership fees at the same level we have decided to run the Home Championships at Ringwood this year. This will save us additional pool hire costs.