Perth City Swim Club

Perth City Swim Club

Minutes of 2015 AGM held on 21st Novemberin the Crèche Perth leisure Pool.

Life Members: Sheila Hitchen Monica Duncan Bob Warwick Chris Warwick Susan Coe.

Patrons : James Docherty

Attendees :

Moraig Macdonald, President

Joan Pitts, secretary

Ann Dickson, Head Coach

Gary Thomson, Vice President

John Rough, Entries Secretary

Carole Rough, New swimmer trail Co-ordinator

Graeme Marchbank, Home Gala Convenor

Paula Michie, Social & Fundraising Co-ordinator

Jules Morrison,Social & Fundraising Co-ordinator

Anne Bannerman,Social & Fundraising Co-ordinator

Lynn Mitchell, Volunteer Co-ordinator.

Jennie Cummins, Retiring Merchandise

Christine Cormack, Retiring Membership Secretary

AdwoaBittle, Technical Official Co-ordinator

Jacob Marchbank , Club Captain

Natalie Martin

Richard Norris

Gordon Currie

Michelle Bailey

Ashley Blundell

Lesley McLay

Madeleine Graham

Stuart Queen

Susan Coe

Dougie Brown

Stephen Milne

1 Presidents Remarks

Thanks to everyone for coming along to our 2015 AGM. This is your chance to hear more about the Club’s success over the year, to gain an insight into what goes on behind the scenes, and to find out how you can play a greater part in shaping your Club’s future.

It goes without saying that the success of any volunteer organisation is always closely tied to the ongoing contributions made by its active members. It is great to see so many of you here today, and to have the opportunity to thank you all for everything you have done to support Perth City Swim Club

As ever, I must thank the management committee for the tremendous work they have undertaken. Every Committee member has taken up the role with positivity and fortitude, and it has been a pleasure to work alongside this dedicated, friendly, and cooperative group of individuals throughout 2015.

I would also like to take this opportunity to thank our wider volunteer community. This time last year we faced a real challenge in terms of coaching provision and the development opportunities we were able to provide for our swimmers. Work has now begun to address this, and I am delighted to report that 11 of our poolside helpers undertook the UKCC Level 1 Coach qualification recently. The fact that we were able to fill the course from our own club was a fantastic achievement in itself and for so many to complete the qualification together is truly outstanding. Huge thanks and well done to all our excellent candidates, and to our volunteer coordinator, Lynne Mitchell for her admirable organisational skills. There is much we still need to do to ensure a prosperous future, but this commitment has allowed us to take advantage of additional water time at Kilgraston School to underscore our existing development programme

Our swimming technical officials continue to provide robust support at every meet the club attends, particularly the Midland District competitions. There can be no doubt that, without the continued support of this equally dedicated group, within the club and beyond, competitive swimming would cease to exist, at any level. It is always exciting to see our athletes reap the rewards they deserve after all the hard work that goes into their sport, at every stage of their journey. I have had the good fortune to be present at numerous District, National, and British events in the last year, including the IPC Swimming World Championships in Glasgow in July. I was lucky enough to witness several British medals being awarded there, and the experience was an inspiring and uplifting event to attend. Susan Coe and Scott Milne, two of our club officials were both selected as International Technical Officials for this competition, having completed the training to become registered ITOs Judge of Stroke L1. Susan was Perth City’s first Referee, and I am delighted to report that Susan has been selected for the IPC Swimming European Championships in Funchal in May 2016,following on from her previous selections for the Paralympics in London, World Championships in Montreal, and this year’s event in Glasgow. Scott’s first undertook sto training with Perth City as part of the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award Scheme, progressing through the stages to join Susan as one of our licensed British Swimming referees in February 2014. His first International IPC competition was the European Championships in 2014, and he has been selected to attend the Paralympics in Rio in September 2016

Looking towards the future, the executive has taken the first steps downthe pathway towards achieving Scottish Swimming’s SwiMark+ accreditation mark. This will serve to

Ann Dickson, our Head Coach, will present her performance report shortly. Ann has had another exceptionally busy year, reflecting the continued and growing success of our swimmers. She was again recognised for her contribution to our sport as she received the Sport Tayside and Fife Coach of the Year Award in December 2014. She was shortlisted for the Scottish Women in Sport Coach of the Year Award, which took place at Hampden last night. As ever, the club is dependent on Ann for her knowledge and experience, and our role as a management committee remains to provide the resources required to support her programme. I am sure you will all agree that Ann is the backbone of the club, and will join with me in thanking her for her time and commitment

Proposed by Gary Thomson

Seconded by Graeme Machbank.

2 Apologies

The following apologies have been received:

Chris and Bob Warwick

Julie Jenkins

Carol McPartland

Mike and Hamish Milne

Adrienne Thomson

Sheila Hitchen

Caroline Brown

3. Minutes 2014

Minutes for 2014 were discussed and approved. Proposed by John Rough

Seconded by Graeme Marchbank

4 Secretary’s Report

Good morning, if I could please ask everyone to sign the attendance sheet which is going around the room, I would be very grateful.

This has been my second year as secretary and as last year it has been a busy year with lots of emails and information coming in. I have always expressed that technology is not my strongest point but I have endeavoured to send out information and pass on messages to the appropriate people and deal with things as efficiently as possible. I have to say that I am inspired by Moraig Macdonald who works so hard as president of this club and I could not have managed as secretary without her support.

We are a relatively small club with a membership of approx. 221, 141 of those being swimmers, but it is evident from the contact we have from others we are very well-respected. This is really due to the efforts of our coaches, committee, volunteers and of course not forgetting our swimmers!

I am at the stage where my own family are now part of the older age group in the club and I realise the efforts of our coaches, their guidance and perseverance to help our children improve and reach their potential. This could not happen without all the volunteers and the efforts of the committee to ensure the club runs as best it can.

The committee has so many jobs to do, ensuring the club adheres to rules and regulations, making sure we have officials, volunteers and that all of these people have the correct training, and checks.

There are always forms and paperwork to complete. Training sessions and courses have been organised and completed in many areas this year. Courses for our officials and this year our Volunteer coordinator managed to organise a level 1 coaching course which has been very successful. We now have 23 coaches and 70 sto’s/volunteers. . (54 pure STO’s, 13 coaches who are also STO’s as well and 10 other pure coaches. There are also 3 pure volunteers which totals 80 take that away from total membership of 221 gives you 141 swimmers. )

We were able to run a workshop on Corporate Governance and a Planning meeting, both of these were taken by Sean Dawson our Regional Swimming Development Manager. He made them stimulating and interesting for those that attended. These are required in our attempts to take the club forward to achieve SwiMark plus.

The committee have attend various meeting throughout the year, the Scottish swimming AGM 28th Jan 2015 was attended by Lynn Mitchel , Jules Morrison and John Rough on the clubs behalf making sure we have our say and are kept up to date with decisions affecting our club. Graeme Marchbank also attended as he is on the Board of Scottish Swimming.

We have a strong presence in the Midland District with John Rough as President, Chris Warwick as secretary, Lynn Mitchel as minutes secretary and Moraig Macdonald who has continued this last year to be Championship Convenor as no one as yet has volunteered to take over this role, she is also the SASA Council Representative. Gary Thomson also attended the Sports council AGM on 14thMay and Reagan Doig was awarded the Sports Development Team Disability Sports Person of the Year at their annual sports council awards dinner in March.

The Scottish Swimming Annual Award Evening was on Sat 19th September at the Assembly Rooms Edinburgh and a small group, Moraig and family members, along with Lesley and Scott Mclay attended this.

Along with all this, are the usual tasks of ensuring the clubs finance, memberships and bookings are all kept in order. Licences and bookings are needed for the Leagues and again meetings to attend. We continue to enrol new swimmers and of course our swimmers continue to be successfully entered in to competitions. We don’t hold too many competitions here in Perth but those we have, have been very successful due to the willing band of organisers. We have always been good at providing officials, supporting our swimmers and ensuring galas can be run and accredited.

There have been a lot of fun times, many of these made more enjoyable by our social and fundraising coordinators who always seem to have another project coming up. We have an amazing group of people who have worked very hard to keep our children swimming and progressing in this sport and of course hopefully enjoying themselves.

As I said last year, being on the committee certainly opens your eyes to the amount of work everyone does in this club. It is so important that the club has a committee to back up all that goes on, supporting our coaches and letting our children experience the excitement of being a swimmer.

I hope that some of you here will consider becoming part of the committee, look in to what role you possibly could do and speak to the people doing it at the moment. If everyone considers doing their little bit we will continue to be a well thought of and respected club with great coaches and amazing swimmers!

Joan Pitts

Secretary PCSC

Proposed by Moraig Macdonald

Seconded by Gary Thomson

5 Treasurer’s Report.

Perth City Swim Club - 2015

The club incurred a surplus for the year to 31 October 2015 of £2,276 with income of £73,489 exceeding costs of £71,212. However the Head Coach’s expenses for the year of £2,875 were submitted too late for inclusion and will therefore be included in next year’s accounts. The surplus in the previous year was £1,358.

The cash book balance at the year-end was £24,493 and hence the club remains financially strong. This balance is all held with Royal Bank of Scotland in a Treasurers Account.

Subscriptions:

We have a surplus of £524 this year. The subscription money of £60 from our swimmers goes towards paying SASA membership fees (currently £43 for a swimmer and £10 for Club Volunteers, coaches and technical officials) and Midland District Per Capita fee which is currently £3 for all club members.

The Committee proposes that the subscription fee remains unchanged at £60 for our swimmers and that the club continues to pay the fees for our Club Volunteers, coaches and technical officials.

Training:

The monthly training fees are used to pay all pool hire costs, the salary and expenses of our Head Coach and to also assist the club to meet additional costs, such as the bus hire for the leagues teams.

Our income has just covered our costs this year given that the Head Coaches expenses are not reflected in the results for 2014/2015.

Given our current bank balance, the Committee proposes that there will not be an increase in monthly training fees for 2016 unless P&K Leisure or Kilgraston School implement any increases on pool hire charges.

Entry fees:

Entry fees paid to the organising clubs/District should broadly be covered by entry fee income, however, as the club meets relay team entry costs and the costs of coaches meals / poolside passes etc, there will always be a shortfall.

The shortfall this year is £2,241; this is partly due to timing however, where events have been paid for in advance by the club, but the entry fees are not yet due from the swimmers. Overdue meet fees at 31st October amounted to £317.

There is still unfortunately a significant number of people who are not adhering to the current payment policy of entry fees being due within 7 days of a gala taking place and subsequently unnecessary time is spent chasing payment.

Fundraising:

This year was highly successful again with the total contribution to Club funds being £3,537.

The sponsored swim raised £1,541, the smartie tubes £575 and the Ceilidh had a surplus of £644.

Other contributions were £297 from the sale of programmes and raffle at the Club Championships, £192 from donations for Gary Thomson’s photos, £63 from the Easyfundraising initiative and £225 from the annual duck race and BBQ.

Other:

We have a profit of £851 on merchandising in the accounts; this is largely because we started the year with stock of our new kit.

The Training course income and expenditure is in respect of the 11 people who undertook the Level 1 coaching course this autumn.

Cyprus expenditure exceeded income as the club met the cost of the Head Coach’s flight and accommodation expenses.

Campbell Dallas LLP, Chartered Accountants acted as Independent Examiner for these accounts and I recommend that Campbell Dallas LLP be reappointed as Independent Examiners for 2016.

Julie Jenkins

Honorary Treasurer

Proposed by Graeme Marchbank

Seconded by Gary Thomson

Accounts signed by Moraig Macdonald and Gary Thomson.

6 Repot from Head Coach

Ann Dickson, Head Coach. Report AGM 2015

As we approach the end of 2015 and reflect on the past 11 months it has again been very successful with the high performance end of the club reaching new heights. Three swimmers have represented GB at international level which is an incredible achievement for such a small club with poor training facilities which hold back the overall development of the club. It again highlights that if our club members make the most of the opportunities they are given, success IS POSSIBLE.

On my return from Perth Australia last January I transferred some of my coaching to the development end of the club. Going to toKilgraston on Mondays & Thursdays, to set up additional training for some of the club’s younger swimmers. Lack of pool time at Perth has always meant that our development pathway is somewhat limited and is why our swimmers tend to be older before they begin to make an impact at Scottish level. Good technique development at an early age is vital if swimmers are to progress to the elite end of our sport.

This initiative at the development end also coincided with an effort to develop more qualified coaches as I indicated last year that success at the top end is taking me away from the club at a few points in the season and in order to ensure the club as a whole doesn’t suffer there needs to be more helpers. I must at this point say a massive thank you to many people who have assisted me through the year. Moraig Macdonald, Carole Rough, Chris Warwick, Susan Coe, Cat Hunter, Mairi McIntosh, Jules Morrison, Ann Hewitt have all stepped in at times ably assisted by many of our new coaches who have recently qualified as level 1 coaches. I am excited about the number of qualified coaches we now have and this can only be good for the future.

I must also make special mention to Karen Todd and Jenni Cummins who were responsible for the land sessions on a Tuesday evening as part of the P&K squad until summer. Karen has organised these sessions for a number of years and I would like to convey my thanks to her as this is one of the unseen things that goes un-noted. Richard Norris has taken on this since August and is trying to ensure that the swimmersgeneral fitness levels allow them to maximise their training in the pool.

Another initiative which has been going on in the background for the last 18 months is a joint venture with the rugby club to share their strength and conditioning coach. This affects our older swimmers as it is now possible to move from the general land conditioning session on Tuesday to develop more specific strength by incorporating the use of weights. This link has been developed with the help of Andy Cummins and has been noted by Sports Scotland this year as the rugby club were filmed for the good practice demonstrated in developing this joint initiative with in the local community.