Burnham-On-Sea Swimming Club has welcomed Sarah Price, a double Olympian and Double Commonwealth Gold medallist, to their presentation night.
Sarah was delighted to join the club to celebrate their 41st year and present over 80 event trophies with silver and bronze medals to swimmers aged from 4 to 53 years.
This year’s main club trophies were presented to Emma Fellows, Most Improved Swimmer 12/u, Sophie Wills, Most Improved Swimmer 13/o, Josie Hooper, Swimmer of the Year 12/u and Tom Dollery, Swimmer of the Year 13/o. The overall Swimmer of the Year aeward went to Alicia Pollard.
The June Youle Founders Trophy was awarded to Nathan Clarke and the Maude Shield awarded to Chris Wood both were to acknowledge their commitment to the club and volunteering, not just for the club but in Somerset and the South West region.
The Club Captains presented their award to Lauren Treharne for her dedication to training recognised that she was a great swimmer to teach.
The Captains also acknowledged the younger swimmers in the club’s ‘learn to swim’ groups and commented that they are the future of the club.
The Chairman’s Trophy was awarded to Mark Podbury for his commitment and effort for the last three years, introducing an additional swimming night to support swimmers who want to achieve better times and for encouraging more swimmers to participate in Open Meets.
Sarah recognised all the swimmers but also all the club volunteers who make the club function. Swimmers were asked to go and find a volunteer, parent or grand parent to thank them for supporting them with their swimming – it created ten minutes of chaos, but was very worthwhile!
The new Club Captain and Vice-Captain T Shirts were presented by Bob Boyd who funded them. They were awarded to this year’s Captains Josie Dollery and Nathan Clarke; and to the Vice-Captains Chris Wood and Issy Baines.
Following the presentation night Sarah ran a workshop for 30 club swimmers on the Saturday morning, all swimmers changed and ready on poolside for 7.30am; the session included an hour and half pool time with challenges, reminders about drills and how to make small changes to train smarter.
Then came the dry side challenges where Sarah concentrated on refining skills in preparation for galas and other events, visualising, relaxing, preparing, confidence building and even a new club chant which will be heard at galas in the future.
Many prizes were won throughout the morning which delighted all swimmers. Sarah spent time signing hats and T shirts and talking to the swimmers about her experience on the World swimming stage, her highs and her lows, and what kept her going.
The swimmers were equally impressed to see Sarah’s medals and finally all posed for some great photos to remember the occasion.
“The club thank Sarah for the time she spent in Burnham, it has motivated our swimmers, given them something to think about, and helped them understand that despite the amount of lengths you swim you can still be winners with the right attitude, planning and preparation,” said Kelly Podbury, club spokeswoman.
“On behalf of Burnham-on-Sea Swimming Club and Sarah Price we would like to thank and acknowledge all of our swimmers, parents and grandparents for supporting us this last year.”
“We would also like to thank all the volunteers who make the club a great place to work, in particular our Young Volunteers who work hard with us despite the challenges of juggling their work and school commitments.”
“Thank you to Hannah Gosling, Holly Baines, Hannah Bray, Nathan Clarke, Chris Wood, Shaun Wood, Alicia Pollard, Issy Baines, Ellie Wills and Lewis Crosby.”
The week before the club ran their annual Club Championship event at Brean Splash, resulting in 416 individual swims, 90 personal best times and 137 first time swims in all events.
