Stone and District Club News Posts

Nov 4th Gala Events List

Sat, 04 Nov 2023 08:38:32 GMT

SADSC - Newcastle friendly gala

SADSC - Newcastle Gala 4th November 2023 running order can be found here

2022-2023 Club Round up

Mon, 04 Sep 2023 09:30:00 GMT

A quick review of what the club did this year.

A big thanks to everyone for supporting us this year. It’s been a great year for the club and we firmly believe we are going from strength to strength.

Some of our highlights were.

· Krispy Crème doughnuts at Christmas!

· Another great in-house gala, great atmosphere all around, and amazing effort from the members.

· Extension of the session times incorporating 15 minutes of Land training before the in-pool session.

· Fantastic response to our ask for some extra help poolside.

· Grant from Swim England for the purchase of whiteboards for writing session plans.

· Grant from Swim England for the purchase of a projector for showing applicable training videos (That’s why your children keep disappearing into the storeroom !!)

· Our numbers have climbed yet again and we are currently at 95 members. We would love to break the 100 mark!!

· We came out with one of the highest Staffordshire scores (maybe even the highest) in a recent club survey by Swim England, on how the club is run, and have since been asked to make a quotation that can be used in Swim England’s upcoming governance guidelines to be sent out to all clubs nationally.

As we look forward to the next 12 months, we have some upcoming news for the new 2023 – 2024 session, which is very exciting, but we will keep that under wraps just for a little longer.

Many thanks to everyone for supporting Stone and District Swimming Club.

In House Gala Results 2023

Sat, 08 Jul 2023 14:53:44 GMT

Gala 2023 Results

After a fantastic gala last month, we have been able to collate the timing results Check your emails for the full list of timings.

Mayors Visit to SADSC

Sun, 06 Jun 2021 10:29:10 GMT

Stone Town Mayor supporting Stone and District Swimming Club

Stone Town Mayor and Mayoress are paying us a visit.

We are really pleased to announce that we have the Stone Town Mayor and Mayoress attending our event this coming Monday at Stone Leisure Centre to support both the club and the kids in raising money for local causes as part of the Virtual Stone Festival.

This is a great recognition for the effort that all the kids will make on the day, the activities of the club and the support of the parents.

If you have yet to donate anything to one of our three great causes, then we really want to twist your arms now with 24 hours to go.

Don’t forget that our Club sponsors Triband, will be topping up the winning House on the night with a whopping £250.00

For updates on the night on how the houses are doing then follow us on twitter (20) SADSC (@SADSC10) / Twitter

We look forward to your support in helping our local good causes.

For more information on what we are doing click here.

To donate to our house causes click on the images below.

Stone Festival 2021

Wed, 26 May 2021 10:46:52 GMT

SADSC supporting the Stone Virtual Festival 2021

SADSC are going to take part in this year’s virtual Stone Festival on Monday 7 ^th June and raise some money for some great local causes. We hope that our members will have a bit of fun whilst taking part in a great local event.

The details of what we are doing are thus,

The event will be a continuous relay competition between each one of our three houses, Kraken, Poseidon and Neptune.
Each house will be raising money for a different charity or cause.
The house that raises the most money will receive ‘house points’
The house that completes the most relay laps will have the money that they have raised topped up by our club sponsors, Triband, as a winning bonus.

For those that are unfamiliar with our house system, you can find further details here . In addition, if you don’t know what house your child is in you can find out here ;

All we request is that all members turn up as normal for their session and we will do the rest.

The three causes we are supporting are as follows and we would encourage everyone to support your child’s house and please share the information on our Facebook page etc to anyone you can think of.

Neptune: Stone Community Hub - “an independent registered charity dedicated to improving the lives of residents of Stone and its surrounding villages by providing support and advice in times of need “ More about the Stone Hub

Kraken: Stone Festival - “Each year we as a committee are delighted to hand out monies to well known and respected local good causes, many of whom we can all relate to in one form or another”, More about Stone Festival

Poseidon: AEDdonate - “AEDdonate is committed to improving survival from out of hospital cardiac arrests, supporting the placement and use of Automated External Defibrillators (AED) to local communities.” More about AED Donate

On the night we will try to keep you updated on how the houses are doing, and I am sure the lead will change many times during the night.

We look forward to your support in helping our local good causes and please click on the house buttons below to donate to these causes

Return to Swim

Wed, 10 Mar 2021 16:14:02 GMT

Return to Swimming 19th April

We are pleased to announce that the club will reopen on Monday 19 ^th April 2021, assuming that the current Government timeline does not change.

We are really excited to get everyone back in the pool and we hope that members are equally excited.

We have already started a return to swim programme, with the emphasis, as before, on gradually getting everyone’s fitness levels back. Once we are satisfied that everyone is back into the groove, we will restart the Stages and Club levels syllabus.

We will also have to make some changes to the original programme of events, for obvious reasons.

In order to start our planning, we do require knowing who is returning to the club. For this reason, you should have received an email containing a link to a short return to swim form below. If you have not received this form please email us at the usual addresses. The form must be completed by the 9th April.

SADSC Merchandise

Fri, 11 Dec 2020 18:31:50 GMT

Look awesome in your new SADSC clobber

We are pleased to announce our awesome range of SADSC merchandise, in partnership with JS Sports, where we can use you as our free advertising board in return for you looking really cool.

Browse our web shop to kit yourself out and do SADSC proud.

New Committee member

Tue, 30 Jun 2020 18:15:48 GMT

VEEP

We would like to welcome Vikki Simpson to the SADSC Committee and, in particular, for volunteering for the vacant Vice Chair role.

SADSC’s new constitution has a 5 person Executive and since the introduction of this, Mark has been fulfilling two posts, Vice Chair and Registrations – leaving him with a large, time-consuming workload. With this shuffle, Mark continues in the role of, quite possibly the biggest job at SADSC, Registrations Officer, and Vikki becomes the 5th member of the Executive as Vice Chair.

Vikki has also volunteered to come poolside as a part of the coaching team and, in keeping with the new philosophies of SADSC, we will be forwarding her through the various training courses offered by the institute of Swimming.

COVID-19 Temporary Suspension

Sun, 22 Mar 2020 09:03:34 GMT

Stay Safe

Following the news today that the Government is to close all schools, and after receiving advice from Swim England, the club will not be running for the next two Monday sessions, i.e.: the 23rd and 30th of March. This would mean, following the Easter break, that the first session back will be Monday 20th April. However, we will keep this under review in line with on-going events and you will be advised accordingly.

The last session of this term would have been the evening that our swimmers would have received their awards from this term… there is a mighty pile to give out again, due to their hard work. We shall give these out at the earliest opportunity when we come back.

Over the Easter holidays we will update our timetables for the next term. Please look out for this information as members could have different lesson times, stages and coaches.

In addition, we recently sent out an email regarding our participation in this year’s Stone Carnival. We have been informed that the carnival is being postponed until some point towards the end of the year so we will update everyone in due course.

We hope that everyone stays safe and will be ready to start afresh when we return.

2020 SADSC Awards Evening

Fri, 06 Mar 2020 13:18:51 GMT

We cordially invite you on Saturday 28th March 2020

We cordially invite everyone to our awards evening on Saturday 28th March at ‘The Crossing’ community centre, in Stone.

The event is an annual social and fundraising evening where we present our club trophies to various members. This year will be slightly different (you’re probably getting used to things being slightly different by now), in that we will have some categories to present that are not our usual ‘gala’ trophies. This is to make the awards more inclusive to the club as a whole.

For those that have not been to the awards event before, this is a great, fun evening, with food and music which we hope everyone will come along and support.

Tickets are priced at:

• Adults, £5

• Children, £4

• Family Ticket (2 Adults and 3 Children) £20

Volunteer Coaches

Tue, 18 Feb 2020 19:47:43 GMT

We get by with a little help from our friends

As everyone knows, SADSC is volunteer run. Our volunteers give up a few hours of their spare time in the week to coach because of the love of it.

We would love to get TWO more coaches involved but… before you stop reading here(!) I would ask you to keep reading so you understand our situation….

SADSC currently have 5 coaches and we are extremely lucky to have 3 extremely well qualified coaches that other clubs would be very envious of. However, 5 coaches are the absolute minimum that we can effectively operate with whilst keeping everyone sane. It only takes 1 coach to have to go away with work, or a holiday and it puts a strain on the rest of the staff.

We would like to dispel a few preconceptions that people might have:

• I don’t know if I can spare the time, what with work and everything I have to do

It is 1 or 2 hours of your time on a Monday evening and if you are already here watching your child then no time is lost.

• I have never coached before

It is not a problem; we all started that way. You can just come poolside, watch with a coach and take part to gain experience.

• Will I have to get qualified?

At some point we would encourage this, but it does not have to be straight away. It is a professional qualification, which isn’t a bad thing to have.

• Will it cost me anything?

No. You are committing a bit of time to ensure the future of the club, the club will pay for this training in return.

• I wasn’t very good at swimming so won’t make a good coach

There are plenty of awesome coaches out there that never did much swimming themselves.

In many ways it’s the most satisfying 2 hours of the week - to feel like you are helping with a child’s progression. Personally, I find it a great way to switch off from a busy work life and concentrate on something that is a great personal interest.

If you can spare an hour or two, please let us know.

Welcome to SADSC Booklet

Mon, 10 Feb 2020 15:08:53 GMT

Our new booklet of all things SADSC

As part of our commitments to Wavepower, each member should receive an introductory pack, which includes various important information you will need for your time at Stone and District Swimming Club.

To this end we have compiled an information booklet that we will distribute to all current members/parents/carers, which we hope you will find of interest.

If you don't get given one please pick one up from our station in the pool foyer.

Club Levels and your Childs Progression

Sat, 25 Jan 2020 09:03:10 GMT

What comes after 10? 1 apparently.

As your child moves up through the current stages with SADSC, we wanted to share with you as to where they might actually be heading. The traditional levels that most clubs offer are the Swim England Stages, finishing with Stage 10. 95% of our members are in Stage 7 to 10 lessons, however, a small number are in Club Level 1. What are Club Levels? - These are a series of higher levels which enable students to carry on swimming beyond Stage 10. This helps to achieve an even greater proficiency. Currently we have one lane at Club Level 1 and these lanes will expand into the higher club levels as the members complete each stage and naturally move upwards.

In essence, getting to Stage 10 is not the end of your child’s journey, it is very possibly the beginning….

Autumn 2019 Round up

Tue, 17 Dec 2019 17:54:33 GMT

Thanks for supporting us thus far

With the end of our Autumn term we would like to recap on the achievements and changes in the club over these past 4 months. This term really was a sea of change from the old swim school to the new swimming club and has brought about a great many of changes, some you will have seen poolside and many that have happened behind the scenes.

Back in July, the club literally was an hour away from closing. We were faced with half of our teaching staff leaving, all of our lower stages having to be taught elsewhere, our traditional Saturday sessions being taken away from us and half the committee retiring. With some new recruits and a huge positive attitude from those remaining to bring change we decided to carry on.

We took a deep breath in September not knowing the response we were going to get with the new look club, but we have been overwhelmed with the response - increasing our member base, seeing our swimmers progress amazingly well and feeling the positive vibe poolside. Don’t forget, everyone making these changes is a volunteer and they do this in their spare time.

Our list of our achievements this term include:

• Introduction of Swim Management Software

• Moving from paper based to electronic systems

• Online and Credit Card payments

• New Website

• Dedicated SADSC emails

• Introduction of Swim England Club Levels

• Joining the North Staffs Swim Network

• Achieving Swim Mark Accreditation

• Introduction of House Points System

• Introduction of Challenge Awards

• Introduction of Speed Awards

• Overhauling the Club Constitution

• Implementing Wavepower policies

• Giving out badges

• Increasing our membership

• Partnering up with Proswimwear

• Providing SADSC merchandise

We would like to thank everybody for supporting the club and we hope you will continue to do so for years to come.

Website Updates

Sat, 14 Dec 2019 13:25:06 GMT

New changes to our website

It has been about 4 months since SADSC launched its new website and we thought it was time to give you a little overview on the updates we have made since:

• We have added a FAQ page to hopefully answer any questions you may have. This page also gives you information about the equipment you are expected to bring as a member - along with what SADSC provide

• We have added a new page detailing the House points system

• We have added a scroller on the home page informing you of the current points each House has

• We have changed the Rules page to a Policies page. Here you can view all our club policies in accordance with Wavepower

• We have added a link to Proswimear, our equipment partners, on our Store page. Please use the link as, apart from getting some pretty awesome prices, they donate to the club for every purchase

A Great Gala Night

Sat, 14 Dec 2019 13:14:22 GMT

SADSC Inter-house Gala

Thanks to everyone who attended the gala session, it was a huge success - well attended with lots of atmosphere and the jingle of children (along with the odd adult!) with medals round their necks…plus a very cool air horn!

As you know we had changed the format so that everyone went home with something, and the finale inter-house relays provided a fitting end. House Points will be updated shortly.

We would like to thank everyone, the SADSC staff, the parent volunteers, the parents and, of course, the swimmers for a great evening.

Lastly, we would like to thank Amanda White for taking some fantastic photos of the event - some of which we have shared in this newsletter and we will certainly be posting a lot more of them.

Thank you all for supporting SADSC.

New Constitution and Policies

Sat, 16 Nov 2019 13:38:00 GMT

This is a subtitle for your new post

SADSC is a club, and as such is governed by a club constitution along with a set of codes of conduct and policies. As we continue revamping both the external and internal workings of the club one of our priorities was to rewrite all of these in line with Swim England guidelines. All these documents must be verified by Swim England in order for the club to remain an affiliate club. We are pleased, that after much work, we have achieved our letter of acceptance from Swim England approving our re-written constitution.

The next stage is for the club committee to sign it off and then it will be for the AGM to formally accept.

Our ‘Rules’ page, on our website, has been renamed the ‘Policies’ page and all these documents can now be found here.

Click Here to view

New House System

Sat, 16 Nov 2019 13:30:20 GMT

A bit of friendly in-house competition

As you may have noticed, in some of the sessions we have ended with fun relays. Whilst SADSC is not a competition club we would like to add a bit of a competitive dimension for various activities we do over our swimming calendar.

To this end, we are going to introduce a house system with the basic premise that points will be awarded for events during the year with a winning house declared at the end of June. Points will be awarded for;

• Total Distance covered for all house members on distance awards night

• Number of Stage progressions each term

• Attendance

• In house Gala Relay

• Number of challenge awards achieved

• Number of speed awards achieved

• Number of Parents as volunteers

plus other criteria.

There will be three houses, and we will split the member list evenly between the houses, based on current stage levels. Any new members will be allocated a house based on balancing the numbers in each house.

We have not decided on names for these houses - we will decide on names over the coming weeks, but in the meantime, we will use the club colours of Black, Yellow and Blue.

We hope this adds another dimension to the club that helps set us apart from the rest.

SADSC Teams up with Proswimwear

Sun, 03 Nov 2019 18:54:34 GMT

Get some new gear

We are pleased to announce that we have joined up with the popular swimming website https://www.proswimwear.co.uk

This partnership allows us to offer our members some great prices on all types of swimwear and, as part of their affiliate programme, the club receives benefits that allows the provision of further equipment.

You can access the link through the store page on our website, but remember, you must use the link in order for the club to gain any benefit.

Junior Committee Members

Wed, 16 Oct 2019 16:58:14 GMT

Don't let the Oldies do it!

Junior Committee Members,

The club would like to invite two junior members of the club to join us on the committee. We would like to hear the views of the actual swimmers to help shape the club in the future rather than us oldies thinking we know what you want.

The two junior committee member posts would last for year at which point we would reopen applications for this exciting and important role.

We have to set a minimum age of 14 years, as committee meetings are held at the Royal Exchange, normally on Wednesdays, and the latest they could stay would be 9:30pm. We would need parental permission for them to attend.

If anyone is interested in helping us shape our future, they can email chair@sadsc.co.uk and tell us briefly why they are interested in joining the committee. We would like any members who wish to take on this role to register their interest before the end of October.

If we have more than two persons interested, then we will pick names out of a hat.

Our next committee meeting is Wednesday 20th November at 7pm.

Using Fins

Sat, 12 Oct 2019 20:15:57 GMT

Why do we train with swim fins?

As you are aware, from November onwards we will be using Fins in our training routines. Its something the kids enjoy but there are also very real reasons why they help with training and development.

The link below is to a very helpful blog detailing the advantages, and disadvantages, of fins which we hope you find interesting. They explain far better than we ever could…

https://www.yourswimlog.com/training-swim-fins/

Introducing Our Welfare Officer

Sat, 05 Oct 2019 13:26:50 GMT

The importance of being James

In our various recent correspondence and on our new website you might have seen the email address welfare@sadsc.co.uk. This is a dedicated contact email for any parent with any welfare related concerns within the club environment. However, there is a real person at the end of that inbox. Therefore, we would like to introduce James Cox.

James has a wealth of experience being welfare officer with several local clubs and, as such, is a real asset to SADSC and we thank him for volunteering for the post. The welfare officer has to stand at arm’s length to volunteers involved in the day to day running of the club. This is so you, as parents, have confidence that if you ever have need to contact James, you can be assured that it will be confidential and impartial.

And to prove he is a real person, and so you can recognise him if you need to get in touch, here is his best photo!

News ways to Pay

Sun, 01 Sep 2019 19:27:18 GMT

Please be sitting down when you read this post!

Not so long ago the only way you could pay for your child’s lessons with SADSC was cheque or a bag of cash. We are pleased to tell you that we have finally joined the modern age(!) and can now take your fees without the exchange of coinage.

You can pay your fees securely at our online shop on the club website - either by Paypal or Credit/Debit card. You can pay for one term, all terms and multiple children.

You can also pay when you drop your children off using our new chip and pin terminal. Not only do we take all major credit/debit cards, but we also accept both Google and Apple pay.

New ways to contact us

Wed, 21 Aug 2019 20:33:08 GMT

Get hold of who you need to

We have recently set up dedicated email addresses for the swimming club. The current addresses are listed below for the different aspects of the club and we hope this makes for a clearer line of communication with us.

registrations@sadsc.co.uk – For all course enquiries both new and current

treasurer@sadsc.co.uk – For all payment enquires

secretary@sadsc.co.uk – General club questions and help

chair@sadsc.co.uk – For when all else fails

Wearing Goggles

Wed, 21 Aug 2019 20:27:07 GMT

Lets talk goggles

It is imperative that children who wear goggles come with appropriate goggles for their lesson and also know how to adjust them independently. It is also important that your children know how to swim without wearing goggles, so they don’t panic if they were to fall into water unexpectedly out of the controlled pool environment.

Obviously, the teachers will always help the swimmers out if they are having trouble with a particular pair of goggles, but it is important your child knows how to deal with these issues themselves.

We would ask all children and parents to read the Swim England post about this topic.

https://www.swimming.org/learntoswim/wearing-goggles-in-swimming-lessons/

Speed Awards

Wed, 21 Aug 2019 20:19:29 GMT

Swim England Speed Awards

As part of our reassessment of the swimming programme we will be introducing the Swim England Speed awards. These are a series of simple times for completing a 25m distance for various strokes. We will have a couple of individual sessions though out the year in which to measure progress and to see if any achievements have been made. In addition, times achieved at the annual swimming gala will count towards these awards.

Badges will be available after any successful times.

You can find out more information on these awards here;

https://www.swimming.org/learntoswim/asa-speed-awards/

https://shop.swimming.org/awards/Aquatic-Skills-Awards