Many of you have already heard the rumours or indeed seen the posting on facebook by NSW Masters that the North Sydney Carnival will be cancelled this year. NSW Masters became more stringent in their sanctioning process this year and as we have always been stretched to get the minimum of four accredited officials from within our own club for sanctioning, this year was not different and in the eyes of NSW Masters Swimming we did not meet this minimum criteria. The official letter that was sent to the NSW Masters Swimming on behalf of the committee has been sent with this announcement to all members via email (club email).
The committee met and voted on this urgent decision last Wednesday and while we could find many reasons to cancel the carnival, we could find very few to run it this year with the issues we were having. Please give the letter a read and if you as a member of the club believe we have not properly represented the interests of the membership, please let a member of the committee know. It does come down to sharing a workload among all of our members for events like this and a small core group cannot pull it off. So, if you are disappointed that you don’t get to swim at a North Sydney carnival this year, help us make it happen again in the future. There are a few ways you can help:
1. Try out some of the other local meets in the year. All of the BPS carnivals are good fun, relatively small and not too serious – a great introduction into the competitive side of swimming for first-time racers. The full calendar for 2015 is posted on the NSW Masters Swimming site here: http://www.mastersswimmingnsw.org.au/Portals/41/Documents/Flyers/2015/Calendar%202015.pdf
2. Start thinking about becoming an accredited technical official for the future. While not too difficult, it does require some volunteer hours at meets that you attend. Full details are on the NSW Masters Swimming site here: http://www.mastersswimmingnsw.org.au/Programs/Courses-for-Officials
3. Think about what role you could play at a future carnival. The role of the Meet Director is perfectly suited to anyone who has managed a project before. It requires communication with lots of people and keeping track of them. This year, Mel Speet’s father, Phil, kindly assisted in the role. He spent quite some time trying to work with NSW Masters to make this carnival work and we have thanked him for his effort with a bottle of bubbly.
4. Have your say in the future – at least 50% of our committee have been members for 5 years or more. This is not because they are monopolizing their roles, simply because no one else has volunteered to step into the position. There will be several open positions come April/ May when we have our AGM, so if you are interested, please let a committee member know so we can vote for you at the AGM! If you are really interested, you can read a synopsis of the various roles and responsibilities at this link: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B7Pyg1wlp-12WjRTWW1GMUVrRlk&authuser=0
In the meantime, we are investigating the possibility of having a non-sanctioned, less formal ‘dual meet’ with one other club later this year. This is still in very early idea stages and we will let you know more if this plan comes through.
We are sorry to be the bearer of bad news and hope to bring better news in the near future!
On behalf of the committee,
Christina Echols