On Friday club night Stowmarket Swimming Club's Chairman, Trevor Connick, presented Bobbie Wilson with a picture to mark her 60 th year with Stowmarket swimming Club. Bobbie joined the club in 1947 and learnt to swim in the old out door pool situated off Ipswich Road Stowmarket. In those days the pool opened each season from May to September and was unheated. In 1986 Bobbie moved with the club to the new Mid Suffolk Leisure Centre.

Bobbie is a qualified swimming teacher and teaches at the centre, she is also qualified to take courses and examine prospective swimming teachers. Bobbie was also the first ASA Nationally qualified referee in Suffolk a great honour, and is also qualified to examine new officials.

Bobbie is currently the club president a position she has also held at County Level in Suffolk and is well regarded at all levels in the sport for her knowledge and commitment to swimming.

Bobbie has been teaching adults and children with disabilities or 30 years. This has also included teaching swimming in special needs schools. Bobbie has been a great campaigner in raising funds for special needs facilities.

Bobbie continues to compete in Masters Galas and most recently competed for Suffolk in the Regional Inter-county gala at Peterborough in November, swimming in the 65-74yeras class achieving a 3 rd place in 50m breaststroke in a time of 1.13.85, 3 rd in 50m fly in 1.18.55 and 4 th place in 50m front crawl in 58.18.

Stowmarket “A” and “B” teams competed in the first round of this season's Winter League swimming galas on Saturday night in Division 1 and Division 2 respectively. Stowmarket “A” hosted teams from Saxons “A”, Lowestoft & Oulton Broad “A” and Halstead “A” at the Mid Suffolk Leisure Centre in Stowmarket. The Stowmarket “A” and Lowestoft “A” swimmers competed for top honours throughout the evening and there were many closely fought races. Many of the Stowmarket swimmers achieved big personal best (pb) times, notably Sophie Long with a 12 second pb in the 200m breaststroke 13/14 years (3.07.34), and 17 second pb in the 200m individual medley 13/14 years (2.55.12), Rebecca Dormer with a 19 second pb in the 200 individual medley 12/under (3.06.60) and Jamie Crosthwaite gaining a 14 second (pb) in 200m freestyle 12/under (2.36.55). The 17 member Stowmarket “A” team achieved a total of 19 pb's and 22 qualifying times for next years County Championships out of 30 individual swims. By the end of the evening the Stowmarket boys team won with 86 points, Lowestoft were 2 nd with 78 points. The positions were reversed for the girls' event, Lowestoft gained 93 points and Stowmarket with 78 points. The overall winner on the night was Lowestoft “A” with a combined total of 171 points, Stowmarket “A” were second with 162 points, Saxons “A” 3 rd with 126 points and 4 th was Halstead “A” on 120 points.
Team Manager Sylvia Harrison said that the whole team performed very well and was very pleased to see the many personal best times after all the hard work the team have put in to training recently.

Stowmarket “B” swimming at Halstead had an even more successful evening winning the gala with a total of 142 points, Hadleigh were second with 132 points, Leiston third on 127 points, Halstead “B” came fourth with 116 points and Sudbury fifth with 108 points. 20 pbs were achieved out of the 30 swims and 8 County Championship qualifying times. Team manager Tom Harrison said the whole team had swam very well.

Done Neate East Region president and

James King – 50m breaststroke junior record holder

Stowmarket 4x100m relay team of James Christopher, David, Shaun and Adam

From now until the end of January we will earn an extra 25 pence for every tranactions made in the Webshop. The Webshop has only been open a few weeks and we have already made £3.06 from just two transactions.

You don't even need to spend any money to earn the Club cash - just completing a survey earns the club 90p and we even can earn money when search for a new or used car.

When your doing your christmas shopping remeber to use the Stowmarket Swimming Club Webshop to earn your Club extra money.

Exciting news! We're delighted to announce our fundraising webshop. When shopping online, you can access over 100 leading retailers using our webshop. Every time you use our webshop when shopping online, you'll automatically earn money for us! You don't pay anything extra by using our webshop, so please try to use it whenever you can.

Find our webshop at www.buy.at/stowmarketswimmingclub (please bookmark this link for future use).

Clacton Pier Sea swim - Summer 2006

(Report by Andy Wright)

The 2006 round Clacton Pier swim attracted 49 swimmers including 9 from Stowmarket SC. And was the first time it has been held since 2000. The Stowmarket team consisted of a mixture of experience and with seven younger swimmers competing for the first time. Clive Mitson was competing in his third race and Andy Wright in his eleventh. Although the team did not feature in the first few positions, the Stowmarket swimmers had their own private battle and a very close finish it was, with Andy Wright sneaking into 9 th place piping Joe Hardwick, Guy Jarrett and Clive Mitson who finished in 10 th , 11 th and 12 th , with only 35 seconds separating all four swimmers over the 1200metre distance. Stuart Nunn finished in 21st place and John Adams in 27 th . Guy came 3 rd in the boys 14-16 years age category and shows a promising future in sea and open water swimming if he wishes to pursue this type of sport.

The girls also had superb swims with Harriet Chidwick leading the way finishing 17 th overall and winning the 3 rd place plaque for the girls 14-16 years age group. Abigail Chidwick and Chloe Ford finished in 22 nd and 23 rd places.

The first three swimmers from each team counted for the team trophy and Stowmarket were third, behind Clacton SC and Hornchurch SC.

The round Clacton pier swim started in October 1975 when Hugh Arnott and Andy Wright challenged each other to a swim that was literally around Clacton pier. The starting place was the same as today but the finish line was approximately the same distance on the other side of the pier. Hugh was a member of the Clacton Polo team and had great experience of sea swimming, namely the 7 mile Walton to Clacton pier swim. Andy was an 18 year old pool swimmer, who had more speed than Hugh. Andy thought he would beat Hugh easily as he raced off around the pier leaving Hugh far behind. But knowledge of the sea can be crucial and Andy went too far beyond the finishing line and had to battle against the current to reach the end by which time Hugh used his knowledge and won. In1976 again Hugh and Andy were the only participants, but the result was reversed. The swim became a popular annual event until 2000.

Andy is pretty chuffed that swimmers from Stowmarket SC are again swimming in this race and is especially pleased that Abigail and Harriet swam as their parents Vanessa and Andrew were also members of Clacton Swimming Club many years ago.

For 2007 it would be great if Stowmarket could win back the team trophy that David Elliston, Dale Barker and Colin Wright won in 2000. It is something totally different, good fun and an excellent day out, just ask Abigail, Stuart and Co. Guy said it was “wicked”!

Stowmarket Swimmers receive recognition

Aaron and David are great at the National Championships

Both Aaron and David travelled to Sheffield to compete in the National Championships and had some considerable success in a very competitive competition.

12 year old Aaron Lynch competing in his first ASA National Age Group Championships competed in five events reaching the final in all of them achieving 2 nd place in two events, and a third place in another plus a host of personal best times (pb).

His results were:

100m freestyle 1 st in heat in 59.21s (pb), 2 nd in final in 59.38s;

200m individual medley 6 th in heat in 2.31.47 (pb), 10 th in final in 2.36.24;

100m breaststroke 3 rd in heat in 1.18.77 (pb), 2 nd in final in 1.16.30 (pb);

200m breaststroke 3 rd in heat in 2.49.78 (pb), 3 rd in final in 2.50.02;

200m freestyle 3 rd in heat in 2.10.76 (pb), 4 th in final in 2.09.33 (pb).

Overall Aaron came third place (out of 80 competitors) in the 12-year age group with a total point's score of 2392.

20 year old David Harrison competed in the 50m breaststroke at the ASA National Youth Championships and ASA Championships achieving a personal best time of 30.67s in the heats to qualify for the semi finals. David achieved another excellent time of 30.69 to finish 18 th overall just missing out on a place in the final by 0.6 of a second.

Stowmarket Town Council recently donated £250 to Stowmarket Swimming Club in aid of the Club's hardship fund. The fund is used to support those swimmers who, due to personal circumstances, are unable to pay the full cost of swimming fees either for teaching or training. It is open to all members of the club.

Stowmarket Town Mayor, Mrs Lesley Mayes visited The Mid Suffolk Leisure Centre to hand over a cheque to Andrew McFarlane. Andrew recently had great success picking up three 1 st places at the 4th Suffolk Disability Meet held at the Waveney Sports centre in February.