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Swimming and Lifesaving Club Term 4 - ON HOLD

Katie Musk —

Friday night swimming lessons are unfortunately still on hold at the moment. Due to COVID-19 Alert Level 2 restrictions and the limitations the Stokes Valley Swimming Pool needs to operate within (shorter time, extra cleaning, no equipment and social distancing), it’s proven too tricky to restart our swimming lessons at this time.

As soon as we move back into Level 1, we’ll be back up and running again without hesitation.

Given the sessions we’ve had to miss, we’re planning to reduce payments for Term 4 for those who’ve paid up for our rather truncated Term 3.

In the meantime, a reminder that the pools are open with restricted hours, limited numbers, contact tracing and 2m social distancing in and out of the water. A bit tricky, but nice to have a swim if you can! The Stokes Valley Pool timetable is available here: http://www.huttcity.govt.nz/pools-fitness/stokes-valley/hours--timetable/ and Huia here: http://www.huttcity.govt.nz/pools-fitness/huia/hours—timetable/

We look forward to seeing you all again when we can get back in the water on Friday nights. We’ll keep you posted as soon as there are any changes.


For anyone new, here is a bit more information on what we are about:

Our Community Swimming and Lifesaving Club runs every Friday night during the school term when we are at COVID-19 Alert Level 1 or free of restrictions. The lessons run from 7-8.45pm at the Stokes Valley Swimming Pool. We have access to both the main pool and the learners' pool. Younger ones have lessons early on in that timeslot – we know it seems late for little ones, but many find it a fun and relaxing way to end the week, bring their PJs to change into afterwards and have a bit of a Saturday sleep in.

We have a vision that every student in our community should be happy, safe and skilled in the water; and that stronger high school-aged swimmers should be able to help others in difficulty in the water. We’d love this to extend to our parents and guardians and wider community as well. We take a flexible and fun approach and are proud of our record helping less enthusiastic swimmers turn the corner and love the water, as well as providing a challenge for more competent swimmers and lifesavers – not to mention keeping our community safe along the way.

Because we're doing it for the community, with our coaches volunteering their time, we're able to offer the opportunity to join in for an extremely low cost - $60 per person per term (children and adults), including an assessment and fun session in the first week of school term, and a family fun night for the last session of term. If for some reason the fees are a barrier for you, please get in touch to make alternative arrangements. Or, if you can afford to pay more, please feel free to. This will help us to do more training with our coaches, provide equipment, and support those who would otherwise struggle to come.

We have coaches working with small groups, just like with other swimming lessons/clubs.

The difference is that the children (and adults!) are learning alongside their friends and peers, they have time and space to play before/after their lesson (and we have supervisors available to look after littlies when they’re not in lessons and you’re swimming), we take a more flexible approach to learning (e.g. we have a practical focus on water safety and confidence, teach some things earlier or differently than others where it's beneficial – recognising that everyone’s different, and do our best to make it fun), and there's an amazing community spirit in play - a real buzz down at the pool every Friday :-).

We also provide opportunities for parents (and grandparents and extended whanau / friends) to swim at the same time - whether that be lane swimming (there’s always a lane available for adult swimmers) or joining an adult coaching or lifesaving group - or coaching / learning to coach themselves.

We also offer lifesaving coaching / training / qualifications for older students (competent swimmers aged about 12 and up - we also offer this to adults if there’s enough demand). We have a very experienced and well qualified lifesaving team.

Carolyn, Ragini, Joe and Rachel