Everyone is more than welcome to attend. 

Five days of coaching, a water bottle, insurance and costs $75.

Last season was a highly successful one for the club. The club had 40 to 50 registered members, all of whom attended the morning and afternoon training sessions three times a week conducted by senior coach Bob Guttridge and Karen Glover and Sarah Bunt. The squads were divided into age brackets and skill levels and as a result great progress was made with the benefit of the club’s qualified and licensed instructors.

The season opened within a week of the pool opening in November 2013 and continued until early March with a two week break over the Christmas and New Year period.

The Shine Shield, which is an inter-town swimming competition open to everyone, was held at Jugiong and Yass in 2013 with Harden missing out by a few points on victory in that competition. 

The Shine Shield is open to all swimmers no matter whether they are members of their swimming clubs or not and is a social highlight occurring during the evenings in December and late-January. This competition will continue this year, however it will return to its original format of taking place in all four towns involved, Yass, Binalong, Harden and Jugiong.

The dates for the Shine Shield for 2015 are: Yass, Tuesday, January 13; Binalong, Friday, January 16; Jugiong, January 18; and Harden, January 31.

The season of 2013/14 was highly successful with all local schools doing extremely well in their district and regional level swimming carnivals.

Murrumburrah Public School, as an example, won the district swimming carnival against schools that are located in towns with triple the population of Harden. 

This success was replicated to varying degrees by both the High School and Trinity Catholic School.

The improvement seen in the school performances was also reflected in the number of individual club records set. Overall 10 records were set, breaking long standing club records. 

The record holders were: Harry Bunt, 1500m freestyle, 31:25:00; James Daley, 1500m freestyle, 27:15:35; Alyssa Brown, 400m freestyle, 6:40:72; Ellie Brown,800m freestyle, 14:03:63, and 1500m freestyle, 26:20:20; Ryan Daley, 800m freestyle, 12:44:39, 1500m freestyle, 24:01:09, 50m Breaststroke 38:97, 100m Breaststroke, 1:30:13, and 200m IM, 3:00:09.

■■■■■

A presentation night occurred in mid-April at the end of the last season and the following children received the Age Championships:

The highest point score, which is accumulated through a combination of points attributed for attendance at training and club championships were Jessica Bunt and Harry Bunt. 

The most improved swimmer was Sharna Allen, the coaches award was given to Natayla Kelly and the encouragement award was given to Samantha Emms.

■■■■■

Over the last three to four years the club, as a whole, has focused not only on improving the fitness levels of the swimmers but also their swimming techniques. 

Many observers commented throughout the season that the Harden swimmers were by far the most technically correct swimmers in the carnivals and this translated into faster times and results. 

The Swimming Club, however, is not all about fast times and techniques. Club members have heaps of fun, BBQs with all members of our families attending and just a really welcoming atmosphere where everyone is encouraged to do their best. 

So if you can almost swim 25 metres then we would love to see you at the pool. 

It’s amazing how much confidence is gained from swimming with others in a team environment. 

We are yet to set our dates for registration days but it will be announced in all the schools’ newsletters in early Term 4.

PO