SWIMMING Educational Tours This Season By Six Teams

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30274, 29 October 1963, Page 7

SWIMMING Educational Tours This Season By Six Teams

Although the responce from centres had been poor, the coaching committee was emphatic that the whole country should be covered by educational tours, the secretary of the New Zealand Amateur Swimming Association (Miss Doreen Brown) told delegates at the annual conference of the association, which ended in Christchurch yesterday.

Six teams of swimmers would travel through the country in the coming season on educational tours. If nominations were not forthcoming by November 15, the council would make its own appointments, Miss Brown said. There was a recognised need for wider coverage. The reduction in the numbers of physical education specialists made it doubly important, she said.

In Palmerston North several thousand schoolchildren had seen a display by an educational team, but most had been coerced into going and nothing had been achieved, said Mr R. O. Haddon (Manawatu). “Any lesson learned was soon forgotten," he said. The best results would be obtained in outlying areas where a good swimmer was seldom seen, Mr Haddon suggested. In the big centres there were adequate professional and amateur coaches, said Mr F. Adam (Wellington). He agreed that the educational tours would have the greatest benefit in country districts. The possibility of establishing a scholarship to send promising swimmers for a period of tuition under a well-known overseas coach was suggested by Mr S. Williams (Waikato). In that way the standard could be lifted to world class, he said. Visits to New Zealand by leading coaches were also essential. There was quite a large

gap to fill between the top and the run-of-the-mill swimmers, said Mr K. Bentley (Otago). “We have got lots of competent coaches in the country and full use should be made of them,” he said. They could be moved around the country. “We have still got a wealth of talent in this country that can be used to fill this gap,” he said. The president (Mr B. C. Simpson) said that the possibility of sponsorship for an annual visit by an overseas coach should be investigated. School Swimming

Swimming should be compulsory in all schools and not just an option, Mr L. Donaldson (Wairarapa) said in a discussion on the status of swimming in schools. In some secondary schools, if a pupil took swimming as a sport it just meant getting into a bathing costume, sitting in the sun, having a splash and then going and sitting in the sun again, he said.

A weekly inter-school competition could be established to help to encourage the sport, and a ladder could be established. Swimming should be on the same basis as football and basketball, Mr Donaldson said. Clubs would have to associate themselves with schools, said Mr J. H. Johnson (Canterbury). Universities had to be recognised as schools also, as it was from the New Zealand universities of the future

that a “Dr. Counsiltnan” could come. The whole strength of swimming in America came through its universities, he said. REMARKON GAMES Association Dissents The New Zealand Amateur Swimming Association yesterday disassociated t'tseM from remarks concerning the possible dropping of support tar the British Empire Games, made on the opening day of the association'a conference by a Canterbury delegate, Mr E. C. Sftentaiford. “While ilt is true that the council has discussed the relative merits of the British Empire Games and the Olympic Games as far as training schools are concerned, it has not at any stage suggested that our standard of competitive swimming has reached that of the British Empire Games or that we should concentrate only on the Olympics,” the chairman of the council (Mr A. J. Donaldson) told the conference.

“I would go so far as to say that the opinion of this annual general meeting is that we still have a long way to go before we can lay claim to such extravagant opinion, and I feel that ilt is important that this fact should be recorded,” he said. This statement met with the approval of the conference. Mr Donaldson said that the remarks made by Mr Stentiford had been posed in the form of a question, and had been given rather a lot of undue publicity. Mr Stemtifor d was reported in “The Press” as saying that there was some feeling in swimming circles in New Zealand thait the Empire Games and the Olympic Games could not both be supported. “My opinion is that we should be considering dropping the Empire Games,” he said.