AMATEUR SWIMMING

Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 72, 18 December 1928, Page 13

AMATEUR SWIMMING

WELLINGTON CENTRE WORK AMONG CHILDREN The Wellington Centre of the New Zealand Amateur Swimimng Association met last night, Mr. P. Coira presiding. It was decided to record W| Cameron's performance for the 100 yards backstroke race (71 4-sseconds), as a Wellington centre record. Permission was granted to the Wellington Club to hold a carnival on March It was decided to ask the centre’s delegate to the New Zealand council to seek exemption from the rule that the final of the 100 yards national championship be limited. to four starters. Other clubs are to be circularised, asking for their views on the matter. A vote of thanks was passed to Mr. H. R. Fisher, for his untiring efforts as educational officer, and his work among the school children. Conference of Centres. The annual conference of centres will be held in Wellington on February 4. Remits to be placed before the conference are to be sent in by January 14. Immediately after January 14, all the remits received will be circulated among the centres, in order to give them an opportunity of considering them. Annette Kellerman Cup. The handicapper has notified that he will want a statement of the performances of competitors entering for the Annette Kellerman Cup race, over a distance of one mile. Where a competitor has no performance over a mile, he will be required to put in a time test for that distance. Where possible, this should be taken by an official of the competitor’s centre. Where this is not possible, the test should be taken by an official of his club, and certified to accordingly. Centre Championships. It was decided to hold the Wellington centre championships on Saturday, January 12, at Te Aro Baths. The programme will be much the same as that of former years. All entries for the championship carnival must be made on the centre’s entry form. No other entries will be accepted. Educational Officers' Report. The following are excerpts from the annual report submitted to the centre by the educational officer (Mr. H. B. Fisher) "It has been a splendid season from almost all points of view, the one drawback still being the need for greatly increased facilities for the encouragement of this, the most Important of all forms of sport. The baths accommodation for the city of Wellington, for instance, is woefully inadequate, especially in the case of the women and the girls; and I should like on any fine afternoon next season to show some of the city councillors the conditions women and girls have to put up with. The question of baths and more baths is one of first civic importance and still remains a question to be really seriously tackled. “Now for the bright side of the picture. Of all forms of exercise, swimming, I venture to say, has derived the greatest benefit from the operation of the Summer-time Act last session. It Is sincerely to be hoped that that Act will eventually be permanently restored. In the meantime I am glad to know that we shall have the advantage of at least half an hour extra daylight dally during the coming season. Thanks to the splendid efforts of Mr. J. H. M. Finlayson, and Mr. E. H. Fisher, a schools’ association was formed and a carnival held. It would have done any enthusiast good to be present and to have seen the farreaching effect the association had on the schools. A gratifying feature was the large number of schools that entered. Next I have to report that headmasters and teachers loyally backed my suggestion that all schools should on receipt of certificates make their distribution the occasion of ceremony and have officials, prominent citizens and parents present. One or two schools in particular set splendid examples in this respect. Another contributing factor to the success of the season (in the Hutt Valley) was the gift of splendid public baths to the citizens by the Messrs. Rlddiford. These baths were responsible for the issue of a large number of certificates to three of the main schools of the district. One would like to see baths established in every suburb and the example of the Messrs. Rlddiford copied elsewhere. “A feature of the returns of the past season is the large increase in the number of certificates awarded in the city and suburbs of Wellington. In this connection it is worth noting the increase In the number of certificates awarded for the whole district in the past three seasons—viz., 1925-26 (310), 1926-27 (1335), 1927-28 (1632), last season’s figures easily breakiag the record established the year before. Still there is plenty of room for develonment and there is work enough for an officer to visit schools and give the whole of his time for quite three months of the year to encouraging the hundreds and hundreds of potential youthful swimmers in the community. But there must be more bathing accommodation. “Besides the swimming certificates issued there were standard time certificates, life-saving certificates. championship medals and the special certificate for any school that produced over 50 per cent, of swimmers from the standard classes. “I again wish to record my appreciation of the splendid effort of teachers, the Wellington Centre, and the Wellington Swimming Club; also to thank the City Council for granting free passes to the baths to nil children qualifying for the merit certificate.”