Around the Clubs August 2022
North Region
Cairns CLAMS
We have enjoyed a few events here in Cairns. These being: The State Short Course Swim Meet at Tobruk Pool in May; and the Ironman in June. We had great numbers participating in both the events. A few photographs of the CLAMS at the Short Course Event and the terrible winter weather that we have to contend with… to train for and participate in the June Ironman event…
A few CLAMS looking unhappy at the State Short Course Event…
Terrible winter weather in June for the Ironman – more unhappy CLAMS… And our 5.30 am squad at Tobruk Pool… the chilly mornings in the North really wipe the smiles off our faces… (It is a training ritual – Kaname takes the photograph of our, yes you guessed it, unhappy CLAMS at winter morning squad.)
Other news two crazy CLAMS doing a lazy 27 to 30 kilometre swim from Green Island to Cairns (27 -30 kilometres due to tides, current and skill of boat captain) – Kaname WOODFIELD and Harriet GRANT will do the swim in September, date depends on ocean and weather conditions. It is a charity swim supporting AFL Cape York House. AFL Cape York House supports young First Nations people with culturally appropriate accommodation, educational, employment and training opportunities.
Rats of Tobruk Masters
A few Masters swimmers were involved in the 2022 Salt 66 Magnetic Island to Townsville Swim on the Sat 30 July. Wendy Kingma from Victoria, Irene Cats from Port Douglas, Gabby Donnelly and others from Cairns, Dan Stampa from Mackay, Mark Erickson from Whitsundays, Julie Boxsall from Townsville, Kevin Jackson in a team from Townsville with Karen Candler as their support paddler. JB, Liz Denyer and Tony Croft were heavily involved in running the event.
The conditions picked up during the event with swimmers being hit with winds of 15-20 knots and heavy swell. Smiles all round to have finished.
Central Region
Gladstone Gropers
The Gropers are currently swimming in the 50m heated pool at the Gladstone Aquatic Centre while the 25m pool, our usual winter venue, is under repair.
We have a new coach in our ranks! Beccy Desertiaux has achieved her Club Coach certification recently and brings with her a wealth of experience. Beccy joins our other coaches; John F, Russel, Rod and Sandra in delivering us a varied program for our 3 training sessions a week.
Groper members have recently taken to the road to take part in various running races around Qld and John P, Fran and Alison took part in the teams 20km round Keppel Island swim.
The club has just taken delivery of our limited edition Don Jones commemorative shirts. The Jones family generously contributed to the cost of the shirts in memory or our old mate, club statesman and long time dedicated coach. We will think of him every time we wear them!
Gympie Gold Fins Masters
Andrew Cowan and Justin Giles both travelled to Sydney for the MSA Australian Swimming Titles on the 20th to the 24th of April. The two mates both had a fantastic week of racing however the boys only raced each other twice all week! The best race of the week was the 100m freestyle with the two boys claiming 1st and 2nd in the 30 to 34 men’s with Andrew blasting a 52.27sec and Justin 52.74sec swims what a battle!
Andrew finished the meet with:
10 gold, 2 silver, 1 bronze, 2 national records beating his own 50 freestyle record, 5 Qld records.
Justin finished the meet with 3 Gold, 6 silver, 4 bronze, 1 national record, 4 Qld records.
The boys both swam for the Barbarians at National titles.
Hervey Bay Humpbacks
In the last three months travelling has featured strongly with our club members. Not all for swimming! We have noticed that with COVID restrictions being lifted members are heading off in all directions for holidays, visiting families etc. One small group – The Famous Five- headed away to compete at the GBRMG coming back with 10 medals and many PB’s as well as the coveted “Best Dressed Team” from the fabulous social night.
Throughout the three months a number of Humpbacks have continued joining Open Water Swims both to compete and for training. Hervey Bay has some great OWS events coming up in the next few months. Check them out!
This year we hired a minibus for the Rum City Short and Sweet Course. After some great results from all 11 swimmers and the enjoyment of a delicious meal and the presentations we were treated to a sing-along by resident musician Ken on the way home.
Most recently we have completed our annual postal “Solstice Challenge” against WA club, Maida Vale. We are pleased to announce that Humpbacks were once again the winners of the trophy. Maida Vale as the losers are already planning some dastardly challenges for next year in the hope of wresting the trophy again.
We are also pleased to welcome three new members, Kylie, Robyn and Colin.
Maryborough Masters
The planning committee is hard at work for the Annual Swim Meet to be held on 15 October.
Swim team members are grateful to be back in the Maryborough Pool, whilst very appreciative of the use of the Aldridge High School Pool. The club acknowledges the work of Doug Walker and Lisa Stewart for their administrative efforts with the project. The Swim Team is training hard for all upcoming events, especially the Maryborough Meet.
North Mackay Sinkers
The last 4 months have seen the Sinkers complete the 2021-22 Summer season in early April with our Winter season based predominantly at the Pioneer pool with informal Mondays and coached Wednesdays from 530-630pm. Our regular Saturday 8am sessions continue and are a mix of Jim inspired sets and Endurance swims. A sole Sinker made it to the Nationals in April and managed some medals and good swims before just a few more (4) headed to Cairns for the State Championships and also swam well sparking some rivalry with other clubs for an unofficial closest to the time 100m free.
We also commenced our fundraising for the Annual MS Swimathon with our regular Bunnings BBQ raising some $1200 for a great cause. Travelling Sinkers have informally ventured into other parts of the State to enjoy Chandler as well as the Townsville foreshore to experience other club activities. While this round up covers July its penned early and we have a solo swimmer entered in the Maggie Is to mainland swim and a social at “Smokolicious” to look forward to in the final month of the period. And we now have a Sinker on the Branch board with Dan Stampa now the VP Central for the next 12 months.
Rum City Masters
Rum City Masters swimmers have continued their winning streak, excelling on a personal and competitive level at local and state carnivals. Four Rum City members ventured to Cairns for the Queensland State Titles. Lyle Ferguson had an outstanding meet and returned with 5 gold, 2 silver and 1 bronze. Lexie Stefan and Bob Punch each won a bronze, and Kaz Hutchings was thrilled with a personal best in her breaststroke.
Queensland state records fell yet again at our local Rum City meet in June. New state records went to Daph Soppa for 25m breaststroke and the womens team of Jann Edwards, Sue Brennan, Michelle Pearson and Trudy Ford for the 4 x 25m freestyle relay.
Despite lower numbers than usual and some chilly weather, the meet was attended by 12 clubs from as far as Toowoomba, Brisbane and up to Bundaberg. Rum City took out 14 overall age group winners. The small clubs average points trophy was won by Ipswich, and the large clubs average points trophy was won by Rum City. The fabulous day was made possible by a team of volunteers, supporters and awesome local sponsors. The following day we had the usual aerobics fun as our Sunday training session thanks to the amazing Janet Gibson.
Sunshine Region
Albany Creek Masters
Albany Creek had the pleasure of being entertained at their monthly BBQ by John Low and Lesley singing and playing their ukulele.
Our members have been overcoming the cold mornings and early starts to get behind the endurance program. Plus, our coach Natasha, has been doing a great job of making sure we do warm ups.
Beerwah Masters
Beerwah Masters Swim Team went to the River City Masters meet in May with a small but strong team. Jo smashed it in her first event with Beerwah Masters pulling off a massive pb in her 25m freestyle and placing second for both 25m free and 25m breaststroke in her age group. Kylie placed first in 25m free & 25m breaststroke and second in 25m fly with pb’s in breast & fly. Unfortunately we have again lost our head coach at Beerwah who was also coaching most of our masters sessions. Despite that we have new members in our little club and are looking forward to warmer weather and all the masters meets in the coming months.
Belgravia Masters
Belgravia Masters had a team of 10 at the State Titles in Cairns. It was a great meet and all swimmers came away with a medal or two. The highlight was the relay team consisting of Narelle Philips, Marsha Reddiex, Vicki Newman and Bronwyn McKillop breaking the state record for the short course 4 x 25m medley relay and 4 x 100m medley relay.
The team was also well represented at the Chandler meet with the ladies breaking a long held national record in the long course 4 x 100 medley relay.
Preparations are well under way for our upcoming 2 day long course/long distance swim meet. This meet will be trialling the new Swim Central system which seems to be proving popular with masters swimmers.
Brisbane Northside Masters
Brisbane Northside club is in the final stages of preparation for their upcoming swim meet on 27 August at the historic Valley Pool.
With their previous two meets cancelled due to Covid lockdowns, members are excited about presenting their meet in a new format this year, which means a much earlier finish than previous years.
Meanwhile club members are enjoying their coached session on a Sunday morning followed by breakfast at nearby Café 63.
At a recent session Shelley Parrish was awarded her Two Million Metres certificate by President Richard Sargent.
Cotton Tree Masters
It’s been a wonderfully busy period for us since the last “Around the Clubs”. We achieved our best ever Nationals Results in Sydney back in April, our swimmers bringing home 15 Gold, 3 silver, 6 bronze, and breaking 5 national records.
There was no rest for the team as we took our biggest team ever up to Cairns State Championship the following month and backed up with more fantastic results. Very proud for our little club to come 8th club overall, bringing home 43 Gold, 16 Silver, 2 Bronze and Caleb Langelaan winning the Jenny Mack trophy for the best 100 and 200 breaststroker at the Meet. Our gals also snagged the 4 x 100 (200-239) medley relay state record.
We had many reasons to celebrate and we did so at our club’s 4th birthday lunch in July. Everyone is looking forward to the Long Course season and trying to replicate this fun and success.
Noosa Masters
Swim Meets
Brisbane Southside – Noosa Club has attended a number of Meets recently the first being Brisbane Southside where we had 5 swimmers earning 205 points and coming 11th position overall.
National Championship Sydney – the club had 9 swimmers who gained 27 individual medals.
Queensland State Championships – over three days Noosa gained 88 individual medals.
Australian Master Games Perth – Jo Matthews attended and collected 5 gold, 1 silver and 3 bronze medals.
Bundaberg Rum City Meet – One Noosa swimmer and one official were sent to this meet.
Fina Top 10
Noosa had two swimmers achieving FINA Top ten status being Jan Croft and Jo Matthews.
Social Events
A night of music and fun was held at Jimmy Barnes place and well attended by the club members.
Farewell to an old Friend
With great sadness the club wished go bye to the on of this foundation members Bobby McCausland.
Redcliffe Peninsula Masters
The club is continuing with its monthly coffee albeit at a new venue, Café Apres in Woody Point. This is held on the fourth Saturday of the month at 11.00am and all are welcome, including non-members. This gives people who are thinking of joining the club an opportunity to get to know us better.
The club was pleased to participate in the Belgravia Southside swim meet held in June and we are looking forward to the Belgravia Masters swim meet in August.
The club held a 10 pin bowling event in July, which was great fun. Thanks to Alison Haynes for organising this event.
Sunshine Coast Masters
QSC congratulated our swimmers who made it into the Fina World Top 10 for 2021: George Green (4 backstroke events) and Sheila Tweedy (200m breaststroke). Along with our three relay teams: male 100+ LC 4×100 Freestyle, female 280+ LC 4×100 Freestyle and male 240+ LC 4×100 Freestyle.
Six members competed at the States in Cairns. It was full on for three days and very enjoyable. Our small team achieved nine gold medals, 15 silver and seven bronze. Great effort from everyone, with plenty of PB’s and a state record.
Members also competed at River City, Rum City and Brisbane Southside.
Congratulations to Don Dyason, our most committed swimmer, received his first masters swimming medal at the River City meet, then backed it up at the Rum City meet with another.
UQ Masters
The UQ Masters crew have been hard at work training with PPMG in November firmly in our sights. The past few months have seen some very good performances at championship meets.
Nationals SC Champs 2022 – 8 team members jetted down to Sydney where we picked up 66 medals, 21 Queensland and 3 Australian records.
Queensland SC Champs 2022 – 17 team members then went the opposite direction to Cairns where we added another 147 medals, 31 Queensland and 6 Australian records to our tally.
We had the River City and Brisbane Southside meets in there as well where we continued to pick up records, especially in the relay events.
We also presented 12 of our members with the highly coveted World Top Ten caps.
UQ Swimming Club held its annual awards day where Kady Ibell and Steve Berting were named Female and Male Masters Swimmers of the Year.
South Region
Brisbane Southside Masters
BSM June 2022 Swim meet:
A thank you to all attendees of the recent BSM annual swim meet in June and a special thank you to the committee members, volunteers and other supporters who dedicated a significant amount of their time and resources to arranging it all. Note: The full results listing, and certificates are available on our web site.
The following are some of the great results from our recent swim meet:
• 154 swimmers from 33 clubs
• There were 17 state and 6 national records broken
• There were three world records:
• Tony Goodwin – Male Age 85-89 100 Breaststroke – WR 1:46.19L and he recorded 1:44.12
• Tony Goodwin – Male Age 85-89 200 Breaststroke – WR 3:58.36L and he recorded 3:54.07
• Miami Masters Women 320-359 4 x 100 Medley R – WR 8:21.15L they recorded 7:52.67
• At the presentations MSQ presented the TOP 24 FINs results
• There was a record certificate presented to Hanna from MSQ as well.
• Swimmer of the meet went to Kady Ibell – UQ
• Small Club – Gympie Gold Fins Masters
• Large Club to Miami Masters
• Within the BSM club, age Group Medals were won by Colin Chapman (Bronze); Josh Hemelaar (Silver); Chris Hill (Gold); Geoff Neale (Gold); Hanna Wassenaar (Silver)
Other news:
BSM were approached by a behavioural economics honours student from UQ looking to conduct a study into relay strategies for swimming. Several members participated in the study across a couple of evenings and we will be interested in the research outcomes.
One of our dedicated coaches, Nathan Dortmann held a very well attended training session focused on improving swimming technique through the use of underwater filming. It was a great opportunity to see your swimming style from a different perspective and to obtain some insightful comments and advice from our head coach.
Lowood District Masters
Lowood District Masters have continued training at the UQ Gatton pool twice a week despite the cold in the early morning! We had a wonderful time raising $70 for the Black Dog Institute with heaps of silly races and our children roped in to assist. We are working on participating in one competition a month, although many swimmers are in it just for the exercise. Hopefully, the newly rebuilt Lowood will be opened in time for the summer season – it is looking promising.
Miami Masters
Presently Miami Masters’ membership is sitting at 115 members. We’ve just signed up an extra 13 swimmers who’ve taken advantage of the six month membership. Unfortunately, there’s currently no access to Palm Beach/Currumbin and Banora Point Olympic pools, so Miami Aquatic Centre is the place to go if you want to swim in a long course public pool at the southern end of the Gold Coast. Guess we’re lucky in having the ocean so close and accessible. Conditions have been variable this year thanks to the rain events, but it seems to be looking up.
Currently QMM are about to commence a Facebook advertising program during August and September. We were awarded a grant of $1000 some time ago and are still now in the process of deciding how to make the most of our good fortune.
Congratulations to our 320+ Golden Girls who smashed the 4×100 metre long course Medley Relay World Record at the Brisbane Southside Meet back in June. Our team, Carole Simpson, Lindy Salter, Margie Watts and Denise Robertson are celebrating after the event with our captain/coach Steve O’Brien. Don’t know how many more records they have in the sights, but they’re focussed and putting in some solid training.
Recently, QMM co-founder and current Meet Director, Peter Reaburn, led a team of 12 riders and 10 support crew on a fundraising bike ride over the Snowy Mountains from Parliament House in Canberra to the MCG in Melbourne. 900kms in 9 days. Peter’s wife, Claire Reaburn, a former world record holder in the 800m freestyle in the 25-29 yr age group, is the oldest woman in Australia diagnosed with a rare form of ovarian cancer called Granulosa Cell Tumour (GCT).
The goal of the ride was to raise $100,000 for Rare Ovarian Cancer Incorporated to fund lifesaving research at the Hudson Institute of Medical Research in Melbourne. While both Peter and Claire have swum most of their life, Peter has always enjoyed cycling and knew he had to do something about the lack of research into GCT. So two years ago the idea came to do the ride.
Not only did they reach their fundraising goal but exceeded it, reaching $150,000. The Reaburn family raised close to $30,000 themselves, with close to $6000 raised by a QMM Swimathon held in late 2021.
Rare Ovarian Cancer Incorporated is now able to not only donate $100,000 to the Hudson Institute of Medical Research in Melbourne for the research, but can now fund the CEO of Rare Ovarian Cancer Incorporated, Tasha Armour, who has a 19 year old daughter with the rare ovarian cancer.
The ride passed through picturesque Victorian country towns such as Tumut, Tumbarumba, Tallangatta, Wangaratta, Euroa and Yea. The group received much support from these little towns from local Bendigo Banks (a major sponsor), as well as pubs and Rotary Clubs.
The ride was due to pass through Whittlesea and then onto the MCG for the finish. However, despite two years of planning they couldn’t finish the ride due to many riders and support crew coming down with Covid with 120 km to go.
Despite not finishing the actual ride, it was unanimously decided that once back in their home towns and states, the riders would complete the 120kms that the ride fell short of. Peter got together with fellow rider and mate, Peter Smith, and fellow rider Sheree Osbourne in Manly, Brisbane to nail the uncompleted 120km; on the same day all the riders did the same thing in Sydney and Melbourne.
The fun had, the funds raised, and the awareness of GCT that was raised, now sees Peter and Claire working with other riders from this year’s event to organise another fundraising event in 2023. The battle to defeat cancer rides on!
You can still make a tax-deductible donation to the cause at: Ride for Research – Peter Reaburn – ROC Inc.
Redlands Bayside Masters
QRB had a very fun and successful time at the State Championships in May with 9 competitors making the trip to Cairns and brought home over 50 medals. Our men’s 4 x 25 freestyle relay team broke state and national records in the 280 age group, as well as a state record in the 4 x 100 medley relay.
Training sessions have been well attended despite the cooler weather and many of our swimmers are looking forward to the upcoming Brisbane Northside SC meet.
The club continues to attract new members and will be hosting a BBQ at Bunnings in August to raise some funds to go towards promoting a membership drive in time for summer.
River City Masters
We are sad to bid Kathryn Gill farewell – breaststroker extraordinaire – as she returns home to Cambridge in the UK with husband James and daughter Otterly. The Gills spent a year in Brisbane as James took on a year’s fellowship with Mater Hospital. They arrived in April 2021 and with young Ottie barely two months old, Kathryn fit seamlessly into the River City family at Somerville House. An outstanding swimmer, Kathryn has been a valued team member and we will miss her dearly. We wish the Gills all the best and hope you’ll return to Australia one day!
Toowoomba Tadpoles
Here we are half way through this cold, bleak Winter. There still are a few hearty souls that continue the fine tradition of swimming during these cooler periods, well done.
I think that the twice a week “Don Training Sessions” (which have been well supported) are keeping all the participants motivated and invigorated. Thanks Coach for your time and dedication to these sessions.
Also, a huge thanks to our former President and lifesaving facilitator, Shayne for his instruction and guidance for our Bronze Medallion training this Month. Your continued support of our club is greatly appreciated and the life skills you have passed onto us will always beneficial to the club and in “real life” situations.
It’s pleasing to see that even though there has been no swimming (due to pool availability) on a couple of Sundays, that the club members still get out and about with a Breakfast and a walk around the park to keep that club unity, thanks Maree for organising.
To all that are or about to participate in our Endurance event this Month, enjoy your swim and I’m sure Lionel appreciates the additional work.
Hope to see Members competing in the up coming MSQ events, let’s see if we can get a team together.
Until next time, everyone, enjoy your time in the pool.
