Canadian Dolphin Swim Club

2011 Annual General Meeting
President’s Message
Conall Barr

First and foremost I want to welcome all the new families into a club full of ever giving and caring members. For those of you who are new to the swimming world, you will find that the parents who have been here for a few years are more than willing to help you get up to speed with how the club functions and just as importantly how swim meets are run. It can be overwhelming to a new comer but soon you will find yourself involved in your child’s sport, participating in creating the best swimmer they can be. You and your child have chosen a life skill as a sport. Not only does competitive swimming open the window for a huge variety of water sports and activities, but swimming is a sport where your child will learn that he or she has to discover themselves and reach down inside to develop skills and strengths that will bring great success. Personal goal setting and reaching those goals is something that can only be taught through an individual sport like swimming. It is these skills that will branch out into their daily life, their school life and eventually their occupation. They will, for the rest of their lives, have swimming as a sport and excellent form of exercise, and they will always know how to find it within themselves to accomplish what they set out to do.

For those who have continued with us into 2011 - 2012, and made up the backbone of our team, we are very grateful for your volunteered time and efforts. It is with a little help from everyone (and a lot of help from others) that has brought us to where we are today.

The Canadian Dolphin Swim Club is thriving towards our goal of 150 age group members. Every year we have swimmers graduate and often move onto University Swimming, and so every year we look to bring in new members and new talent. Swimmers of all ages are always welcome to join and at anytime. We encourage you all to invite the friends of your children, who have the basic swimming skills, to give Canadian Dolphins a try.

Our swim club strives to be more than a place for your child to improve their swimming skills and the skills mentioned above. We strive to be a fun and inviting club where your child looks forward to coming to. The coaches do their part however we as the parents like to provide group activities outside of the pool. In the past these have included hiking, kayaking, laser tag, picnics, hot dog days and pancake breakfasts. If any parent has a good idea for an outing or activity that they feel would be fun for the group their child is in or for the whole club in general, please bring your idea(s) to one of the board members. For the very enthusiastic member, there could even be a PPP position available as social co-ordinator.

Fundraising and PPP are two methods which we use to keep our fees low and involvement by everyone at its highest. PPP, the acronym for Parent Participation Points, is a system of assigning points to members for participating in running our club. A certain number of points are required depending on the group level of the swimmer. The required points are only the minimum required not a maximum. You may all continue to help run our club long after you have reached the minimum. To help you raise funds we have a variety of programs in place. To name a few: Swim –A- Thon, chocolate sales, and gift card sales, and silent auction. You will find more on our website www.canadiandolphin.ca

Our head coach Kelly Taitinger is a very focused and dedicated head coach who is consistently not only improving his own coaching skills, but also leads a team of CDSC coaches who are continuing to upgrade their own skills. Our coaches have regular coaches’ meetings during which their methods are scrutinized and/or developed as necessary. Since your swimmer will be improving and moving up levels, it is important that our coaches have a consistency and good communication which these meetings also provided. Our coaches grow to know the abilities of each swimmer often better than the child or parent does. Since our coaches work with children and have seen possibly hundreds of children grow from childhood through the teens in to university and adulthood, they become very in tuned with what kids are going through. It is very important, to trust our coaches feedback regarding your child’s potential, effort or accomplishments. Thank goodness we can leave the coaching to the coaches and just concentrate on being parents.

Have a great season

Conall Barr President

CDSC alumni 1969 -1983