Friday swimming

I was disappointed to arrive at swim on Friday night to hear that Arthur is not teaching technique any more on Fridays. Whether people choose to get on with Arthur or not he is a great coach, he cares very much about his students' progress and has helped many of us improve our swimming and race times tremendously. I think it's a big loss to Pactrac if they do not recognise this and I feel Arthur's contribution to the club has gone unrecognised.

Having said that, it was only hearsay about what had happened to the Friday night technique session with Arthur, nobody seemed to know exactly what was going on. It would be nice to know (a) if its correct and (b) if it is correct what was the decision making process relating to the loss of the Friday night session and whe was the consultation?

Sally

I agree with sally, he will definitely be missed by me as i loved his ruthless style!
For myself a technique class like Authurs is critical for my training as he has helped improve my stroke.
If we dont have authur back then why not start a swim smooth class as was talked about last year ?

Hi Steve and Sally

Thought I would respond to your postings on the forum.

I hear what you are saying but we posted on the website changes to the format for swimming. I apologise we didn't email out but this functionality has only now become available. In future all changes will be notified via email.

I agree Arthur has been a big part of what we offer on a Friday evening and the changes that have taken effect have been in the interests of the club and come through the relevant channels of approval through the elected committee.

It has nothing to do with the events that happened before Christmas and as such need not be visited again. The changes implemented are to look at a development programme (technique) through to increasing aerobic/anearobic ability of triathletes leading into there season. As Head Coach it is my responsibility as Head Coach to develop a swimmer and look to improve there performance so race season is prepped accordingly.

x1 Technique session and x2 'work up' swim sessions is adequate to achieve this objective. The question will come down to which 'technique' session do we lose?
Commercially (i.e cost) it is not prudent to have the Club to pay for x2 technique coaches with an average attraction of x6 swimmers on one night and x15+ on another. Favourite for getting the gig would be the coach that attracts the biggest audience (which happened to be a Wednesday). Also I looked for opinions at both sessions Friday and Wednesday's.
The outcome on canvassing freed up the Friday where we could allocate 4 lanes to increasing swim performance and allocating x2 lanes to 'easy swim'(Social).

The changes made are for the good of the club and overall we will see a benefit of attracting more swimmers to all 3 sessions and have a better balance of training.
Last Friday was the first day of it and we had an excellent amount of members at swimming.

I am sure you can contact Arthur and meet him for 1-1 coaching but I wholly agree Arthur's input into the Club has been fantastic and we all appreciate his efforts.

Feel free to email at davepatmorehill@yahoo.com to discuss more.

With regards to swim smooth the plan will be to interject on a wednesday (with Nigels approval) for me to hold swim smooth classes. I will post and email when I will be doing these sessions. For me Nigel is a great coach and really looks at the ability and structure of individuals swim style and advises accordingly. I am confident Nigel respponsible for developing technique (with me helping out if Nigel is away) and Caroline/Steve's input for Mondays and Fridays will lead to all our athletes getting PB's in the swim discipline of a triathlon.

Many thanks

Dave

Well I think I speak for several of us when I say "We want Arthur, and we want him at Oundle pool!" And let's stop pretending this has nothing to do with Arthur's style! Sometimes you have to look behind a person's delivery style. Though I'm sure you'll maintain it has nothing to do with that......

Arthur has been the most welcoming and supportive coach, to me at least, and I've seen it with many others too. Not only that but he does wonders for people's swimming. Yes we've all had b*ll*ckings off him but WE DON'T MIND, it's better than pussy-footing around, he has a heart of gold under all that.

I'm sure some of us would pay Arthur ourselves if he were 'allowed' to coach in the lanes that are now allocated to free swimming. i.e. Arthur's old lanes on a Friday, if finances are an issue.

Hey guys,

As chairman just wanted to mention that this is a trial period testing something new over the next few months and ARTHUR agreed that he would be happy to see how it goes and would consider coming back on demand. There are many people within the club to consider with every action we take and pleasing everyone is never possible with this sort of thing. However Arthur and I agreed that things have come to a head where other ideas should be able to be voiced and tried and the results will prove whats best for the club. It is the best and most democratic way. Please feel free to pick up the phone to me to discuss it will be a private call, so feel free to say what you feel you need to. I would like your feedback.

Thanks Michael. Great, so we might get Arthur back? :-)

I think it's good to discuss these things openly so everyone knows what's going on because nobody had a clue that first night we turned up to find no Arthur and that's how rumours start; there seemed to be a lot of mumbling when people asked where he was! I'd rather say what I feel here and give people a chance to join in.

WE WANT ARTHUR. Full stop :-P

Sal

Looks like that one's closed then