P.O Box 280 Stittsville, ON K2S 1A4

SPLASH

Volume 5; Edition 26 Thursday, May 17, 2006

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

"Everyone who got where he is has had to begin where he was."
– Robert Louis Stevenson

UPCOMING EVENTS

Go Kingfish Long Course Invitational – Monpetit Hall University of Ottawa – May 27-28 - Qualifiers.

KSSC Distance Novice Meet – Kingston Military Community Sport Center – June 4^th – Silver/Bronze/Gold 2

PRACTICE CHANGES/CANCELLATIONS

Thursday May 18, 2006 – Bronze practice cancelled due to mini-meet.

Monday May 22, 2006 – All practices cancelled due to Victoria Day.

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Fall Pre-Registration for all Bronze, Gold 2, Silver, Gold 1 and Platinum swimmers

Your swimmer's Fall Pre-Registration Package will be available for pick up during the week of May 15th at the pool.
Fall Pre-Registration will take place the week of May 29. More information to follow.

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COACHES REPORT

Head Coach Rob

Great work everyone last weekends swim meet was the best yet we had four new swimmers qualify for EOSA plus most of our swimmers made finals. Well done Meg, Steve, Hannah and Esme on qualifying for EOSA. We also had two swimmers make Provincial prerequisite time for the 800 free good job Sarah and Daniel. Please see the link (Meet Eligibility Report) for all swims qualified for EOSA LC Championships. In total a record 29 swimmers have qualified. Congratulations!

Our next meet is two weeks away at Ottawa U so let’s keep up the good work and solid training.

Head Coach

Rob

Coach Liliana

The Festival of Spring swim meet was a good chance for our swimmers to compete against fast swimmers from other clubs. Our Silver group did a great job, getting many new personal best times and qualifying times for the Long Course EOSA Regional Championships.

Congratulations! You did a great job!

We have a short time to prepare for the Go Kingfish swim meet. This is the last chance to qualify for the LC Regionals, so we look forward to working hard for these last weeks of the season.

Tip of the Week: Reducing and Controlling Fear

This week’s Speedo Tip of the Week comes from Ben Harlow, head age group coach for the ConocoPhillips Splash Club in Bartlesville, Okla. He offers some advice on reducing and controlling fear.

Harlow’s Tip:
Reducing and controlling fear is a very difficult thing to achieve when you are surrounded by new, exciting and different challenges than you are used to. I would like to offer some suggestions to help control – if not overcome – most of the fear prior to meets.

First of all, fear to some small degree is a good thing. It helps you realize that you really do care about what you are doing. It lets you know that it is important to you and others. The problem is having too much fear. This causes swimmers that are great in practice to freeze up and make mistakes they normally would not make in swim practice.

Below I have listed a number of tips to help you overcome pre-meet jitters:

1. Practice. The first thing to do is to soak up like a sponge everything your coach and swimmers older than you have to offer to make your practices and swim meets better experiences.
2. Use time in the pool to not only get in shape, get stronger and technically sound, but to practice races and events, which occur on Saturday and Sunday against the best in your state or sectional area. Make it feel as “real” as possible! Use starts, crowd noise, home officials and fellow swimmers to help you prepare for this.
3. Visualize. Whether at the pool or at home, use visualization to go through the steps and see the perfect race in your mind. Get in a comfortable place and go through the start, streamline, breakout, strokes, turns and finishes until you have completed the perfect race and can look up in your mind at the board and see your goal time posted. Visualize the pool you will swim in too (if possible).
4. Breathing Techniques. Use breathing techniques like deep belly breathing, rapid shallow breathing and “dragon’s” breath to let your lungs and body get used to the feeling while visualizing. It is amazing what your mind can help you accomplish!
5. Study the Competition. Get to know your competition or read about the best and what makes them tick. Try not to let their times intimidate you. Never lose before you even get off of the block. Like Kristy Kowal has said, “If you have a lane, you have a chance!”
6. Post your goals. Place your goal times everywhere you can think of: school and pool lockers, mirrors, nightstand, homemade book covers and bulletin boards. This way they become familiar and special to you.

Now that you know what you can do at practice to prepare yourself for the big competition, come back next week to read coach Harlow’s tips on how you can calm your nerves on the day of the meet.

Update from the Board of Directors

Dear Parents of the GAC,

As promised please find listed below the 5 people whom have volunteered for nomination to the Board of Directors for the 2006-2007 swim year. I personally would like to thank them all for their commitment to the Goulbourn Aquatic Club and its' future. The investment of their time in the health and fitness of our children and our community is certainly a worthwhile cause.

Carole Houde (current Secretary)

Mary Raphael (current Treasurer)

Joseph Elchakieh

Ian Lightbody

Greg MacPherson

Further information on these nominees can be found on this website under Board of Directors menu item.

Please consider the nomination of the above candidates and e-mail your nomination and/or questions or comments to Kathy White at gac@bellnet.ca. Elections will be held at a General Meeting of all parents (date to be announced by e-mail and the SPLASH) in early June.

The Goulbourn Aquatic Club Bi-Laws are under final review by the current Board of Directors and have been recently e-mailed to the individual families. The Bi-Laws are also posted permanently on the website at csca.org/gac

Programs and fee structure of all GAC programs for the 2006-2007 are posted with registration forms and schedules on the website at csca.org/gac within the week.

Make sure that you checkout the website as it is the GAC's main mode of communication. Also be sure to check that we have your up to date e-mail address. We will continue to forward all important information by e-mail but can not be responsible for incorrect e-mail addresses. If in the past three weeks you have not received any e-mailed notices from the GAC it is because our information is incomplete or incorrect. Please send us your correct e-mail address to gac1@bellnet.ca. (Please be sure to make note of your swimmers' name so that we can update their file)

All 'practice cancellations' and 'important notices' are posted on the website under those names on the home page. This should be checked weekly.

Anyone who had reason to sit in the stands at the Festival of Spring meet this past weekend certainly had reason to be proud. This was a very fast meet that featured swimmers from all over Ontario. Our team was very impressive in getting in there and showing that they deserve to be counted amoung the top swimmers in the area.

There were many firsts as some of our swimmers made finals and others qualified for EOSA Long Course Championships for the first time. GAC was represented be a total of eight swimmers in the finals. This is certainly great reward for great effort. Please note, that you are all getting much faster and this will mean that at meets where heats and finals are run, you must wait until the results are posted in order to know if you are entered in the final. Some meets include only the top eight finishes and others it will include the top sixteen finishes in the heats for finals. It is the swimmers responsibility to check results. If you are leaving before the results are posted please have another swimmer check for you or ask your coach.

Congratulations guys, it sure was exciting to watch.

On to Club Business.

Finally, our accountant has prepared our financial statements to the year ending June 30, 2005 and a balance sheet for the year ending 2006 up to March 3, 2006. With this information we can go forward and hold our General Meeting. The Board of Directors will meet on Monday May 22 (yes we work weekends) to review this information. A date will be set and an AGENDA for the General Meeting. Please do not forget to read the Bi-Laws, they are posted on this site under the menu item ‘Board of Directors’ and then ‘Bi-Laws’ from the home page. The Bi-Laws will be and item for approval at the General Meeting.

Thank you for your patience. Please be sure to read next weeks SPLASH or watch your e-mail for this important date with the Bi-Laws.

Have a great week everyone and if you have any questions please give me a call at 831-6332.

I will be out of town from May 24 – June 1 (surfing school!) but you can reach our administrator, Debra Ferrar at the office 726-7901.

Thank you all and have a great week.

Kathy White

President

Goulbourn Aquatic Club - 2006 Long Course Schedule

Spring Invitational P1&P2 & Developmental - April 1^st & 2^nd

Olympic 50m pool – Montreal - Silver/Gold 1/Platinum

OYO Invitational Long Course Sprints – April 2^nd

Nepean Sportsplex- All Silver/Gold 1/Platinum not attending Montreal meet

Cornwall Spring Meet - May 7^th

Cornwall Aquatic Centre – Gold2/Bronze

NKB Festival of Spring - May 12^th & 14^th

Nepean Sportsplex- Silver/Gold 1/Platinum Qualifiers

Go Kingfish Long Course Invitational – May 27^th & 28^th

Monpetit Hall University of Ottawa - Qualifiers

KSSC – Developmental Meet – June 4^th

Kingston- Entry Level (Bronze/Gold 2)

EOSA – Long Course Regional Championships - June 9^th – 11^th

Nepean Sportsplex- Silver/Gold 1/Platinum Qualifiers

Ontario Junior Provincial Championships – July 6^th – 9^th

Nepean Sportsplex- Silver/Gold 1/Platinum Qualifiers

TEAM EQUIPMENT

In stock team equipment can be purchased by contacting Sheri by phone, e-mail, or at the pool on Saturday mornings from 7:30-8:30am. We currently have polyester suits and custom team bags in stock as well as two second had team jackets size 10-12 and 14-16. Please contact Sheri at 836-8235 or e-mail at s_coughlan@sympatico.ca

Parents may have noticed that the GAC caps and Team Suits are fading quickly, this is due to high chlorine levels as well as daily use. The caps are latex and will eventually break down, therefore it is suggested that swimmers keep their Team Caps and Suits solely for swim meet use and purchase training suits and caps for daily use. It is also a good idea to have an extra GAC cap on hand at meets in case of rips and tears.

Goulbourn Recreation Complex

Lifesaving and Leadership Courses for Spring 2006