Midwinter Dinner Doubles as Awards Night

Photos here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/72194999@N03/

It was almost standing room only at the Thai Flame on Saturday night for the club's midwinter bash. The Thai Flame is a large venue but this annual event has become so popular that if you don't want to miss out next year you'd better be VERY quick getting your name down. There was a marvelous array of attire and it seemed that red bow ties were the order of the evening. However, whether a frock or a tie or a t-shirt was worn it didn't matter at all since at least no one was wearing togs.

A well kept secret was that this year's dinner was also an Awards Dinner. That was a bit of a surprise wasn't it? The club formally acknowledged a few teams that have broken NZ records over the last year and Avy Judelson, Giles Walker, Dawn Walker and Andrew Simpson had their NZ record for the 200+ Free set in May acknowledged and received their certificates. Andrew Simpson's individual record for the 50m Free, also set in May, has now been ratified.

Three trophies were also awarded to individual club members.

Club Member of the Year: Sally Walker
Sally totally epitomises the club spirit, giving freely of her time, she is always on hand to collect the money, timekeep, collect the money, work on the desk at meets, collect the money,  and do pretty much anything that needs doing, especially collecting money. Sally is the 'go to' person when you need something done.

Most Improved Swimmer of the Year: Denise Munday
Denise's improvement has been nothing short of astounding. She has paid attention to technique and turned up to training sessions and has been spotted doing sneaky extra sessions. The results are clear for all to see. Denise keeps moving up and up lanes with alarming regularity. We will run out of lanes for her to move into if she keeps this up.

Swimmer of the Year: Deryn McGregor
Deryn has been working extremely hard for about 3 years on her breaststroke technique and it all came to fruition over the last season with the snaffling up of all 6 NZ records in her age group for breaststroke. You might think she is going to retire quietly to her rocking chair now to crochet but NO! There will be new goals - just ask what they are.

As usual, the Thai Flame did a lovely job with the food and I don't think anyone left hungry though I have a sneaky suspicion that some people may have got two desserts (but I won't dob them in).

Dave Walker also did a wonderful job as photographer. It's fantastic having a club member who is happy to fulfill this role and provide us all with the means to so easily access such great photos, and we don't need to think about taking our own cameras, we just need to be ready to photo bomb. Thanks Dave, you do a grand job!