March Birthdays, Rangitoto Results

March Babies
March babies are a little thin on the ground but that makes their birthdays no less special. Here are our club members blowing out candles this month:
Bronwyn Dent, Jason Grant, Angela Oliver, Grant Sykes and Mike Williams. Many happy's on your big days.

Rangi Report
We've had a glorious summer with day after day of cloudless skies and never-ending sunshine. Some parts of the country are officially in drought. So perhaps it was sod's law that the weather chose to completely close in and rain quite hard right at the moment when this landmark 4.6 km open water swim was about to start.

Spectators on the St Helier's side could only look in the direction that they knew Rangitoto Island to be in and wonder if the race was starting on time or if it was starting at all. Swimmers at the start line could see...well, nothing. The race got underway but conditions were not conducive to fast times.

South City Masters were well represented with about 12 swimmers taking part in this legendary swim. We don't have everyone's results but we did have 6 swimmers finish in the top 5 of the men's and women's Masters Wetsuit table, see below:

Giles Walker - 1st Masters Wetsuit
Elliott Crawford - 2nd Masters Wetsuit
Vince Kirrane - 5th Masters Wetsuit

Dawn Walker - 1st Masters Wetsuit
Avy Judelson - 2nd Masters Wetsuit
Angela Oliver - 3rd Masters Wetsuit

How's that - 1st and 1st to husband wife team Giles and Dawn Walker, woop woop.

Kohi Sea Swims - V For Victory; BBQ on 10th

Kohi Sea Swims
While club victory is in sight it is far from secure and Manukau is nipping at our heels. This is a call to arms so.....

Hear ye hear ye!

If you are able at all to make the Thursday night swims at Kohi Beach then please make the effort to go. There are only 2 swims left and every point we earn will help us win the coveted club title. The longer swims earn more points than the shorter ones so if you've been toying with the idea of stepping up a distance now is the time. Also, remember to register for the swim as a member of South City Masters.

Beach Swim and Family BBQ & Picnic
If you haven't filled in a form for this yet then you need to get onto this. On Sunday 10th March we are having handicapped 1km and 2km races with wetsuit and non-wetsuit divisions. Convene at Little Bucks at 5.30pm and racing starts at 6pm sharp.

After racing there will be a short prizegiving and then a picnic. The club is supplying meat and all you have to bring is a salad or dessert to share. Ezy pzy.

However, (there's always a 'but' isn't there?) for catering you need to fill out one of the forms that have been at the club. If you just show up on the day there may not be a sausage for you.

Race Night
Race night is on this 6th March. Events are 25m Br or Free, 50 Free, 100 Back, 100 IM or Free.

Challenge Meet, Cambridge Results

Challenge Meet
The rematch for this was held last Sunday 19th February. South City got off to a rip roaring start and at the half way mark had an eight point lead. This was whittled down to just 2 points by the end of the 100 Freestyle event and with now only 3 events left it was game on. The butterfly was proved to be deciding with Manukau being too strong for South City in this event and it was all over bar the shouting.

Well done to Manukau Masters who won the challenge 140 points to 130. South City like to think that they didn't 'lose', they were runners up.

Thanks to David Walker who was the official photographer at the meet. Here is a sample:

Cambridge Meet
This is a really fun meet to go to and if you've never been you should give it some serious thought next year.

Four of our swimmers made the trek on 16th Feb and all of them covered themselves in glory. Giles and Dawn Walker and Barry Davies all won their age groups and were presented with their gold medals. Tyrone Clack also swam well and most likely would have won his age group also if he had entered more events (next year Tyrone).

Here's a pic of our champion Cambridge crew:

Bruce Bell

As many of you well know longstanding club member Bruce Bell passed away peacefully on the 4th February after a long and courageous battle with cancer. A service for Bruce is to be held at the Purewa Cemetary, 100 St Johns Road, at 1.30 p.m. on Saturday 9th February.

Our heartfelt condolences go out to Margaret.

Race Night Results. Other Stuff

Race Night Results
The first race night of the year has been held and 27 swimmers splashed their way up and down the pool. There were plenty of records tumbling throughout the evening. Results and records have now been posted on the records and results pages.

A few of you may notice that your times haven't been posted or that you have question marks next to your times. This is because you broke World Records by huge margins for your age for the event swum. We suspect a problem with the stopwatch, so apologies for that; or should we say...Congratulations on your World Record!!!

February Birthdays
We have another round of birthdays so hands together for these people:
Christine Fergusson, Shirley Cartwright, Anne Faulkner, Kath Barclay, Mark Clavey, Mike Harrison (the BIG one - ha ha ha ha ha ha ha), Deryn McGregor (also big one but still 5 days younger than Mike), and rounding off the month, Maree Kilkolly. Big happy's to these folk.

Katikati Swim Meet
Last month Fiona G and Tyrone C went to Katikati for their annual swim meet. They returned covered in glory. Tyrone even won the 'boaster' award for his butterfly. If you want to know how you win a boaster award, just ask Tyrone and he will give you instructions.

And Now A Message From Our Sponsor......
Actually we don't have a sponsor but we do have a committee and the following is a suggestion from our committee:

You may have noticed recently that participation at our training sessions has been great – several times we've had well over 40 swimmers. It has a down side, though. The lanes sometimes get busy enough to make it difficult for everyone to get a good training session.

We'd like your help to try a suggestion that's been put forward. Let's try to keep the number of swimmers in each lane to eight or less. All this means is that if there are more than eight swimmers in your lane, someone should try swimming in the lane either side. On occasions that will cause a ripple down effect, but it should help everyone get a good session.

Most people who change lanes have found the difference isn't as great as they feared and that the people in that lane are just as friendly ;-) Give it a try for a while and see how it goes.
 

First Club Night of the Year

First club night of the year will be held on Wednesday 30th January in lieu of Waitangi Day being on the following Wednesday. Events will be:

25 Back or Free
50 Fly or Free
100 Breaststroke
200 any stroke

As usual there will be a light supper afterwards.

Newsflash!!! South City Masters are sitting top of the table on the clubs list at the halfway mark of the Kohi Swim Series - woop woop!

News From Annette Stewart

Many of you will know former club member Annette Stewart who is nursing in the wop wops of Australia. She is keeping us up to date with dramas of daily life in the outback. Here is the latest 'Dear Diary...'

I, along with three others, worked through covering the clinic. A lot of the locals go away, mainly to drink! So it was fairly quiet although there is never a week goes by without some drama. A murder in another community resulted in a round of payback on the perpetrator's family so broken bones and knife wounds. When that all calmed down we had a run of gastro - rotten roo tails and emu were the culprits. In 40+ degree heat it doesn't take long for meat to go off!!

For us whitefellas Xmas was a sedate affair - all the rushing round, last minute shopping and general panic was something that we watched on the TV. Ours was more of an old fashioned Christmas where we all gathered at one of the houses, everyone brought food along, if there was any gift giving it took the form of baking or a plant that someone had grown. After a sumptuous lunch (people out here are great cooks - something to do with having to fill in your spare time!) most of us walked the airstrip and then went for a swim before gathering together in the evening for dessert and a DVD. It was lovely considering that nobody wants to be away from home at Xmas.

New Year we had a camp fire and live music - two of my work colleagues play the fiddle and guitar. At midnight wandered over to the church where the locals had a hymn, come country and western come kareoke thing on the go - so something for everyone including the thirty or so dogs milling round and scrapping and howling. Midnight came and went, 2013 serenaded in by two young men standing under a string of bare light bulbs singing along rather tunelessly to a key board and beatbox!! They made up in enthusiasm what they lacked in talent!

Am busy organising my next trip home - three weeks in March and will definitely make it to swimming this time - my last visit was rushed due to selling the house and re-homing the dog. Have to say am looking forward to some cooler weather - even the pool is luke warm. Swim there in the evenings but no good for any training sessions as they have the scavenger roaming round with its long hose attached and there are usually other whitefellas in enjoying a loll in the water. One day last week it got up to 48 C - the hottest temperature ever recorded here since records began - could feel my eyeballs drying out!!

Am also planning a trip to Germany in June and then either somewhere in Aussie September time although am also considering Burma/Myanmar - will have to see. I know that I will be moving on from here in the next year or so which is not unusual - work life expectancy for a whitefella (or woman) is about two years and I think that that will hold good for me. Where to then I don't know but that is part of the fun!!

Well Annette, I'd have to say rather you than me. We hope you can drop in to the pool in March and we all look forward to seeing you.

 

Heads Up!

It's being bandied around that on 20th January the tides will be right to have a club training sea swim followed by a byo picnic. Once we have finalised the time and location we'll get the word out. Watch this space.

Here are the birthdays for January: Krystal Deets, Barry Davies, Stu Graham, Michael Norton and David Main. Lucky them, they get a summer holiday AND birthday cake. Life is sweet.

Lastly,

Happy New Year to all members of South City Masters Swimmers.  May 2013 be everything you want it to be.

Subs Are Due Please And Handicap Swim Coming

Subscriptions Due
It's that time of year and annual subscriptions are due. Subscription for the coming year remains at $60, same as this year. Please put your $60, cash or cheque, in an envelope with your name on it and hand it to John T by the end of the year. He only needs your email, phone and address if they have changed since you last gave them to John. On that note, if you have not been receiving emails chances are there is something wrong with the one we have for you (or our ability to read your handwriting). Please provide your email address again.

Open Water Handicap Swim and Picnic
You might want to put the 10th March in your diary, go do it now. On this date at Little Bucks we will be having our annual handicap o/w swim and picnic that we have been holding every year since next year. You can swim either 1 km or 2 km with or without a wetsuit and we will have trophies and spot prizes. Entry will be free but you will need to submit a 400m free time for handicapping purposes. Don't worry yet as there will be more info on entering coming later. The swim will be at 5.30pm and the bbq and prizegiving will be at 6.30pm. It would make it a whole lot simpler to cook the meat if there was a barbeque at the location so if anyone has a portable barbeque that would be suitable for cooking large(ish) quantities of meat could you please have a word to John?

Race Night Results Are Out

If you were at race night last night these are now posted on all the right pages (I hope!), results are on the results pages, records on records pages etc. We had 20 swimmers which is the usual numbers and 2 free lanes for those who wanted to do 'other stuff'.  3 New men's records were set, 2 ladies records and 1 relay record (good call do the medley relay by the way!).

While admiring some of the amazing times our men swam I looked up some of the NZ records for the men's 400 free. There was one thing that stood out in particular, the men's record for the 30-34 year age group is 4.23 and the record for the men's 55-59 year age group is 4.24. There are 25 more years and only 1 second difference. Think about that for a bit. Quite astounding really. This nicely illustrates that you don't have to slow down as you age, the challenge continues.

Swimmer of the Month
Denise Munday is our November Swimmer of the Month. Denise has lined up for the first time for the Kohi Swim Series and done it style, returning for more swims in the series. Denise has inspired others to take the challenge. Nice job Denise.