Regional Qualifier Meet, March 2025
Last weekend Hatfield held our popular Regional Qualifier. We hosted clubs from Cambridge, Dunmow Atlantis, Dunstable, Hemel Hempstead, Hoddesdon, Norwich Swan, Potters Bar, Putteridge, Salisbury, Verulum and Ware. This was a short course, level 3 competition held over two days at Hertfordshire Sports Village.
Saturday kicked off in the afternoon with timed finals of the 400m free followed by heats of the 100m back, 200m IM, 50m free, 100m breast and 50m fly. There were plenty of fast swims and happy swimmers as PB’s were swum with some achieving the Regional times they were after. Once the break was over, finals began. All good experience and practice for those end of season meets.
Sunday was an early start and the day was split into two sessions, both with finals. There was a 400m IM plus all the remaining 50s, 100s and 200s. Swimmers making finals had the opportunity to win further medals for Junior and Senior Championships as well as another opportunity to better their times and achieve Regional qualification.
Running our meets takes an incredible amount of time, dedication and effort. Home meets are a vital way for us to raise funds as well as give our swimmers opportunities to compete and put everything they are learning in training into practice and make improvements. We are lucky to have such a good team of volunteers who make these events possible. JB is our meet entries manager/guru and does a fantastic job with processing entries and running things in the timing suite on the day. He’s helped in the room by a team including Jeannine, Baz and Michael. Our promotors, Valerie and Federica coordinate things in advance of the competitions, including the meet licensing, and make sure things runs smoothly. Duncan (the voice of Hatfield as he’s known by some) tries to keep spectators up to date and races interesting with his commentary.
During the meet, we rely on our Pink Army of volunteers. Mun-Li is our volunteer co-ordinator and is always looking for people to come forward and help in any way they can. If you are able to help out in the future, please contact her. There are many different roles that need filling over a meet weekend including the entrance desk, medal table, changing room monitors and poolside marshalling. Julia and Monu are usually found marshalling and would be happy to sign up new recruits!
All-important to keeping officials and coaches happy, hydrated and fed over the weekend is our catering team. Louise organizes everything and is usually supported on the day by Kate, Mun-Li and Amanda and Georgia. These ladies ensure that snacks and drinks are offered poolside multiple times a session and that a fantastic spread of food is available during the breaks. We have a team of bakers including Amanda, Jeannine, Becky, Ashley, Georgia, Kate and Honor who provide delights such as breads, cakes, scones, sausage roll, cookies, and various other treats that have helped make our meets very popular and well known in the area. We are always looking for more people to join this team, so please let us know if you can help.
Crucial to us being able to run our meets are our officials. They time keep, stroke judge, start and referee to name a few roles. Clare is our officials coordinator and would be very interested to chat to anyone about getting involved, so please do reach out to her. Some of our officials have been involved with the club for years and still come along to help out even though their own children have left the club. Their help is much appreciated. Our next meet is our Level 2 National Qualifier Meet in June. See you there! If you would like to get involved with running it please reach out via WhatsApp.