Pembroke and District Amateur Swimming Club is forty!

PHOTO:
Pembroke Swimming Club 2014

Pembroke and District Amateur Swimming Club has cause for excitement at this time because they are celebrating the fact that they have been in existence for 40 years!

Forty years ago saw the opening of the new Pembroke Sports centre on the site of the former grammar school at Bush in Pembroke. For the first time, alongside a sports hall, tennis and squash courts, the community of Pembroke and Pembroke Dock had its very own 25-metre four-lane swimming pool and learner pool.

Simple aim – to get youngsters swimming!

It wasn’t long before the newly-appointed swimming teacher, Trina Bowen (Pearson) started a collaboration with the Sports centre manager Larry Jones and his late wife June to form a swimming club. Larry (an ex Welsh record butterfly swimmer) became the first chief coach.

With Trina and Janet Green, the founding members’ aims were simple; to get children of the local community swimming! Prior to this, if you wanted to teach your children to swim it involved a trip to Haverfordwest, which at that time meant crossing the Cleddau River by ferry!

Rapid growth and enormous numbers

Through those early days, support for the club continued to grow as Trina became its hub in her role as the swimming teacher. Seeing children swimming during their school sessions meant she was ideally placed to then try and entice them to come to improve their swimming at the swimming club sessions.

The club continued strongly through the decades that followed with hundreds of local children getting the opportunity to learn to swim and at times, the membership of the club approached 300!

The early days of the swimming club saw mostly a family-based system with many swimmers’ siblings inevitably getting involved and progressing through the ranks.

Bergen recalled – and other happy memories

Since the club’s inception, there have been many local and international opportunities to compete for the swimmers to develop and improve their swimming. Many ex-members will recall a number of overseas trips to the Pembroke’s twin town Bergen in Germany. Notably though, in addition to the swimming and competing, many friendships were formed and in many cases, still flourish today!

Past members will recall happy memories of trips to the pantomime in Swansea, numerous discos and the annual BBQs at Freshwater East (instigated by the late Joan Chilton).

Two real stalwarts of the club, Dorothy Morgan and Keith Thompson, have both injected unbelievable amounts of time and effort over many years, enabling the club’s continued success.

Structure still works well within Pembrokeshire framework

The structure of the club continues today as it did in the early days with a committee team of hardworking parents and volunteers who carry out the day to day functioning of the club.
Nowadays, the new aquatic structure, run in conjunction with Pembrokeshire County Council, allows swimmers with identified potential being filtered from the club into a more formal swimming pathway based in Haverfordwest.

Indeed a number of Pembroke and District’s elite swimmers now perform at a National level within this structure. However, they and the all the club’s members have one thing in common; their roots in Pembroke and District Swimming Club’s 25-metre pool!

Warm welcome extended

Ex-members of the club will always recall the annual fixture in the club’s calendar, the Club Championships held in December. With this being its 40th year, the current committee, members and President of the Club wish to invite any ex-committee members and coaches to a celebratory buffet, which will be held on the 13^th December at 12 noon, prior to the 40th club championships at Pembroke Pool.

All attendees would then be most welcome to stay on to watch some of the current swimmers, who range from 6 years and upwards, competing in a fun atmosphere! If you are able to come then please contact Trina Bowen at goldentrina50@aol.com or 01646 641033 or www.pembrokeanddistrict.co.uk.

And if you have any old photographs, please bring them along.

The current committee would be pleased to see some of the club’s history!