Latest News

Results from our Level X round 1 competed on Sunday 20th December 2020. All results will be published to Swim England here: https://www.swimmingresults.org/levelx/

https://www.swimmingworldmagazine.com/news/abbie-wood-on-the-lows-and-highs-of-the-duna-arena-and-finding-her-mojo/

Over the last week, we have continued with the planning and close liaising with the leisure centre management to enable our swimmers to return to the pool as soon as possible.  There are still some fine details to be sorted and we will have a full timetable to share with you very soon.

We will be operating a phased return, starting Tuesday 1st September, with the 3 Competition groups and the Physical Training group.  On Sunday 6th September we will be adding Academy groups to our programme, and then on Sunday 13th September all of the Learn to Swim groups will be added too.  Please keep an eye on your inbox for details over the next few days.

Meanwhile, we have two important areas of ‘admin’ required by Swim England before you can return. Without these completed, you will unfortunately be refused entry to the pool.

Firstly, we have an updated Code of Conduct, that must be read and agreed to, and individual links have been emailed to all swimmers. We have highlighted the updates, but please remind yourself of all of the points.

Secondly, we require a printed & signed Health Survey. Please bring this with you to your first session back. Covid Health Survey.pdf
(If you don’t have access to a printer, please let us know and we will prepare a form for you to sign, but please accept this as a last resort).

Finally there is also a ‘swimmers guidance sheet’ (Return to the pool – Swimmer guidance.pdf) which we have prepared as a club; this is a handy way to think about the things that need doing before, during and after train ing.  Some swimmers are choosing to print this off at home to help remember what to do for each session.  

Swimmers must arrive at the pool, what is being termed, “Beach Ready”; this does not mean arrive in surfing shorts….it means having your swimming costume or trunks on under a changing coat/robe, a towelling poncho, a onesie, or loose fitting and quickly removable joggers and hoodie. The changing areas will have limited numbers allowed in and we have found during our back to pool planning that it is this aspect of the leisure centre, not the swimming, that has caused the most difficulty.  Long gone are the days of standing for ages in the showers…and fact, showering really must be done before and after at home (see guidance sheet).

We will be in contact soon with session timings and invites for each squad as the week progresses.

Hello everyone

You may have seen on social media that Buxton Swimming Pool is due to open on Tuesday 1st September, and asking yourself what this means for you as a member of Buxton Swimming Club….well, good news – yesterday we received time slots across a week in which we can hold our club sessions.

Members of the coaching team and the committee have produced the necessary risk assessments in line with the Swim England guidelines and we have had these signed off by the pool management. We have also re-written the club’s Code of Conduct in light of the risk assessments and we will send these to you as the week progresses.  Finally, you will also receive a guidance sheet with user friendly instructions on the ‘new’ working ways at the pool and a health declaration form that you must return on the 1st session you come back to swim.  No signed form – no swim.  We appreciate that you can fill out a form on 1 day to say you are Covid free, and then catch it the next,….so it becomes up to you on a session by session basis to evaluate your own and the swimmers health and not attend if you display any of the symptoms listed on the governmental websites related to Covid-19.  We will take a Track n Trace register at the door for every session, and you are signing in each time stating that, to the best of your knowledge, you are Covid symptom free and not serving any quarantine restrictions. We obviously ask for your honesty each session and stay away if you are unsure at all, for the good of all.

Unfortunately a major issue facing the club is that the pool’s opening hours are reduced; week day opening doesn’t start until 7am making our Thursday am training a no go, Mon -Fri evenings is a 8pm close and on a weekend the pool closes at 4pm.  The club’s normal timetable just will not be able to exist.  The pool have kindly sent us the available slots across a week and I have contacted all of club’s teachers, coaches and volunteers to establish which sessions they can work on; from there we can construct a new pool plan…but this may involve flexibility on our part as swimmers and parents on which sessions we can attend.  I should be able to send out the new times for each of our groups over the next few days once we have constructed the weekly programme.  

What is going to be very difficult here is that as a club ‘we can’t please all of the people all of the time’; you may see the new timetable and say it doesn’t suit you.  That is really tricky for us a club because it is not our doing to have to alter a timetable that pretty much worked before CV-19 arrived – all we can do is create the best fit with the staff and sessions we have and hope that the majority of swimmers can access the water at some point in a week.  Some people may be disappointed when they see the new timetable, but please recognise we ha ve done our best.  That said, if 10 or 15 of you email in to say that a planned session clashes with scouts, guides or hockey practice (or other) then we will do our best…..but we won’t be able to re-arrange everything for 1 or 2 people.

In terms of fees….once we have created the pool plan and programme we can calculate any adjustments.  However, we did ask if the pool operator were putting the hire prices up – yes they have, but we have yet to find out how much.  

Can I respectfully ask that you wait until you have read the updated Code of Conduct, guidance sheet, health forms and new timetables before asking/emailing a series of questions.  Hopefully everything will be answered in due course.

Head of competition Andrew Stokes was full of praise for Buxton swimmers after they took on some of the biggest clubs in the Midlands at the prestigious Derventio Excel Short Course Gala.

With tough qualification times just to get into the gala, which was held at the Arc in Matlock, the Buxton club knew they would be up against some seriously good opposition.

But Stokes aaid: “Our select team showed they can achieve not only great times but also a raft of medals against the bigger clubs.

“This was a really tough gala for a small club like Buxton, but our performances will set our swimmers in the right direction as they prepare for the county championships in December.”

Seth Partridge celebrated victory in the 50m butterfly, while Ollie Ecob was second in the 50m freestyle and third in the 50m backstroke, and Matthew Foreman (50m butterfly), Chloe Montgomery White (100m individual medley) and James Ralph (100m individual medley) collected third places.

Personal-best times were recorded by Ralph, Montgomery White, Reece Bromley and Mia Stokes.

Olympic hopeful Abbie Wood returned home this week to launch a new initiative at Buxton Swimming Club in her name.

The Abbie Wood Academy has been created by the club to ensure young swimmers making their first steps into competitive swimming have the key fundamentals of racing embedded early on.

Wood, a multiple junior medalist on the international scene has gone on to represent Team GB and England across the world, started at the Buxton pool.

“I started my swimming journey here at Buxton pool and the town’s swimming club” Abbie told the younger swimmers.

Her list of honours include 400m individual medley gold, 200m individual medley bronze and 4x100m medley relay bronze at the 2015 European Games in Baku and competing at the 2018 Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast in Australia.

The new academy’s head coach Liam McWee said: “Getting Abbie involved in our new academy is fantastic and it’s great to welcome her back in such a key season in the build up to next summer’s Olympics. Abbie’s skill level is so high and I’m sure our younger swimmers will be inspired by her.”

Wood is scheduled to return during the autumn term to spend time coaching and demonstrating techniques to the academy swimmers.

Richie Ralph, chairman of Buxton Swimming Club, added “We are so pleased to have Abbie involved in the club’s new section – and even more pleased when she agreed to us naming it The Abbie Wood Academy”.

With the new race season on the horizon, the club is encouraging new swimmers to sign up. Interested in joining the academy? Email membership@buxtonswimmingclub.co.uk

Buxton swimming club performed brilliantly once again at the Satellites Gala in Macclesfield, with most swimmers knocking their personal bests (PB’s) out of the water and many coming away with one or more medals.

There were some great performances, notably a battle for the boys 12 and under 400 freestyle where James Ralph and Oliver Ecob swam stroke for stroke with Oliver getting the gold medal by just 0.72 seconds despite an amazing last length from James. Charlie Boam got numerous medals and 6 PB’s along with 6 PB’s for Mia Stokes. Olivia Pope and Bethan Pollard both got 7 PB’s, Chloe Montgomery-White got 5 PB’s as did Izzi Stokes after a long stretch with injury. 9 year old Anwen Williams swam a remarkable 1:28.65 100 freestyle in her first ever gala as a 9 year old.

“There were some brilliant swims at Macclesfield and the team were by far the loudest cheering on their team mates which is brilliant to see. Every gala we go to now our swimmers are doing better and better and it fantastic to see them working hard in training to get results in the competitions. Although they are competing for individual times the team spirit they have is outstanding and the encouragement from the older swimmers to the younger ones is admirable.  The weekend was fun filled, energetic and an impressive achievement for our club” said Andrew Stokes – Assistant Head Coach.

Buxton Swimming Club has attended the Derbyshire Swimming Championships for the past two weekends after a good season of competing and training for the club so far. These championships are the main annual goal for our competitive swimmers and this year we had the most qualifiers in recent times which is fantastic for the club.

Over the two weekends Buxton had 155 swims and from that our swimmers achieved 74 personal bests which is a fantastic proportion! Over and above that though Buxton swimmers reached 20 finals which is something quite amazing and came away with 5 medals from those finals including 2 golds for Oliver Ecob with an amazing last 10m in the 50 freestyle and Amy Mead in the 100IM. Medals also went to Charlie Boam; silver in 200 back, James Ralph; bronze in 400 free, Elle Turner; bronze in 400IM and Louis Ecob; silver in 100 freestyle and bronze in 50 freestyle. Oliver Ecob also took bronze in the 50 backstroke. In the over 20’s category assistant coach Lauren Hurley collected 4 golds, 2 silvers and 2 bronze medals with a great 2 weekends work!

Assistant Head Coach Andrew Stokes commented “we are massively proud of the work the swimmers put in in training to get to peak condition for the counties and to have our swimmers get so many PB’s and reach finals shows how far the club and it’s swimmers have come in the last 12 months.”

Buxton Swimming Squad swam into action at the Ripley Rascals 46th Anniversary Open Meet in Matlock on the 5th and 6th January 2019.

Ripley Rascals saw one of the biggest teams Buxton has taken to a gala in recent years, with 34 swimmers ageing from 9 to 22.  It was the last chance for qualification times for the Derbyshire County Championships, so the expectation and anticipation was high!

Buxton gave an impressive performance against some strong competition and came away with a stack of medals with Personnel Bests (PB’s) being smashed out of the water!   We had 20 new qualifying times, 16 medal winners and around 80% of the swims resulted in PB’s, a truly amazing performance from all the swimmers.  Assistant Head Coach Andrew Stokes said “we’ve been working really hard towards the counties this year and we got some amazing swims at Ripley.  It’s not fair to single people out but is safe to say we are immensely proud of the swimmers and thank them for all their hard work which has paid off.”  Buxton now has the highest number of qualifiers for the Derbyshire County Championships for a long time with 29 swimmers achieving qualification times.

Our medal winners were:

Charlie Boam, Callum Jelleyman, Chloe Montgomery White, Matthew Foreman, Mia Stokes, James Ralph, Ryan Cornish, Flow Harris Wood, Oliver Ecob, Louis Ecob, Ellenor Turner, Hamish Thompson, Seth Partridge, Olivia Pope, Euan Freeman and Boris Holliday.

It was an exciting weekend full of team spirit and a great way to start 2019!

Team Spirit runs high at Buxton Swimming Club

Great fun was had by all at Buxton Swimming Club’s  annual Presentation Night at the Old Club House last Saturday.  2018 has been an outstanding year for the club following the appointment of Liam McWee as Head Coach and Verity Mycock as Lessons Coordinator.  Successes include the winning of the Crusader division with the club moving up a division next year, record numbers of swimmers turning out for open meets and 11 new club records from Charlie Boam, Eleanor Turner and Louis & Oliver Ecob.

Hundreds of medals and 70+ trophies were given out to all ages from 7 years upwards.

• Top Boy and Top Girl of the Club Championships were named as Mathew Foreman & Chloe Montgomery-White, with 8 gold medals going to Chloe Montgomery White, Isobel Stokes and Mia Stokes & 7 going to Charlie Boam & Mathew Foreman.
• Top Boy and Top Girl of the Novice Gala were Daniel Fitzgerald and Anwen Williams with Annabelle Montgomery-White picking up the Endeavour award.

Trophies were presented by Paralympian Track Cyclist Anthony Kappes MBE, who brought his medals from London & Beijing to show to the swimmers.

The swimmers let their hair down on the dance floor and showed their team spirit in the annual ‘Human Pyramid’ competition, with the girls once again showing the boys a thing or two.  The boys got their own back on the karaoke however, thanks to Finn Hornsey-Saunders fabulous rendition of George Ezra’s ‘Budapest’.

A massive thank you goes to both Anthony Kappes for presenting and to Mo El-Fatih, who took some fantastic photographs on the night.