This year Mike Maguire and Marti Maguire will open their home to us to celebrate the holidays and enjoy a well deserved opportunity to socialize off the pool deck.   This is a potluck social so we are asking everyone to coordinate with Marti and/or myself on dishes.

Here are the details for the Christmas Potluck:

What: Christmas DWMSC Potluck Supper

When: Saturday, December 3th – drop in any time after 5:00 pm.

Where: Check your email for the details.

Who: Any current DWMSC Member plus one guest.

Details: Please RSVP to Chris (social@dwmsc.com) or Marti (registrar@dwmsc.com) with what you are planning to bring to contribute to the dinner and how many people will be attending. This is BYOB.

Hope to see everyone there!

We are planning our first social of the season.  It will be a down east corn boil and details of the event have been emailed to everyone.

Please join us for this first event to see your fellow swimmers with their clothes on.

Charlene is a life long swimmer having swum at the age group and masters level.  She is a certified coach and has several years of coaching experience at the age group level most recently with the Dartmouth Manta Rays.

Charlene has a passion for swimming and enjoys creating fun and interesting workouts while focusing on stroke technique.

Please join me in welcoming Charlene to the club.

Masters Swimming is a coached, organized, adult program intended to promote fitness through the sport  of swimming. Masters Swimmers are comprised of all types of athletic and non athletic swimmers ranging from former world champions, age groups (youth competitive swimming), tri-athletes, fitness, and casual swimmers. It is open to and designed for anyone who is able to complete a few simple lengths of a pool non-stop. You don’t have to be fast, good, or competitive to be a Masters Swimmer.

So why swimming? There are lots of activities out there a person can pursue to be fit. You can run, weight training, biking, hiking, hockey, volleyball, etc. All these are great and well worth pursuing but none offer the low impact that swimming can. Swimming – especially in a structured workout – offers a low impact activity that builds endurance, strength, and cardio-vascular fitness. This allows reduced strain on joints while still allowing a full body exercise.

There are also psychological benefits to swimming. At a slower pace where you are not working as hard you can relax and let your mind wander, focusing on nothing but the rhythm of your stroke. This provides a meditative state.  A less obvious side benefit you can also gain is time management and self discipline.  Having to schedule around practice so you can attend, keeping on the pace of the practice, Some people even find it a stress reliever to swim, refreshing them for the day.

As part of a masters club, swimming offers a great social outlet and camaraderie through the shared workout experience. You can get coached guidance on your stroke techniques allowing you to improve and in some case swim strokes you never thought you would.  You can set goals such as swimming a distance faster, entering a master’s competition (100% optional), mastering a stroke, or building endurance.

The costs of swimming are also great when compared to some other types of activities. The cost of a swim suit and goggles is often much less than a good pair of running shoes. The membership costs of a Masters club also are much better than your typical fitness center.

The things swimming can’t offer you are muscle growth and a high level of weight loss. While you will build strength you won’t build muscle like a weight lifter would and while you will drop weight through swimming, there is an upper limit.  Both these limitations are the reality of being supported in the water gaining less resistance than free weights and due to the nature of the cooling effect of water.

So if you have not considered masters swimming as part of your fitness routine you should! Either as your primary workout or as a part of cross-training it has something to offer you.   Join our team now and start the benefits of Masters Swimming!

Further to my previous message about the 2011 -2012 Swim Season, I am pleased to announce that our new Head Coach is one of our own - Christina Burton.  Continuing the family legacy, Christina has been involved in the competitve swimming circuit for over 15 years and has experience at the provincial and national levels.  A true lover of the sport, she is a stroke technician and team player.  We are very excited to have Christina leading the on deck activities this year.  Please join me in welcoming Christina to her new role.

I am excited about the 2011-2012 season and hope to see you all on deck soon. Attached is the registration package for this season which starts on Sunday, September 11.  Please note that this season we are starting 15 minutes earlier on Tuesdays at 8:15pm.

For those of you interested in registering online (preferred), please feel free to do so again this year at the following link:

http://www.dwmsc.com/membership/2011-2012-registration/

For those that require paper registration the attached document has everything you need.

We are just finalizing recruitment of a new coach and will send out those details as soon as possible.

Please contact myself or Marti our Registrar if you have any registration questions.  (Email: registrar@dwmsc.com )

As always, we welcome your feedback about the club and look forward to a great season!

Thanks so much to our volunteer Executive that has been working hard over the summer to ramp up for this season!

See you soon!

Attached is the Meet package information.  I hope everyone will take the chance to consider swimming an event or at least volunteering at the meet.  With everyone’s combined participation it will be a successful meet.

Registration Form

Registration Package

Membership

This past term has been a fantastic term for the Dartmouth Whalers.  We have had several swimmers travel to represent the team at meets in Halifax and Picto. We have seen a steady crowd in the water at nearly every swim.  Our Coach Kelsey has been building every ones skill, strength, and endurance.  We have seen the addition of an online store with Whalers branded clothing, and finally we have celebrating our 25^th year with monthly socials.

But we still have room to grow!  As we start our second term we still have a handful of spots left in the club and anyone who is interested is welcome to join.  As you know, being a Masters Swimmer does not require any former record setting skills, does not mandate any commitment beyond your own level of interest, and certainly does not mean competitiveness.  All it requires is an interest in participation though the sport of swimming and a minimum skill level allowing you to swim 4 consecutive lengths of the pool.  If you, or anyone you know, sound like this person. We welcome you to join us at anytime!  In all my travels in this great country of ours, some of the best people I have met have been Whalers!

Come out and join us.

Halifax Long Course Meet

This weekend, Feburary 19^th 2011, the Halifax Chronos Masters Swim Club will be hosting a Long Course meet at the Centennial Pool in Halifax.   Attached are details on the events and a registration package.   So far 4 Whalers have shown interest in attending and more are always welcome.   If you have never swum in a meet before, do consider it.  They are a ton of fun and allow you to show that competitive side for a day.

Good luck to our swimmers!