Although most of you don’t consider yourself to be "competitive" swimmers, this is not an excuse for not setting goals in your swimming. Doing anything without some sort of purpose will become dull, boring, and repetitive before too long. Goals are necessary to keep one motivated to continue - especially on very cold days, early morning workouts, etc.

I’m sure you’ve been told many times, maybe from parents, teachers, bosses, or even a swim coach, to set goals. What’s so important about setting goals? "It seems so silly to spend the time to sit down and write the things you already know you want to do. "I just want to swim" you may say. "I set goals for my career, but I don’t need to set goals for my recreation." This sounds reasonable, but is not true if you take a closer look.

Deep inside, we all need justification for everything we do. It’s human nature to feel the need for accomplishment. The reward of completing a task worked hard at, is something we all strive for, whether it’s in the working world or in our personal life. What are you trying to accomplish by swimming?

Make some short and long terms goals for this year. Try to set many goals. If you only set one or two simple or wishy-washy goals it probably won’t help to motivate you. The more goals you set, the more chance for success you have. Remember, you haven’t lost anything if you don’t reach a particular goal, but you have accomplished something when you do achieve one. Be specific whenever possible, including number (distances, times, places, dates, etc.) Many of you don’t realize how much progress you have made. If you record your times or mileage you may be surprise by how much progress you’ve really made.

Overcome the Fear of Failure: I have noticed that many swimmer’s don’t set goals to improve swimming skills, or enter events to check their progress due to a "fear of failure." When asked to do a timed swim in workout, or to enter some other event, do you say "Oh no, I’m not in shape!”, "I’m too slow." or "I don’t think I can do as well as last year." These are fear of failure answers. So what if you don’t go as far. So what if you’re not the fastest. It’s the process of trying to improve that’s important. A great quote I like to refer to goes like this: "Failure is not the worst thing in the world. The very worst is not to try." However, chances are you’ll be quite please with the results, and occasionally reach your goals.

• Under the current point score, there is up to 24 points up for grabs each week. 480 points was the maximum score that could be achieved this season.



• The average top score over the last 7 seasons has been 253 for the boys and 264 the girls. The highest scores achieved over that time were 309 points by Linda Liepins in the girls point score in 1998/99 and 294 by Adam Hammonds in the Boys point score in 1999/2000.



• In the club’s history, there has only been three seasons where there has been a tie for first place in the point score. In 1973/74 the boys point score was won by N. Peacock and L. Kennedy. In 1988/89 the Michael Rossek Trophy was jointly awarded to David Johnston and Peter Johnston and the following year it was jointly awarded to Simon Johnston and Andrew Stephan. There has never been a tie in the girls point score.



• Four families have won both the Michael Rossek and Ronald Exley Trophies; the Hayes, Stephan, Buckler, and Cause families. Of those four families, only one, the Buckler family, has taken home both trophies in the same season.



• 15 different girls have won the Ronald Exley Trophy in the last 21 seasons. Amber Johnson and Linda Liepins have won it the most times with 3 each.



• 17 different boys have won the Michael Rossek Trophy in the past 21 seasons. Tim Hayes, Peter Johnston, Andrew Stephan and Nathan Cause have won it the most times with 2 each.



• 4 boys and 4 girls have won the trophies more than once; Tim Hayes, Peter Johnston, Andrew Stephan, Nathan Cause, Kristy Smith, Rachel Buckler, Linda Liepins and Amber Johnson.



• 3 boys and 4 girls have won the Goldman Trophy more than once; N. Peacock, Darren Turner, Andrew Walters, G. Pedley, H. Koch, J. Pye and L. Glenn.



• Tim Hayes is the only swimmer to have won both the Goldman Trophy and the Michael Rossek Trophy.



• Because the trophies are only awarded to junior swimmers (under 17 years), the trophy recipients aren’t always the highest point scorers. Usually junior swimmers top the point score simply because they have more room for improvement. However, in 3 of the last 7 seasons, the highest point scorer in the male competition has actually been a senior swimmer. Glen Stanford was the highest in 2001/2002 while Peter Johnston finished on top in 1998/1999 and again in 2003/2004, on this occasion equal with the highest junior boy.



• 2 swimmers have won both the summer and winter graded point scores; Amber Johnson and David Wang; however no swimmer has won both point scores in the same season.