Kent Championships 2023 Feedback

The Swimming committee are always seeking to improve the Championships.

This year was different to last year, we ran the individual events other than long distance over 2 weekends with two further evenings for the long distance events For the individuals we also hired a professional commentary firm and provided free streaming.

Over the last 7 years we have had the same feedback questions. This year we are including some of the reasons that explain the way things are done, to help the survey participants understand why the event is run this way, and avoid questions about things that are in our control.

The championships follow the Swim England pathway, that all counties have to follow.  The events and the age groups are set, and we cant change them. Our challenge is to create an event for one of the largest swimmingcounties that gives as many swimmers as possible a chance to swim. Equally we want to keep the standard of the championships at a consistent level.

The common issues that arise are

This is a perennial question. Kent has no 50m pools, (Crystal Palace is at least 3/4 years from being reopened) but Kent has lots of swimmers. Swimming long course means more warmup space, more spectator space and more space for swimmers around poolside. It’s not simply a matter of less turns and conversions. It's all about capacity.  We also discuss this as well as the programme with the Kent Coaches Forum which is open to all club Head Coaches in the County

Another perennial question, the times are generally tougher than other counties, because we have more swimmers, and we have limited time and warmup space (even in a 50m pool)

We are very conscious that it's not ideal that there is no swimming warm down. Every year we ask to hire out space in the public pool and every year it's refused. The diving club has a long term booking of the diving pit, which ceases at 2pm.  To hire that space is prohibitive please see comments below as to cost to the county under Presentations 

Ideally we would have an Olympic pool  in the centre of Kent, but short of issuing everyone with a shovel, we cant really change that. Both venues are long journeys for East Kent clubs, it’s not ideal, but there are no other pools that can cope with the capacity.  We did make enquiries of virtually every LNG Course pool in South East England but there was no availability or there were technical issues e.g. the boom at Basildon is stuck meaning it can only be used short course and no one locally has the money or inclination to move it.

STATE OF THE VENUES
We liaise with the venue management before the events, but much of the condition of the venues is outside of our control. We ask for clean toilets, functioning timing equipment, starting blocks that work, but often we end up repairing them for the centre to make them work to a basic level. We haven't resorted to cleaning toilets!  We have no control over the food policy nor the cafe at LAC.

We are aware that many would like the presentation of medals reinstated but to announce and present all medalists would add 3 hours to each day.  This would add a further hire fee well into 5 figures.  As it is the County is heavily subsidising the Championships this year and to enable presentations would require us to probably double the entry fees to cover all the costs.