Albatross Annual Awards Ceremony
Good afternoon and welcome to the Albatross Annual Awards Ceremony where we will be acknowledging the contribution made in 2019 by divers, coaches and club members towards the growth and ongoing success of our club. You may remember we were due to hold this event back in March, but postponed it in the shadow of the surge in Coronavirus cases, we weren’t to know that we would be talking about the successes of 2019 almost a year after they occurred. Clearly 2020 has been an unusual year, but this afternoon we want to remember and applaud those who contributed to the success of our club last year and celebrate the dedication and commitment of all the Albatross family to our diving heritage.
Sadly, due to numbers and social distancing, your parents and families are not here this afternoon to share our story, but they are a significant part of it. Without their commitment to Albatross we would not be the club we are today; they support you emotionally, financially and by giving their time to travel to training and competition. They ensure you have the right kit, eat the right food and are in the right place to give you the best possible chance of enjoying your sport and reaching your personal goals. We are all volunteers and they volunteer with us to help run our club. We do not have an award to present to them, but your thanks and enjoyment of diving and your club is their reward.
We are proud of how highly we are regarded both locally and nationally, each of our achievements support the fact that we are all contributing to our success. The club is welcomed wherever we go, we are supported by clubs across the country who have willingly offered pool time with or without being asked. Divers and coaches are recognised and applauded. We have all stepped up to the added time investment needed in travelling to training at weekends and the coaches and committee work beyond what we see at training in preparing training programmes, managing budgets, booking pools, entering competitions, and networking with other clubs to facilitate recognition and support for Albatross. We all deserve the pat on the back that recognition provides, but I would ask now that the divers join me in applauding the support they are given willingly and unfailingly by their parents and the coaches. We will send your parents this speech with our thanks and applause for everything that they contribute to our club.
There is much for the club to remember and celebrate this afternoon. 2019 saw us compete successfully across the country with placings, finalists and medals being gained at all levels from the pre-skills Gavin Brown competition in Southampton early in 2019 through National Skills in Plymouth, National Age Groups and GB Junior Elites both in Sheffield, and the British National Diving Cup also in Plymouth. Further success was achieved in open competitions with the Armada Cup in Plymouth, the Southampton Invitationals, the Winter Masters in Southend and the Luton Challenge Skills and Advanced competitions. We then rounded off the year with divers at both the Scottish Nationals in Edinburgh and forming part of the Southeast Divisional Schools Team at the English Schools Championships in London’s Aquatic Centre.
Whilst Albatross is a competitive diving club and our success at competition is measurable, our club and our sport is so much more than just medals and podiums and our community, personal goals, empathetic support for one another and enjoyment of sport are all evident in everything we do and achieve. Our values are always present and this shines through wherever we are, no more so than in the past 6 months when, although we have been apart, we have all been along-side one another in our desire to maintain the Albatross family. We continued to train and support one another and, now we are back together, we will continue to do so. Across the whole club including the Learn to Dive programme we have lost only 4 divers to other sports during the closure period and we have a healthy number of taster sessions planned for new divers starting their sporting journey with us. We have been lucky in our return to the sport that the pools we use have welcomed us back so readily. We have also, this week, returned to dry training and been able to bring in a new permanent timetable supporting additional sessions. Some clubs have only just returned and some have seen their pools closing their doors for the foreseeable future.
Our Awards
This afternoon, our first 2 awards go to the girl and boy who we recognise as the most improved on the Learn to Dive programme. Both these winners have shown commitment to training and support of the club. They are recognised as a pleasure to teach, are responsive and show genuine enthusiasm and enjoyment of the sport. The Learn to Dive programme is largely recreational, but there are some opportunities to compete which are offered to divers who wish to take part and can meet the requirements. The programme is also the steppingstone to join the competitive squads with all our new Right Track Skills divers having followed this path. Before announcing our winners, we would also like to commend Ryan Cullen and Amy Gregg for their improvements and positive attitude, both of whom are now part of the Right Track Skills squad and we look forward to supporting their development in 2021 and Ella and Grace Butler who, with Katherine Carney, have all embraced all opportunities presented and showed significant improvement in the short time they have been with us.
Firstly, the winner of the Most Improved Boy on the Learn to Dive Programme has joined us as a slightly older diver than some but has already proved himself a fast learner with both his positive attitude and demonstration of diving skill. On entering his first Pre-Skills event last year he won gold at the Luton Novice competition in November and was on track to qualify for National Skills this year. We wish him every success for this in 2021.
Secondly, we congratulate the winner of the Most Improved Girl on the Learn to Dive Programme. Before giving this award, we would also like to commend 2 divers who went to the GBDF Masters event last autumn in Southend winning gold and silver, respectively. Milly Orgill has recently returned to diving and Holly Lane-Sellers came to diving as an older diver, but both have embraced their new personal diving goals and have also joined our coaching team.
Our award winner today, however, is recognised for her commitment to training and her positive attitude. She too has taken part in Pre-Skills events with the Southeast Region ACE initiative and at the Luton Novice competition. She is now established as one of a group of divers who wishes to enter other open competitions and we look forward to supporting her in this.
Sadly our 2 winners cannot be with us this afternoon, but we will present their awards to them at their next training session. Please join me in applauding our Most Improved Learn to Dive winners Toby Splain and Phoebe Davies.
Albatross Newcomer Awards.
These awards are presented each year to the boy and girl who, having entered the club, have shown significant improvement and commitment in training and a positive approach in their attitude towards coaches, themselves, and others. In considering these awards we wish to commend all our new Right Track divers for their willingness to listen to their coaches and make required alterations in their dives, but our 2 winners have done both this and more.
The winner of the Best Boy Newcomer Award has shown both determination and skills during 2019 which have been rewarded in gold medal success at the Gavin Brown competition in Southampton in February this year. He is one of our youngest competing divers at the moment but shows a resilience to fatigue and is always cheerful. We applaud Ivan Mihalciuc.
The second of our squad awards goes to the Best Girl Newcomer.
Alongside Ivan this young lady has also shown her determination to succeed both in training and early competition matching his gold medal performance at this year’s Gavin Brown competition. Please join me in congratulating Evie Gillespie.
We would now like to recognise the girl or boy who has shown the Most Significant Progress in Novice Diving during 2019.
It is sometimes hard as a small club training fewer hours than the larger clubs to succeed at competitive diving, but through a combination of dedicated coaches and committed parents and divers we can sustain our presence on the podiums of all major events. In presenting this year’s award to the diver showing the most significant progress in novice diving we would first like to commend Harry Healey for his bronze medal performance at National Skills in 2019 and Amber Cowen, who has since left the club, on her 6th place achievement. Finlay Stratford who, with Joe Foster made up our team of 4 competitors at last year’s event is also recognised for showing the degree of diving needed to reach the qualification points for this National Event. This year our winner has moved from strength to strength with PB’s and good placings in competition. He started 2019 with a win at that years Gavin Brown event, went on to achieve 6th place at National Skills and then at the Southampton Invitationals in October won the Boys Group C 1m final. In February 2020 he qualified for the 2020 National Age Groups final at the Armada Cup in Plymouth and we have no doubt he will be there in 2021. Please join with me in applauding Joe Foster.
We now have 10 divers in our new Skills Squad, and we wish them all every success in their training for the 2021 National Skills qualification events.
Moving from novice diving to the advanced diving of age group and elite competition is a huge step both in the stamina required to be able to maintain focus across three and four day competition schedules and in the range of dives required with ever increasing degrees of difficulty.
Our Significant Progress in Advanced Diving award winner this year has gained repeated PB’s throughout the year and at the 2020 Armada Cup achieved a hat trick of Age Group finals winning silver on platform and bronze on 3m. We also had some strong contenders for the award in Molly, Maya and Meah who all performed well at the 2019 Age Group finals with Maya also diving at the English Schools Championships as part of the Southeast Schools team and Edward Beal as a long standing Age Group diver who won triple gold at the same event. Our winner has worked hard, listened well and consistently tries to improve. This year’s winner of the Significant Progress in Advanced Diving Award is Hernan Mosqueda Jolly.
Diving first began in Reading in 1968 as the diving section of Reading Swimming Club and Albatross as a stand-alone club was founded in December 1978. In an abridged quote from past Chair Richard Hollingworth in 1994 “diving asks a lot from a young person. Not just the obvious attributes of courage, athleticism, and suppleness, but perhaps more importantly self-confidence and discipline. It is rare that a young diver will have all these qualities which is where all of us has a part to play whether we be parents, coaches, or fellow divers.
This afternoon, as each year, we are celebrating the longevity of our club and looking forward to our future where there will be new facilities and new challenges. Whilst we may have to change our volunteer status, but we will do so by maintaining our ethos, mission, and family feel. We have pledged this to the potential new operators, it is part of what makes us unique and the success we can so easily demonstrate. This is the club that was established over 40 years ago, and this is the club that will go forward into a new era. As all of you know Anne Green Jessel, Graham Green and their team of, then, young coaches, divers and committee were responsible for the establishment of Albatross and it is fitting that Anne is now the President of the club she helped to form so long ago and is here this afternoon.
These first set of awards have clearly shown the progression in diver development and competition. We have moved from learn to dive through competitive newcomers, novice diving and advanced diving and I now welcome our President, Anne Jessel, to present the Presidents Cup for 2019.
Presidents Cup
The Presidents Cup recognises a level of excellence in competitive diving and achievement in any given year and we had a number of nominees including James West for his outstanding performance at the 2019 Southampton Invitationals winning gold on both springboards and Quinn Shaw with a hat trick of silvers at the same event. Both boys also performed well as part of our team in Rome with James winning silver on 1m and bronze on platform and Quinn winning bronze on 3m. We had a 3rd nominee in Lauren Saunders for her silver and bronze medal achievements at the Scottish Nationals in December. All three divers had strong performances at the 2020 Armada Cup in the Elite section and were looking good for this year’s GB Junior Elites, so we wish them well for 2021.
Today, however, the Presidents Cup is presented to a diver who started competing with Albatross in 2011. Challenges of balancing schoolwork and any sport are hard but when this is 3 A levels for a place at Cambridge university, but still achieving 3 golds at a National sporting final then this is outstanding showing a dedication to both his studies and sport which has been present throughout his time with Albatross. Our winner is also an active coach with the club and has been invaluable in his support of our temporary programme over the summer when we returned to the pool. With his determination and positive attitude, we applaud the winner of the 2019 Presidents Cup, Edward Beal.
We now present three awards that recognise the worthy attributes of supportiveness in training, team spirit at competition and the ability to rise to the challenges required from diving.
Supportiveness in training is a welcome attribute displayed by many. It may be an appreciative clap or cheer when something goes well, a well done. It may be an understanding pat on the back when something does not go quite so well, a we’ve all been there. This year please join me in recognising the supportiveness of someone who despite being fairly new to the club is always supportive to other divers of all abilities and ages, and, in particular, helping some of our younger less experienced divers coping with their first qualification competitions. He is always there with a cheery smile and embraces any training opportunity offered. We recognise and applaud the winner of the 2019 Supportive Diver Award, Finlay Stratford.
Team spirit
Team spirit at an event is an attribute visible across all the clubs. It can be demonstrated both at one day competition and multi day events and is a mark of respect for both the club and the club members. We recognise and applaud the abilities and successes of our own divers and those of divers in other competing clubs. This year we recognise the spirit shown by this diver who has been competing with Albatross since 2014. Despite injury and set back she has continued to rise through the competitive levels to National Age Group and her dedication to her own personal development has paid off learning new dives and achieving greater PBs. She is a willing helper at any of our events, the 2019 Team Spirit Award goes to Molly Lefever
The Challenge Award goes to the diver who consistently is willing to take on the challenge of new dives rising above fear and having complete faith in the coach diver bond.
Whilst recognising Maya Peche in her willingness to try new dives and whether they go well or not she will always be smiling, this year we can applaud a diver who has consistently risen to the challenge of learning new dives and is always ready with a smile and a cheery disposition to take on the next challenge. We applaud the attitude shown in his desire to try new dives even when they are scary. As mentioned earlier he was a bronze medallist at the 2019 National Skills finals, and he has now moved on as a competing Age Group diver. Next year, qualification permitting, he will attend his first Age Group final. We applaud our Challenge Award winner Harry Healey.
We now come to the awards for volunteering and coaching, the Keith Meek Award, the Youth Coach Development Award, and the Mary Kinghorn Coach Award. And I would like to invite our Chair, Bridget Gibson, to join us.
Keith Meek was the first club Chair back in 1978 when the club started, and this award recognises the contribution to the club by a volunteer. As I have said, we are all volunteers and without the efforts made by all of us the club would not be success that it is. At some point all your parents and some of the older divers have all volunteered for the club and for the sport. We are unique in our standing as a volunteer club in this country with divers competing at the highest level, we are unique as a volunteer club in having divers on the England Talent Programme. In 2018 we were awarded the Swim England status of Diving Development Centre in recognition of our outstanding programme and coaching, we are unique in this as we have a home training pool with only 1m springboard and 3m platform.
We had several nominations and we would like your recognition of each one before announcing the overall winner as without the hard work, much of which is unseen by most of the club, we would not be the professionally run success you see today. It is clear to us that behind much of what we are able to achieve there is an administrative task that goes largely unnoticed but without which we would not be able to function: we need to ensure we attract funding, we need to ensure that we can participate in training and development opportunities, we need to ensure we are complying with legislative criteria, we need to ensure that our children and coaches are protected, we need to be auditable, be accountable and we need to be able to demonstrate our professionalism. There is nothing that we could have achieved as volunteers under these nominations without being able to document and evidence these attributes and we ask you all to recognise this.
Our Nominees are presented:
Bernie Bicknell. Bernie is nominated as a long serving member of Albatross, recognising his contribution to the club over many years since coming to the club with his daughter Michelle. In addition to being an invaluable club coach he has continued his commitment to the club through his committee role of Learn to Dive Coordinator where, as for most divers, he is the first representative of the club they come in contact with at their taster session. His role ensures club contact details are correct and we are welcoming new members. His contribution allows us to maintain our sizable base of divers and in the past draw on grants up to £800 per annum which have contributed to the subsidisation of all training fees. Without Bernie’s role we would not have a pipeline of divers coming through. With so many older divers leaving, it is important to recognize the need for finding and nurturing new talent.
Brian Shaw. Brian is nominated for his contribution to the legislative running of the club, largely unseen by most club members. Brian coordinates the annual submission to SwimMark ensuring that records are maintained currently, highlighting areas where data or qualifications are missing or out of date and advising key dates to committee members. SwimMark accreditation gives us access to grant support and further development opportunities and without Brian’s support the additional administrative workload involved may well be too onerous for the size of the club volunteer base. As a result of our recognition by SwimMark we have been able to apply for grants £5,000 this past year which support the development of the club and cover, in part, the additional training costs we are experiencing through extensive travel but without which we would not be able to grow and develop the base of the club and maintain our presence so effectively on the national stage.
Sheila Kirrane. Sheila is a long serving member of Albatross, and this nomination is made in recognition of her contribution to the club over many years. Since coming to the club with her 2 girls, Nicola, and Kimberley, she has gifted her time as a Level 2 coach and continued her commitment to the club through the committee role of Treasurer. Prior to her role as Treasurer and Coach Sheila was also Team Trip Coordinator and Newspaper Liaison. Sheila, along with many others, represents Albatross’ family values in her support of diving.
Emma West. Emma is a parent of 2 divers and continually goes above and beyond in find funding and training opportunities, helping us all be in the right place at the right time, with appropriate coach and lifeguard cover. She is brilliant at managing the huge amount of organisation, admin, and communications to all parents, which is much appreciated.
Emma is always friendly and approachable. As she has attended the competitions before she is able to give good advice to the divers about how to look after themselves for the duration of the event. Emma is very organised and invests a lot of time and energy in organising club administration.
Charlotte West for being so supportive to everyone, Charlotte’s continuous encouragement and positive words to divers brings confidence, self-belief and promotes team spirit.
Chris Beal for his commitment to his squads and the time he puts in with Dryland and external training for his divers.
Louise Blais for her amazing commitment to the club coaching and judging.
Gemma Thorngate For her team support, rallying everyone, sorting divers’ issues, keeping us entertained and always being chirpy!
Bridget Gibson for unseen behind the scenes work and for her inclusivity and approachability.
Keith Meek Volunteer Award
It is all of us that make Albatross the club we are celebrating tonight, but the worthy winner of the 2019 Keith Meek Volunteer Award is a most deserving Bernie Bicknell.
We have, for some time, encouraged our older divers to take an interest in coaching and some have taken up the challenge and become assistant coaches on our Learn to Dive programme. Due to the Coronavirus the courses are theory only now with the practical element being arranged once we are fully back. Once a diver is 14, they can become helpers on the learn to dive scheme and at 16 we will support those showing commitment to coaching in achieving this recognised qualification. During the past year we have supported Holly Lane-Sellers, Louise Blais and Milly Orgill in their qualification as Assistant Coaches and we currently have James West taking his Assistant Coach qualification and Lizzy Cullen and Charlotte West taking their Diving Coach qualifications.
We recognise Charlotte, Edward, Holly, Milly, Louise and James for their support to the club and commitment to coaching on the learn to dive programme and particularly Charlotte for all her efforts in delivering our virtual training sessions 3 times a week during the lockdown period but, for 2019, we present the Youth Coach Development Award to a club member who has shown unfailing commitment to his coaching of learn to dive divers whilst still maintaining his own training regime. He has since stopped his own competitive diving but continues to coach and will now be helping develop the Skills Squad divers. We thank and applaud Ethan Jones.
Mary Kinghorn trophy
The Mary Kinghorn trophy is awarded each year by the divers to the coach who they feel has best contributed to their progression in diving through their support, encouragement, patience, and technical coaching. This year, as in each year, this was a close-run contest with divers highlighting the attributes of supportiveness and patience at both training and competition, the giving of clear guidance and instruction, the making of encouraging comments, inspiration to carry on when times are tough, and most importantly making the sport we are celebrating today fun. We all recognise and applaud the commitment of all our coaches but today we award the Mary Kinghorn Coach Trophy to Matt Pipe. As many of you know Matt is also a longstanding diver and as well as taking on the role of Skills Squad lead is also developing a group of older Learn to Dive divers who wish to be involved in competition.
As we all know 2020 has clearly been an unprecedented year, but as we have mentioned, our training did not stop: The Team App was introduced, workouts were posted daily, diver involvement was encouraged and communication enhanced with newsletters. In addition, we had 3 live virtual training sessions a week and we helped run 2 Regional SEEDS Camps alongside Southampton and Star. Whilst this afternoons awards are celebrating 2019, we felt it important to also re-emphasise how important these past few months have been for us as a club and a community of divers. Friendships born out of training and competition have been strengthened and all have risen to the challenge of focussing and driving forward personal goals. Whilst we know that many have been taking on board the training programmes and taking part in the live sessions, we wanted to particularly acknowledge the following 7 divers for their commitment to the Lockdown Training Challenge. We invite Charlotte West to present the trophies as it was her, along with Malcolm Green, who were the main drivers of the coaching during this time.
Please applaud with us Amy Gregg, Holly Lane-Sellers, Hernan Mosqueda-Jolly, William and Laurie Vaughan, James West, and Quinn Shaw. William and Laurie are not with us today so they will be presented with their awards at training.
Chris Barker Shield
And so, to our final award. The Chris Barker Shield is presented each year to the diver who has shown all round excellence in their achievements at competitive diving and is given in memory of one of the club’s earliest coaches who sadly died in the storms of 1987. This award is open to all competitive divers and for 2019 is awarded to a diver who has consistently maintained such a high degree of excellence in diving throughout her career with us that, despite a number of serious injuries, was our first female competitor at the British National Cup. Like Edward she too was balancing 3 A levels with the hope of a career in nursing but, despite this, consistently showed strong personal diving performances to add to the supportiveness she afforded to her peers and her coach. In moving up an age group in 2019 she was now too old for junior events so embraced the challenge of reaching qualification points to enter her first national senior event. This was achieved and her place secured. Nerves may have been in play, but these were well disguised as she competed alongside the best national divers in the country to the commentary of Chris Mears on the streamed live event.
After the National Cup she continued with coaching and then put on her competition costume once more for the Roma National Cup in the Italian sunshine, and thunderstorms! Despite being a huge fan of the sunshine tan, it is clearly the rain that works for diving as the gold was secured on the 3m as the sky blackened and the rain fell.
We have already said that her contribution to the club training during lockdown was outstanding, but we add to this that her overall contribution to Albatross as an athlete makes her a worthy winner. This award is not just about scores and medals, it reflects the diver as a member of the whole Albatross family. I am proud to tell you that the Chris Barker Shield for 2019 is presented to Charlotte West.
We thank you for joining us this afternoon and send our very best wishes to those who are not with us.
