Swimming association to launch Seaweed Series

Three communities — Questelles, Villa and Brighton — have been identified to be part of the St Vincent and the Grenadines Amateur Swimming Association (SVGASA) initiative, Seaweed Series.{{more}}

This was disclosed recently to SEARCHLIGHT by president of the SVGASA, Andre Cadogan.

In outlining the series, Cadogan said: “In these areas, persons from the community will be invited to be taught to teach persons to swim.”

He said the move is to get these trainers to get persons to learn to swim.

“We recognize that not everyone can make it to the pool … but we want to develop swimming”, Cadogan said.

He stated that this training of trainers would act as a springboard for the planned open water swimming, to be introduced here.

“The open water programme is also part of our talent identification, where we are hoping to net swimmers,” Cadogan stated.

He noted that the open water event would be the culminating session, which will end the six-month stint here by FINA instructor Barbadian Dave Farmer.

Cadogan said Farmer’s input is serving to lay the groundwork for a take-off in the sport in the near future.

“For 2013, we have already requested from FINA to send an official, where we can focus on training for open water,” Cadogan said.

Cadogan said all of the bases of the SVGASA are being covered.

“We have already moved into the schools, where the Girls’ High School comes here (at the Shrewsbury Pool at Ratho Mill) on Wednesdays. We are moving into the communities … We are building our technical strength and from there we are going to train our physical education teachers who are interested, then we are going into our open water swimming,” Cadogan explained.

He pointed out that his organisation relies mainly on funding from the National Olympic Committee, which sources from Olympic Solidarity.

He said in 2013 the SVGASA will be embarking on several fund-raising ventures to ensure the viability of the sport.

“We are hoping to have some championships throughout the year in 2013, which would be a source of revenue for the association … right now, we are running this facility on pool fees paid by individuals and these pool fess will not get our swimmers to overseas events,” Cadogan said.

Cadogan revealed that three swimmers and one coach would travel to Turkey in early December to be part of a 25-metre short course FINA world championships there. (RT)