The home of Comet Values, the old Macrae Baths

Swimwatch published a story recently called “Comet Club Values”. (http://www.swimwatch.net/2018/03/comet-club-values.html). The post was popular with the crew that once swam for the club. Rosemary even suggested a reunion. I’d be a starter for that event. While reminiscing about the good old days is nostalgic and wonderful fun I wanted to consider the wider implications of the Comet Club approach to sport.

While Comet Club demonstrated the importance of honest principles, it was not alone. Many good and successful people have similar values. For example Duncan Laing, Gary Hurring, Lincoln Hurring, Judith Wright, Gwen Ryan, Arthur Lydiard, Arch Jelley, John Walker, Mark Schubert, Trevor Nichols, Noel Hardgrave-Booth and Jeannie and Geoff Sibun have or had Comet values.

Swimming New Zealand does not have Comet values; not in any way shape or form. In Antares Place it’s all about corporate plans and strategic policy initiatives going forward. You might not believe me. Here then is a quote from Bruce Cotterill.

I love those guys who add “going forward” to the end of every sentence. Where else can you go? And what “club and regional capability” means I have no idea. I doubt that anyone else does either; including Bruce Cotterill. However Cotterill and Johns do make one good point. They tell me that two measures of federation success are performance and participation. I would argue that Comet values produce better results in both performance and participation than anything Cotterill’s high priorities going forward will ever achieve. Let me explain.

First let’s consider participation. For several years in the 1960s, every Friday afternoon during the school holidays, I sat at my coach’s kitchen table and did the entries for the Comet club night. As a result I was very aware that our club had 527 members. That’s one club in 1960s Gisborne, when the population of the entire town was only 28,500. Two people in every 100 Gisborne residents were members of our club.

New Zealand today has a population of 4,749,598. To match Comet’s participation Cotterill and Johns should be leading a federation of 85,493 swimmers. In 2018 Swimming New Zealand’s actually competitive and non-competitive membership is 11,812; a mere 73,000 members short. The table below shows a breakdown of the competitive and non-competitive numbers by region together with the number of clubs and the average club size. At the bottom of the table Comet’s 1960’s data is also included.

How is it that Comet Club on its own could attract more members than the current Northland, Taranaki and Nelson Marlborough regions? Why is it that, with all Swimming New Zealand’s corporate strategies and Whole of Sport Plans, Beth Meade’s club could outperform Cotterill and Johns’ average club membership size by 740%?

Because Beth Meade ran a club with values – that’s why. In my previous post I described values as “a love of sport, a respect for the rules, of fun, of strong independence, of dignity and good manners.” Beth’s values infected all those she touched.

In my opinion Cotterill and Johns don’t do that. They don’t love swimming. When was the last time you saw either of them at a Level Three competition or a Junior League? Never is the answer. They are too busy sending Peter Miskimmin their latest horizontal analysis of the income from operations statement. And their respect for the rules is suspect. Look at the way Swimming New Zealand manipulated the rules in order to sign Lauren Boyles’ record certificate or the frantic deals done when they realized only two swimmers had qualified for the Commonwealth Games. And there is not much in the way of strong independence. Swimming New Zealand can’t go to the loo without asking Peter Miskimmin for permission. And finally good manners demands more of leaders than to impose medley qualifying times and withdraw them at the last minute or to promise the membership a full explanation of the reason for the loss of Sport New Zealand funding and then never reporting the result. Broken promises are not good manners.

Rank and file members instantly recognize a callous disregard for common decency. Members know when they don’t count; when corporate affairs rule; when the grass roots are left to grow weeds. In my opinion that culture is where the sport is at and is why Comet had 527 members and Cotterill and Johns’ average 71.

The second measure of health used by Cotterill and Johns is performance; how good are the sport’s best swimmers? You would think that, with $13million spent on high performance swimming in the last decade; this aspect of the sport would be very strong. Sadly no. Here again a lack of values has been the cause of untold damage. New Zealanders don’t do elite sport best the Cotterill and Johns’ way. You cannot buy Olympic success. The New Zealand formula for victory is based on common touch values; the way Tom Walsh has become a world champion, the way Lydiard prepared Snell, Halberg and Magee and the way Jelley coached John Walker.

And it worked back in Comet days as well. Here is a report from a 1967 Gisborne Photo News. Greg has gone on to coach the Comet Club for many years. Remember in those days the Gisborne pool was closed in the winter. But Beth and Comet’s values more than compensated