By David
Twenty years ago we formed a new swimming club that eventually became known as Erehwon. The linguistically talented among you will recognize the name as “nowhere” spelt backwards. Swimwatch has already covered the story of getting the Erehwon Club registered. We only had three swimmers and had to sign up my parents, my brothers, my wife’s family, Clark Kent and even Sammy Wright, our family cat, to get to Swimming New Zealand’s minimum membership number. It’s 50 now but, in 1990, I think we needed only 20 names. Our three swimmers were better than average though; Toni Jeffs, Nichola Chellingworth and Jane Copland. All three were New Zealand open champions, national representatives and medal winners in international meets.
Shortly after the Club was formed we sent off our entries for the New Zealand National Championship. A couple of days later a letter arrived from the local swimming center saying our entries could not be accepted because we had not filed a set of financial returns as required by Swimming New Zealand rules. Being as we were less than a month old, we were pretty sure the demand was just some administrator making life difficult. A well known lawyer sent a letter to the center explaining that our club had complied with the rules and threatened to make life difficult if the swimmers were not allowed to compete. Our entries were processed.
Since that episode I’ve been especially careful to make sure the Clubs I’ve worked for comply with the meet entry conditions. With this history, you can imagine my surprise today when I read the following note on the Psych Sheets for next week’s National Short Course Championships. Here is what the note on Swimming New Zealand’s website says.
“For the purpose of the programmes and psych sheet only, swimmers who are part of the High Performance Centre at the Millennium Institute in Auckland have been given a different club code. Including HPNSS (North Shore Swimming), HPCAP (Capital Swimming Club) and HPAQG (Aquagym). This is merely to make it easy to identify these swimmers and provide them and the program they are part of some recognition.”
What on God’s good earth is all that about? It seems to us that it’s about one rule for them and another for everyone else. National Championship entries are not an opportunity to indulge in a bit of self promotion for the Cameron High Performance program. The Swimming New Zealand Rules governing entry to this national event are very clear.
- Regional Associations must submit entries for SNZ members. No club entries are permitted. Club entries and fees are to be submitted to their Regional Association.
- A member may only be a competitive swimmer for one club at any one time.
- “Member” means any person who is a member of a Club affiliated to SNZ.
We have no information from the Auckland or Wellington or Canterbury Regional Associations. However I don’t believe for a minute those organizations would collectively submit entries as HPNSS, or HPCAP or HPAQG. There are no clubs in their districts registered with those names. I believe Cameron or one of her subordinates sent the entries directly to Swimming New Zealand and ordered the domestics down there to submit the entries; to sign them up as High Performance members. Someone in Swimming New Zealand realized the organization’s constitution and regulations were being ridden roughshod over and added the Psych Sheet softener. They wouldn’t dare send the entries back to the swimmer’s home region to be processed properly. That would mean asking Jan Cameron to obey the rules all the rest of us have to live by. Better to ignore the organization’s constitution than run the risk of Cameron’s wrath.
Perhaps I’m just jealous. Why didn’t I think of entering Toni, Nichola and Jane as DSSEWN. For the linguistically challenged that’s “David’s Super Squad Erehwon”. That would have been a good idea. It would have made “it easy to identify these swimmers and provide them and the program they” were “part of some recognition.” Certainly next year I hope all New Zealand’s coaches get the same shot at self-promotion that Swimming New Zealand seem so keen to give Jan Cameron and her Millennium project. HPCAP, HPNSS and HPAQC aren’t registered teams, making their mention in the Psych Sheets (and presumably results) nothing more than advertising. Our sport shouldn’t have a place for self-congratulatory back-patting and self-promotion at the expense of its own rules.
We are confident any good sport’s lawyer would rule that the High Performance swimmers have been improperly entered and, if challenged, the swimmers would be disqualified. Athletes should not be put in that position by the organization they represent. Swimming New Zealand and Cameron appear to have demonstrated a woefully unacceptable level of care and concern. It may well be worth submitting a protest at the Mt. Manganui event just to avoid future swimmers being used as traveling billboards for Millennium egos. A protest may also go part way to teaching Swimming New Zealand and Jan Cameron that even they must be governed by the rule of law. Swimming New Zealand’s constitution applies to everyone; even to them.
More important than the rules that appear to have been broken by Swimming New Zealand, this episode is further clear evidence of why Project Vanguard must fail. If, as we suspect, Swimming New Zealand has accepted entries directly from High Performance coaches the organization cannot be trusted to observe its own rules. Swimming New Zealand certainly appears to have ignored them in this case. No wonder they want to deal with small clubs directly. There would be no one strong enough to control them. This sport needs a layer of independent regions to keep Swimming New Zealand’s Wellington office on the straight and narrow. Over and over again Swimming New Zealand demonstrates they are unable to control themselves. While that’s true we should preserve a structure of strong regions that will do it for them.
