BENDIGO Hawks Aquatic has been named Club of the Year at the recent 2023 Swimming Victoria Awards.<\/p>\n
Club president Adam Webb said he believed the Hawks won the title in part due to forward thinking by Hawks leadership.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is the first time in the club\u2019s history it\u2019s had a strategic plan,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe strategic plan gave very clear areas of focus that the club wanted to narrow in on, with a view to creating a really great swimming club in Bendigo.<\/p>\n
\u201cEssentially it builds on our three club values which are \u2018nurturing aquatic excellence\u2019, \u2018champions of fun and friendship\u2019, and \u2018developing courageous competitors\u2019.<\/p>\n
\u201cCommunity sporting clubs are run by volunteers, and volunteers in the majority of cases are very time poor. Having a strategic plan is also about managing time better as a committee.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr Webb said part of that strategy implementation involved promoting open swim sessions to the public that encouraged the health benefits of lap swimming, and concluded with a ceremony in which those who had swam the longest distances received awards.<\/p>\n
\u201cEveryone\u2019s done it really hard for a few years and getting away from home and finding ways to connect with people and do something healthy is good for your overall wellbeing,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Mr Webb said he has a vision for Bendigo to become a \u201cswimming hub\u201d that will attract swimmers from everywhere.<\/p>\n
He said he believes a way to achieve this would be if the three swimming clubs in town: Bendigo East, Kangaroo Flat, and the Bendigo Hawks all worked towards it.<\/p>\n
Hawks members and leadership would also like to foster the ambitions of young swimmers to help them one day reach the level of Faith Leech, Bendigo\u2019s first and only Olympic gold-medallist swimmer to date.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf the three clubs are all working together, there\u2019s a real genuine opportunity to maybe replicate that in the years ahead,\u201d Mr Webb said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
BENDIGO Hawks Aquatic has been named Club of the Year at the recent 2023 Swimming Victoria Awards. Club president Adam Webb said he believed the Hawks won the title in part due to forward thinking by Hawks leadership. \u201cIt is the first time in the club\u2019s history it\u2019s had a strategic plan,\u201d he said. \u201cThe […]<\/p>\n