Chapeltown &
District Amateur Swimming Club
Affiliated
to ASA, NECSSA, YSA, S&D ASA, RLSS
Reply to: Mr Kevin Canetti
(Publicity Officer),
PRESS
RELEASE
12th
June 2008
Jim opens new Gym at Chapeltown Swimming
club
83 year old James Hallis, known as Jim to
his friends, who until earlier this year had been the President of Chapeltown
Amateur Swimming Club for many many years, was invited back to the club on 12th
June to cut the ribbon and open the club’s new Gym at Chapeltown Baths. The Gym
will provide fitness and exercise training for the club’s swimmers to help them
build up muscle strength in addition to the technique and stamina developed in
the pool.
“It was a real honour to be asked to open
the Gym for the club and really nice to have the chance to come back and see
everyone. The Gym is definitely going to help the young swimmers improve their
overall fitness as out-of-pool training is now almost as important as in-pool
training for swimmers,” commented Jim after cutting the ribbon.
The Gym, which was made possible by the
kind assistance of Chapeltown Baths who provided the space, has been built and kitted
out using money raised by the club through it’s regular fund raising events and
with hard work from a number of parents, especially Tom Barlow and Steve
Swinburn who did the main building work during many evenings and weekends. Local
company Direct Kitchens were kind enough to donate several new units to provide
important secure storage for the Gym.
In addition to being a Gym, the room has
been fitted with a flat screen TV from which the swimming coaches can play back
video from the club’s underwater and above water camcorders to help swimmers
see where their technical can be improved.
Chairman Tom Barlow also noted the safety
benefits of the new Gym, “we’ve always carried out fitness training but this
had to be done on the pool side which was far from ideal both in terms of
safety and also the distraction from swimmers in the pool, now we can do all
our training in a dedicated Gym it’s going to make a major difference.”
Picture: James Hallis on
one of the Gym’s new fitness machines.
Story by Kevin Canetti.