Gala Officials Explained: get involved!

Did you know that all swimming officials, including referees, are volunteers who give up their time for nothing to help run your children’s competitions?

So, you will have seen all those people in white wandering about on poolside and wondered who they are and why they are there, and perhaps, why your child has been disqualified!

The role of a swimming official is to observe the race and the swimmers to ensure a fair, safe and enjoyable competition for everyone, with accurate timings and placings.  The focus is not on being ‘officious’ or setting out to disqualify people, but ensuring that everyone has their best possible race.

In order to run a “licensed meet”, where the swimmers’ times are recorded in the online rankings at Swim England HQ, there needs to be a certain minimum number of officials doing specific jobs.  The rules as to how many officials you need are stricter at a Level 1 (e.g. Counties, Regionals or National Champs) than at a Level 3 or 4 (e.g. Open Meet or Amersham Club Champs). But even at an unlicensed meet, such as the Amersham Novice Galas, Thames Valley League or Milton Keynes Junior League, where the times are not sent to Swim England rankings but recorded by the Club, at least 15 or more officials are still needed or the gala cannot be run.

We are always required to provide officials for competitions, whether we are hosting our own gala or sending swimmers or a team to an open meet or a league gala such as Arena, MKJL or TVJL.  We rely 100% on parent volunteers as officials.  Having said that though, becoming an official is very rewarding; you get to know a lot more about the sport that your child is passionate about and you will get to know the swimmers and other parents; it is a very sociable and supportive role; you are much closer to the action and it is cooler than in the gallery!

The first step on the ladder as an official is to become a Timekeeper.  As the name suggests, this is the person who stands at the end of the pool and times the races with a stopwatch.  Becoming a Timekeeper is very simple; it involves a short course, usually held in Amersham and then a practical session, usually a short period of 15 races at a Novice or similar gala, again usually at Chiltern Pools. Please do get involved! There is no obligation to do more than you want to. The more officials we have, the easier it is to find enough volunteers to run all the galas your children enjoy.  

If you would like more information about becoming an official, doing a further course or just having a go at Timekeeping before doing the training course, please email Nina Bagot at [email protected].

The following club members are qualified Swim England officials: