On behalf of the Board of Masters Swimming Canada, welcome to the 2006 – 2007 swim season. We believe it will be an exciting year. In addition to the usual list of competitions across the country, we will be working with the various components of our organization to improve and expand our services to all our members in Canada.

As most of you know MSC went through a major restructuring four months ago and is now a club based organization. We recognize that the local Masters swim club is the primary body that all our members relate to and MSC is now in a much better position to serve its members through its clubs. In order to do this we require a “Club Contact” with each of our 260 clubs across Canada. Most of our clubs have registered club contacts. For those that have not, it is most important that the club contact register on the MSC website and inform Lindsay Patten, our national Registrar, that they have done so. Lindsay will be sending out important material on a number of issues and services shortly to the club contacts, so we encourage you to do this as soon as possible.

Your Board, staff and many volunteers are currently working hard to improve existing programs and to develop new ones to serve our expanding membership. Over the next year we will be finalizing several of these. Frank Coy has two working groups looking at various aspects of competition and how we can improve our services in this area. Nigel Kemp is looking at ways to assist our coaches and those providing leadership to our clubs. Sylvie Deliencourt and Brent Schurman are working to develop the financial base for these services. Mark Sandilands is reviewing our policies and by-laws to ensure our governance processes make sense and are effective. Norm McKee, our hard working Director of Operations, is assisting all of them.

Previously it was felt that MSC provided few services to our non-competing swimmers and correcting this is a high priority of your Board. The Internet allows us to connect with our members and bring far more services faster and more accurately than ever before. Lindsay Patten has developed the interactive Million Metre Program, based on a similar Australian postal program. This is clearly the most successful Masters’ fitness program ever – anywhere! Many of our members regularly log onto it; other national Masters organizations are most interested in it. Lindsay has also developed the My MSC website, (www.mymsc.ca) which again is far ahead of any others available to Masters. It can deal with registration of swimmers for their club or provincial organization, for swim meets, for results, records and provincial and national rankings instantly. Every member can have their own web page where they can record metres swum, results, personal bests and records. My MSC is also a major communication tool linking us to all components of our organization, providing news and features from our Editor, Laura Young, updates on competition and coaching from Frank and Nigel, discussion forums - the list goes on.

We are working with our Provincial Masters Organizations to coordinate and improve these services so we can satisfy the needs of all our members across Canada. We are building a strong working relationship with Swimming Natation Canada and other members of the Canadian Aquatic family. MSC and SNC are two separate organizations serving two very different clienteles with different needs, yet we both recognize that we are most effective when we, and other members of the aquatic community, work together to promote the development of facilities and programs to suit all aquatic needs.

I thank all of those who have worked so hard on behalf of Masters swimming in Canada this past year. I encourage all our members to participate at what ever level interests you in our sport and organizations. I hope to see you at the pool!

Chris Smith

President, Masters Swimming Canada