About Us

 

Brief History of VSOG (Victorian Swimming Officials Guild) now the Officials Club​

 

The idea for the formation of The Guild as it was known was made by Max Smith and his family in 1981 after Max had a sponsored airfare to the SIOG games in Brisbane in 1981 as a pre curser to the Commonwealth Games in Brisbane in 1982.

It was thought that it would be a good idea to form a group that would fund raise to support officials travelling to National Championships and Attending State Championships in Melbourne.  This was all at the officials own expense at that stage.

We did get a free white t-shirt and supper after the session at night

A large number of Victorian officials were attending National Championships at this time because timekeepers were still being used.

Peter Foard and Graham Hull got together and drafted a Constitution, and the Guild was born.  Graham Hull was the original President, Connie Febey, Secretary and Audrey Bowen Treasurer. Margaret Smith took over as treasurer after about 8 years.

At Friday night pennant and Saturday morning and afternoon pennant raffle tickets were sold with prizes for 1st, 2nd and 3rd.  They were usually swimming related and much sort after.  This raised quite a large amount of money because there was winter and spring pennant, and the raffles were very well supported by the parents and crowd.  These raffles continued until the merger of the Guild with the Officials Club.

Another major fundraise was Catering.  The Guild would cater for any National Championships that were held in Melbourne as well as the Presidents supper during State Championships as well as officials’ lunches at swim meets. This was mainly co-ordinated by Janice and Judith Smith

Mini lotto’s were also run with a weekly prize if your number matched the sup number (only 1 sup in those days).  This was run by Connie Febey and Margaret Smith

A carefully developed formular was developed by Geoff Hare, Max Smith and Russell Bowen so that the funds were distributed evenly and fairly depending on the location of the National Championships and the number of attendees at each Championship.

In the early 2000 Swimming Australia started to support Officials going to Nationals by contributing to their airfare based on the lowest price paid by a person from that State. This caused some concerns as some people depending of time restraints were not returned much at all while other who go a very cheap fare got their whole fare paid.  This quickly changed to a set amount for each state. As fundraising became more difficult, and Swimming Australia gradually contributed to the cost of Officials expenses at National events the need for fundraising declined and the Guild merged or became the Officials Club.

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The Officials Club

With the formation and registration of the Officials Club we continued to organise the catering of the lunches which were supplied by Swimming Victoria when a Swim Meet had a morning and afternoon session with a lunch break. We also catered for the Annual Christmas and New Year meals following the December Meet and State Championships in January.

When MSAC decided that we could no longer store our equipment and that they would be doing all catering at the Sport Centre we had to sell off our refrigerators and donate most of our equipment to other groups. We no longer had any means of raising funds.

Sandy Frame won the ‘Victorian State Official of The Year Award” and donated his prize to The Officials Club to purchase Lockers so that our belongings were safe from sneak thieves who were busy at work while a meet was in progress. The Club made up the difference and we now have a safe place to store our belongings.

In 2019 we held our first Swim Meet with prize money for each stroke and Individual Medley for swimmers over 13. As this involved much work to tally the points for each distance in the strokes we changed the format to each event We have used the profits to sponsor some swimmers to international events and to some officials who have travelled to events, which do not financially support officials,  so that they can gain knowledge and further qualifications. We have also made donations to worthwhile charities and provided an annual Christmas lunch for members.

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