Club History
The club began as a society sometime in the early 1990s and its founding involved the daughter of Barbara Blossom, a senior figure at Essex Branch RLSS.
In 1998 we became a sports club with the following key members; Helen Rudge, Carl Holvey, Elviva Hunt, Jo Harris, Abi Hoyle, Stuart Butcher, Alex and Katherine??? Who was captain. It was during this year that we first entered a university competition (Birmingham?) and came last.
2006/2007
The 2006/7 season was a challenging one for the club as we struggled to keep a consistent A team due to the academic commitments of the team. Nonetheless in Southampton we were placed in 13th place with an inexperienced team. By the Birmingham competition the following Spring we had improved greatly and were placed 6th, ending the year 9th in the league. The London Competition was run again with a large number of entries, with Southampton taking the trophy home. In the Summer of 2007, Iain Long and Philippa Sprake took their Open water Bronze and Silver Awards with the Hertfordshire RLSS branch. In 2006/7 the club started its Community Programme. We demonstrated in Surrey Quays at the Decathlon Store event, showing members of the public how to perform a lane based rescue. We also taught interested adults and children some basic lifesupport (look at the photos from this event!). The club also had a stand at the Annual Jester Festival in West Hampstead where we demonstrated basic lifesupport and advertised our Community Lifesupport Programmes. Earlier in the year we ran a Community Lifesupport day at the West Hampstead Community Hall which was attended by 9 members of the public.
2004/2005
"With medals at Warwick, Birmingham and Nationals, wins at Aberdeen and Southampton, and overall victory in the B.U.L.S.C.A. A-League, 2004-05 was a phenomenal year for ULU Lifesaving. Building on the successes of last year, and under the leadership of a superb committee, the Club has moved from strength to strength. The London competition was attended by around 120 competitors (our largest competition yet), and saw the introduction of dry SERC, written by Abi Hoyle. In addition to our competitive successes, open water training and NPLQ have both made a welcome return. The year rounded off with Gary, Clare, Iain Patrick and Nic all receiving Full Purples (thanks to Abi for the champagne).
A-Squad: Clare (Captain), Nic, Iain, Patrick, Gary, Johnny and Rachel.
B-Squad: Patrick (Captain), Rachel, Kamil, Jamie, Fran"
2003/2004
Excellent results achieved for the A and B team in all competitions, no medals won however the A team became first in the Southampton speed event and the B team has always been closely following the A team in most events. Next year looks like a good one! The sad end of this session was the end of Abi's student career.
2002/2003
Record Broken - Abi has broken a British Record.
Purples - Congratulations to Gary. He received Half Purples at the ULU Sports Ball.
ULU Open - Congratulations also to Nic for winning the Nic Williams Trophy. The trial run of the first ULU Open was a success. SEE THE RESULTS
2000/2001
This season was under the captaincy of the grand old lady of ULU Lifesaving, Helen (Mum) Rudge. Without a pool, she found us one. And we trained hard. Too hard for some freshers but enough stayed. Again we were successful coming 2nd at London and 2nd at Warwick. The Nationals was a huge disappointment (17th?). The A team was Abi Hoyle, Carl Holvey, Gary Hannant and Kristie Potts. The B team was made up of Debra Bradshaw, Zephanie Bradley, Helen Rudge, Helen Fisher, Gayle Hough, Tom Salmond, Jorge (Spaniad) etc. Zeph and Kristie also won the Syd Tyne cup at Essex.
1999/ 2000
Dave Flood from Essex Branch became our first paid coach and our progress rocketed. Under Carl Holveyís leadership we entered all the university competitions and some Essex ones. Success was achieved at Aberdeen (1st and 2nd out of 3 teams) and Swansea (1st out of lots of teams). Came last at Southampton though. Abi Hoyle was our best competitior and had much success at national level. The A team was Abi Holye, Carl Holvey and Jo Foster with Jo Harris the usual fourth team member. The B team was highly varied but included Debra Bradshaw, Zephanie Bradley, Helen Rudge, Gary Hannant, Stuart Butcher, Katherine Bricknell and Becky Barnett.
Club Kit
Below is a list of ULU Lifesaving branded club kit available to buy from the club. Please pay by cheque and hand to the treasurer at training.
Swim costume - 16 pounds
Swim trunks - 15 pounds
Swim Hat - 6 pounds
Social T-shirts - 8 pounds
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Club Committee 2007/2008
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Captain: Watson Teo
Mr TV guide or Mr T for short. Our esteemed captain is an actuary student at LSE. Watson started lifesaving in Singapore where we assume open water training is a lot more enjoyable than the UK. Watson is incredibly passionate about lifesaving as evidenced by the sheer number of emails he sends us. I’m sure under his leadership; the club will go from strength to strength. Especially with the new tradition of the captain buying the new exec Easter eggs. An interesting point to note was that Watson served as a chemical warfare medic for two and a half years in Singapore!
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Treasurer: Martin May
Martin is the Club's resident medic. As such, he is well aware of the stresses and strains the intensive training sessions can place upon the human body. He has a strong sense of civic duty, and thus ensures that all members of the Club take on sufficient fluid after training. For some reason, he opts to do this in the Marlborough Arms, where he can often be found with our Training Coordinator and several other members of the Club.
A Warwick old boy, Martin is well placed to work as treasurer this year. His first degree, he tells us, was in something called 'medimatics', which is like mathematics only for slightly enibriated medical students. Either way, he knows his way around a calculator, which certainly helps. He has competed for Warwick over several years, and should be an important addition to our competitions squad this season, especially as he is also an NPLQ and Lifesaving Trainer/Assessor. He swims fast, has a cool head in incidents, and, having brought in initiatives such as press ups and the naughty corner to punish wayward committee members for laziness/stupidity, he certainly means business.
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Secretary: Tamsin Jones
Tamsin, or affectionately known as the “baby” of our club, is the youngest member in the whole history of the lifesaving club. Her name is derived from her not knowing the TV shows Iain and Martin discusses, but perhaps partly from her Welsh background). She is a 2nd year vet medicine student at the RVC. She has enthusiastically taken the responsibility of preparing all the minutes of the meeting, but in a show of gratitude to the constant “BABY!” by Martin, she has taken off to lambing while Martin does Minutes for the Meetings.
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Training Coordinator: Iain Long
Iain is the old timer of the club and seems to have been around since time began. Affectionately known as ‘the muppet’ or Wardorff (from ‘the muppets’). Iain is in charge of training and should avoid upsetting as he decides punishments. In addition to being very knowledgeable about all things lifesaving Iain is also a fount of knowledge regarding the local pubs, and can often be found propping up one of the local bars.
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Competition Secretary: Kamil Shah
Kamil returns to the club after a year out in Japan and having successfully organised this year's London competition he was voted Competition Secretary. Originally a swimmer, Kamil has excelled at Lifesaving competitions, both in the speed and incident events, despite letting a man fall off a diving board at one competition!! Kamil holds his NPLQ and Bronze Medallion awards.
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Social Secretary: Gloria Jaconelli
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Publicity Officer: Philippa Sprake
Phil has competed for ULU and Essex for a few years now. Her reputation as fastest female rope thrower is well and truly deserved following a stunning performance at Crawley. Phil can usually be relied upon to come along to all the competitions and she's definitely at the socials! She has previously survived the post of competition secretary with her nerves just about intact and it's great to see her back on the committee. Phil is studying at RVC and takes on the honorary position of Team Vet.
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Webmaster: Hamed Haddadi
Hamed is a long-standing member of the club, who offers a wide variety of unique skills and experiences. Originally from Iran, where he used to fly military helicopters, Hamed is well known for is fatalistic take on navigation. He takes the, "This road is quieter, so we must be meant to go down it," approach. Unfortunately, this has led us to take slight detours driving to competitions, on one occasion reaching the outskirts of Southampton on the way to Warwick.
As an electrical engineer, Hamed is well placed to act as our webmaster, a job he previously took on during 2004-05. This year, whilst noted for many things, saw the introduction of badgers to the club. In fact, thanks to Hamed's enthusing on the subject, atomic badger racing became a favourite past time for many of us. If you haven't tried it, you haven't lived. In addition, Hamed alone has the power to induct club members as Honorary Badgers, in a secret ceremony involving a cardboard tube, a laptop and a sheet of paper... best not to ask. He also created the ULU Lifesaving Club group on Facebook in 2006. After a two year absence in Cambridge, it is definitely good to have him back.
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Officer without Portfolio: Jedidiah Lee Zhi Hao
JD or better known as Jedi is a member of an ancient and noble aquatic organisation, known for his talent in and observance of the Force (of the Water). Using the physics around him to manipulate the Force and wielding his signature eggbeater kicks, he is able to fend off 3 attackers while still performing the essential first-aid rescue techniques. He hails from the peninsula of Malaysia.
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Officer without Portfolio: Nic Williams
Nic is our team architect. He studies at UCL but is currently on placement. He has been involved with the club for 5 years now and competed in all competitions in the year 2004-2005 which saw ULU Lifesaving becoming BULSCA League champions. Nic was also awarded the prestigious Full Purple - the top accolade for sportsmanship in the University of London. Nic has held two positions on the committee; publicity officer and social secretary and is currently our Officer without Portfolio!
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Officer without Portfolio: Clare Howarth
Clare is a very experienced member of ULU-Lifesaving. Initially joined the club in 1999 to gain her NPLQ, Clare had participated in national competitions earning her a well-deserved Full-Purple as part of London A team who won the BULSCA league in 2005. Previously held position as Captain and Competition Secretary in the club, Claire is now contributing her wealth of knowledge in lifesaving as a member on the committee without portfolio.
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Coach: Dave Flood
Dave has been our part time lifesaving coach since 1999. He is a member of RLSS UK Essex Branch and a qualifed Trainer Assessor and Mentor. He is also very active outdoors too - namely NBLQ Trainer Assessor & Competition Judge including Regional Heat Organisor for the SER National Qualifiers. Dave is also a volunteer crew on the RNLI at Tower Pier. He sits on several committees including RLSS UK Essex Branch (Hon Sec), South East Region (as Essex Rep and Hon Trophy Rep). Since Feb 2005, Dave has been a member of his local First Responder Group and has attended many calls from Ambulance Dispatch to non and life threatening calls. They call him 'defib' Dave. Since Dec 2006 he has taken on the role as Group Honorary Secretary and Publicity / PR - check out www.benfleetfirstresponders.org.uk
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