Announcement of Updates to the NZ Records Policy & Meet Approval Policy
Following the release of the final recommendations from the Competition Review, we have been working behind the scenes to bring these to life. Whilst you'll be aware of the calendar announcements that have been taking place over the past week, we have also updated two of our competition policies to align with recommendation 6 about meet approval.
The main changes are relating to the removal of the cap of 10 Designated Meets per region per year, updating the terminology to "Officiated Meets" and reducing the number of officials and timekeepers required for Officiated Meets to provide more opportunities for swimmers.
Swimming NZ's Head of Participation, Competitions & Engagement, Dale Johnson, believes these improvements will continue to help the sport grow.
"The Working Group was keen to reduce barriers to participation by simplifying the process to access competitions that could be used to qualify for national championships. At the same time, the Working Group was conscious of balancing the workload of our volunteer officials. We believe we have struck a great balance that caters for all members of the community."
Swimming NZ's Technical Officials & Volunteer Development Lead, Carlrine Gillespie, sees benefit in these policy improvements also.
"These updates are particularly beneficial for our smaller clubs and meets held around the country, by reducing the number of volunteers and officials required on pool deck. The ability to run meets with less lanes open provides more opportunities for our swimmers."
Johnson added that these improvements will also benefit clubs looking to host shorter meets with more variety.
"We envisage these updates will benefit other parts of the Competition Review, such as recommendation 4, by enabling clubs more options when designing meet formats such as club nights, dual meets or leagues."
The changes are now live on our website, meaning that competitions from 1 July 2024 will comply with the updated Meet Approval policy and the cap no longer relevant from next week onwards.
We have provided a brief summary of the updates to each of the policies below.
NZ Records - Policy 003
Added link to online application form and optional certificate as requested
Updated terminology to “Officiated Meet” following the Competition Review announcement
Updated terminology of officials positions following the TO Pathway announcement
Please note that we have now created an online application form for NZ Records as well, trying to simplify the process.
Meet Approval Policy
Updated terminology to “Officiated Meet”, as per Competition Review recommendation
Reduced the number of timekeepers required for manual races to 2 per lane, as per Competition Review recommendation
Updated officials requirements for competitions with 5 lanes or less at Officiated Meets, as per Competition Review recommendation
Added that we recommendation regional event committees sign off on local calendars and removed designated meet restrictions per region, as per Competition Review recommendations
You can find all of our competition policies as well as our NZ Swimming Rules and more on our Policies and Documents webpage.
