JOHN PETERSEN
Motivation for Honourary Life Membership: John Petersen
Proposed by Terry Downes and seconded by Craig Stanton
John Petersen has been a stalwart member of SA Masters swimming for many years.
His contribution to the benefit of all in Masters Swimming can only be described
as outstanding. Specifically:
·
SAMS’ website is
entirely designed and managed by John. All meet results for local and national
galas, records, colours, newsletters, record/colours application forms, past
colours recipients, regional and club contact information, newsletters, entry
forms, colours qualifying times, Top Ten listings, etc are held on the website
and are constantly updated in good time. In fact there is very little
information on Masters Swimming which cannot be found on the website and this
all thanks to John! The website is the “glue” that holds Masters together.
·
John negotiates with
the website provider and ensures that Masters pay a reasonable fee for the
website.
·
John has an extensive
knowledge and understanding of Meet and Team Manager programmes. In fact John
has on occasion made suggestions to the designers at Hy-Tek Ltd to improve the
programmes to be better suite Masters’ requirements and these have been adopted
by Hy-Tek.
·
John has designed
software programmes to enable the winners of certain trophies to be easily
determined.
·
At Nationals, John
arrives several days before time to ensure that all equipment is available and
on site to ensure that the swim programme runs smoothly. This includes touch
pads, ETD and electronic scoreboard. During the running of the gala, John is
always at hand and behind the scenes to ensure all runs smoothly and for any
problem solving that may be required.
·
After Nationals, John
provides a comprehensive summary of results and statistics such as the number of
SA/World records broken, number of participants, award winners, colours
recipients, etc., which all serves to promote Masters Swimming. Also, after
World Masters Champs, John provides a similar summary in respect of SA masters
who had participated.
·
With respect to the SC
champs, John has spent many hours in merging and incorporating results from
regions some of which have not been provided in correct format.
·
John has been a member
of SAMS’ executive for many years. He has a detailed knowledge of SAMS’
constitution and on all matters related to Masters Swimming. John provides
valuable contributions whenever the constitution requires changes or on issues
which effect SAMS’ relationship with SSA.
·
John will be found
helping out at virtually all Gauteng galas and has assisted many masters in the
training and use of the Meet Manager programme.
It can safely be said that without the intervention of John Petersen, Masters in
South Africa would not be what is today and therefore there is no hesitation in
motivating that, as a show of appreciation, John efforts be recognized by SAMS
by awarding John honourary life membership status.
30 May 2015