THE past year was a busy one for Watchet Dolphins, who gained more than 500 Amateur Swimming Association awards.

One of the highlights was the effort of the 13 teams who took part in the Minehead Rotary Swimathon in March, which gave a number of younger children their first opportunity to swim in a big pool.

In all they swam over 20 miles and more than £750 was raised and shared between the Knights Templar pool and local charities.

Also in March, a large number of Dolphins passed the Amateur Swimming Association Silver and Gold Challenge awards which test water skills together with speed and stamina swims.

A tiring 800 metres distance swim completed the silver award and was led home by seven-year-old James Prole, followed closely by Daniel Cooper.

Fifteen Dolphins passed the demanding Gold Challenge Award.

Kerrie McKee, Sarah Tideswell and Sherilyn Perkins finished the four length speed swim in less than two minutes, and the 800 metres distance swim, which had to be completed within 25 minutes, saw Sarah Tideswell demonstrate mastery of backstroke, front crawl and breaststroke to finish first followed closely by Alex Martin.

Determined swims by Holly Bishop and Katie O'Reilly ensured that all swimmers finished within the allotted time to receive their gold awards.

In September, 23 Dolphins went to AquaSplash for an hour, swam a total of 25 miles and came away with 104 distance awards.

The youngest, six-year-old Thomas Mitchell, set the tone by swimming 40 lengths of the pool for a well-earned 1,000 metre badge.

Steady swims netted Dean Manley, Joe Francis and Ben Sawyer one mile awards and Rebecca Morgan, Daniel Phillips, Chris Ashman Adams and Joe Stileman swam on to the 2,000 metre mark, as did Nicholas Martin, Kelly McClelland and Jade Steel.

In October, 31 Dolphins recorded their fastest ever times over one length of AquaSplash, with 13 bronze, 34 silver and 10 gold awards achieved, headed by magnificent swims by experienced swimmers Alex Martin, Alistair Maclean, Georgia Bell, Haydn Maclean, Karl Manley, Katy Sawyer, Michael Hutchinson, Sarah Tideswell and Steven Minter who all added at least one gold award to their previous achievements.

Ten year old Steven now has the distinction of gold awards in all four strokes.

Ten more completed the coveted ASA Complete Swimmer award during the year — Adam Ridler, Alex Martin, Daniel Cooper, Grant Ridler, Jemma Monaghan, Kerrie McKee, Laura Tideswell, Samantha Minter, Sarah Tideswell and Sherilyn Perkins.

Despite the high performances, the prime aim of the Dolphins has always been to give as many children as possible the opportunity to learn to swim and survive in water, and during the year many Dolphins took part in Personal Survival sessions, learning a few of the basic skills of survival in water. such as the need for lifejackets whenever out in a small boat.

A number of younger children took the Challenge 2 award which includes a 50 metre swim fully clothed, and even the youngest were expected to swim across the pool with clothes on, learning that they could fall into the water and still swim and climb out.

"All these awards give a sense of achievement and above all, ever increasing safety in water," said organiser Jim Butterworth.

"We all hope they will never need to put their skills to the test, but Watchet Dolphins should be that little bit safer in the water in an emergency.

"Few of these achievements would have been possible without magnificent parental support, and this is a good time to say thank you to parents, not only for turning up regularly week after week, but for encouraging their children to ever higher standards."