To the BC and Canadian Swimming Community,
It is with great sadness that we inform the swimming community, and in particular the officiating fraternity and parents of national team members of the passing of Barbara Johns. Mother of Brian and Kevin Johns, and wife to Lawrie Johns, Barbara played a significant role in BC swimming. Please share with us in remembering a valued member of the swimming family.
A profile of her achievements contributed by her family can be found below.
Ken Radford
Executive Director
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Barbara Johns passed away peacefully on October 24th at the age of 72. Barbara was a pillar of the swimming officiating and volunteer community for over 35 years. She officiated at more than 300 meets and spent more than 600 days on deck and loved every minute of it.
Barbara supported her sons, Kevin and Brian, as they began their swimming journeys in 1986. Like most swim parents, she understood that officiating was a part of the commitment. While Barbara did every position on deck, she particularly excelled at Clerking and Refereeing. She presented clinics for every officiating position and evaluated/mentored numerous referees during her officiating career. She was also an active member of the BC Swim Officials Association when it was still a stand-alone entity.
As a result of her commitment to officiating, she was able to follow her sons to their meets in the Lower Mainland, across the province, throughout the country and, eventually, at international level competitions such as the Pan Pacific Championships. She had a strong desire to do more at the international level, but unfortunately age restrictions placed by FINA at the time prevented her from doing so.
She was very proud of her sons’ accomplishments in the water, as they both were medalists at the National Level and have been inducted into the UBC Sports Hall of Fame. In 2003, Barbara served as the referee at the CIS (now USports) Nationals where her son, Brian, broke the 400 IM SC WORLD record. As the referee, she signed the world record application for her son’s performance, a very unique and proud moment for Barbara during her time as an official.
Barbara was also a behind the scenes activist for C-SPOT (Canadian Swim Parents Organizing Themselves) which was an organization formed to help the parents of National Team swimmers to attend the international meets that their children were competing at. Due to the success of this activism, Swimming Canada took over the many of the tasks started by C-SPOT in order to help parents more easily attend the international competitions of their children. This helped Barbara connect many swim parents together and help form life-long friendships that stretched far beyond the pool deck.
The only thing that superseded her love for swimming and officiating was her love for her three, soon to be four, granddaughters; a full Johns Relay team for her to continue her love for the sport. She left an indelible mark on the swimming community and her presence at our meets will be sorely missed.
Swim BC would typically have announced the awards for the 2019/20 season at the 2020 BC Swimming Congress Awards Banquet. As we know, the Congress was cancelled this year due to COVID. When the decision to cancel was made, Swim BC took the opportunity to make much needed revisions to the organizations awards system, realigning to add more swimmer categories and generate quantifiable criteria.
The new Swim BC Awards structure and criteria can be reviewed here. Please note that the Swim BC Senior Swimmers of the Year will not be presented this year due to lack of competition.
Swim BC Awards Announcements
The Swim BC Awards will be announced at 4:00 PM on each day of the week of November 2nd through 6th. The schedule is:
Monday, November 2nd: Swim BC Official of the Year and Swim BC Volunteer of the Year
Tuesday, November 3rd: Swim BC Coaches of the Year (male and female)
Wednesday, November 4th: Provincial Para Swimmers of the Year (male and female)
Thursday, November 5th: Provincial Swimmers of the Year (male and female)
Friday, November 6th: Swim BC Club of the Year and Swim BC Presidents Award
Last week Swim BC announced that no sanctions would be available for clubs prior to October 31st. Updating this message, we will permit Class I –Time Trials (record attempts only) prior to October 31st. These Time Trials will be permitted for swimmers aging up prior to October 31st. Clubs will be required to submit the Swimmer’s name and ID number in the Meet Package document when applying for the sanction. For more information please contact Carrie Matheson.
Swim BC is currently working on the Return to Swimming: Competition Plan for our clubs. This is a lengthy process that requires a great amount of thought and collaboration to deliver a plan that is safe and meaningful for our membership.
Once the Plan becomes available, sanctioned single club Time Trials ONLY will be permitted. Sanctions will be available after Oct 31st. There will be no sanctioned regional and/or club invitational meets until further notice. Swim BC will review the Competition Plan and circumstances listed above in December.
Note: Pre-competitive swimmers are eligible to compete in ONE sanctioned Time Trial before they are required to upgrade to their appropriate competitive category.
Swim BC has developed a step-by-step guide for coaches to help them through the registration process. This guide is a very useful tool to ensure all the registration steps are completed and to simplify the steps as best we can. You can download the PDF of the guide here or visit our How to become a coach page.
Swim BC Members,
I am in my second week as the Swim BC Technical Director and have been working with our dedicated Swim BC Staff in fully understanding the Swim BC Technical program over the past number of years. I will be continuing to dive deeply into all aspects of the program to ensure that we develop the greatest opportunities for our membership.
I am proud to be working with Swim BC and our partners to grow swimming, the greatest sport. I have had many moments in swimming to recognized how special it is. We swim for safety, for opportunity, and for the pursuit of becoming a better self. Swimming is inclusive and swimming is for life.
In British Columbia we are rich in resources. We have beautiful facilities, great partners, and amazing coaches, who I consider to be the best in the country. I look forward to working with our community to innovate and engage.
In the coming weeks and months I will be rolling out information on the 2020-21 Swim BC Technical Program.
I look forward to supporting you and seeing you on the pool deck.
In Swimming,
Cory Beatt
Technical Director, Swim BC
