Swim England South West Youth Volunteer Award 2019

Swindon Dolphin’s very own Kerry Rutherford has this year been selected by the South West Region to receive the Swim England South West Youth Volunteer Award. Kerry has been volunteering poolside with Dolphin for a number of years across a range of squads. She completed the Dolphin Young Volunteer programme in 2018 clocking over 150 hours of volunteering. As a timekeeper, she has volunteered at Masters and league galas. In June she passed the Level 1 Swim England Swimming Teacher Assistant course.

Kerry assists poolside with Green Squad twice a week, while also helping teach Swim Skills sessions and assists in the water during Learn to Swim lessons helping very young children overcome their anxieties while they begin to learn to swim. Kerry also coaches the Para Squad where she is very sensitive to the individual needs of the clubs para swimmers, supporting them to further develop their swimming skills.

As well as coaching, Kerry has supported para swimmers at a number of swimming competitions and acted as a chaperone at meets helping to build the swimmers confidence in their first experiences of competitive swimming.

Despite having a paralysed foot, wearing a boot splint and using crutches for the last six months, Kerry has continued to be poolside coaching and in the water assisting swimmers.

Kerry has been invited to receive her award from the South West Regional President at a celebratory lunch in September. The Regional President congratulated Kerry on what he termed as an outstanding award in the SW Region saying that Kerry was considered to be the very best nomination from a field of outstanding candidates for this award.

Kerry has automatically been nominated for the National Youth Volunteer Award and has been invited to attend an awards ceremony at the University of Birmingham in November.