Club Championship Gala

This is our annual competition between club members held in November at Eltham. All club members in the competitive squads who have at least 6 months membership are expected to take part in our Club Championship. The events are arranged in the following age groups - U11, U12, 12/13, U14, Junior(14 to 16 years) and Open(over 17). Every event has a club trophy on which the winner's name is recorded and which is theirs to keep for the year.

Badge Galas

These galas, against other local clubs, have a set time for each event - swimmers faster than that time are disqualified. They do however receive an ASA badge for achieving that time – bronze, silver, gold or platinum in the corresponding stroke.

League Galas

These are groups of clubs who compete in galas through the year for the highest place in a league table. The leagues are speed graded as A, B or C with A-grade being the fastest galas. We belong to the Tudor, Millennium, and North Kent Junior leagues. Each league has its own set of rules and the coach selects teams consisting of four boys and four girls in each age group. Selection is made according to the swimmers times. These leagues often have a set time per event which disqualifies (time faults) swimmers who are faster than that time. This is to ensure that clubs do not enter swimmers who are far too good for the grade of the gala. A few of our swimmers also swim in the A-grade Speedo League.

Open Galas (or 'events' or 'meets')

These galas are entered on an individual basis by swimmers - so an event can have more than one swimmer entered from the same club. There are different grades of meet. Entry is usually subject to qualifying times and in consultation with the swimmer’s coach in order to control the number of entrants. The club selects a number of such galas for club swimmers to go along to together, both as part of the training programme and to provide fun for the swimmers.

Borough Galas

Every year Greenwich, and other Boroughs have a gala that is open to all competitive swimmers who either live or go to school in the Borough. In the case of Greenwich Borough, the Borough Championship is held at Eltham Pool in June.

County, District, National Galas

These are competitions for all swimmers in the relevant geographic area. To enter these events swimmers must achieve a fast enough time in an event and this has to have been recorded at a Designed Meet.

Designated Meets

These are open or other galas, which keep strictly ASA rules - such as having only fully qualified officials. Only times from these meets are sufficient to enter District and National competitions.