Marking a Milestone: Reflecting on Paul Burnett's 25 Years of Contributions to Halo Leisure
Some 25 years ago this month, one of our local swimming coach heroes Paul Burnett started teaching at our Pencoed pool. He still delivers lessons across the week, and can have little idea of the hugely positive impact he's had on the community. We caught him poolside to find out more...
It all started when I brought my sons here. We all learned to swim at Pencoed (I was in my late 20s), and then he joined the Pencoed Pirates swimming club. At one of the meetings they asked if I'd help out at and from there I went on to do coaching courses. How many lessons since? Just add 000s! I met a lifeguard who joined Halo recently, and she told me I'd taught her to swim! In fact there are a few working at Halo as swimming teachers who started in the classes with me.
It is not, of course, a single person enterprise. This is a group effort by the team and we are all focused on giving children swimming and water safety skills - so they can enjoy the sport, but so they can be safe, too. Halo has led a strong education campaign around this, and I think the messages we're sending out are getting through. The lessons are pretty full, and parents not only want their children to be able to swim but want their children to be safe.
We teach adults too. It's never too late to learn or get better in the water, so we offer coaching as well as lessons for non-swimmers. I've got some brothers who are heading for a triathlon and a couple of the adults who wanted to improve so they could apply to join the navy. Just today a member stopped me to tell me she's up to 50 lengths after I gave her a few tips on sustaining the lengths. She just needed to switch strokes halfway up the pool to give herself a break and then she was off. I love the community spirit here. We can all make a big difference just by doing small things for each other.
I've upped my hours since retiring eight years ago from my job in engineering. I am 61 and do 22 hours a week now as a swimming coach (and could teach around 320 children across that week), but I consider it a passion - a nice hobby I get paid for. The banter from the kids is brilliant, and the way Halo includes everyone in this programme is amazing. To help children - of all abilities and disabilities - become more confident in water, and then become strong swimmers is wonderful. This is a life skill they take away, and the parents and carers are so grateful and moved by the difference it makes to their kids. In the same way I was grateful when I brought my sons along to the pool in 1999. I am proud to be Welsh, and how the County Council and Halo Leisure support initiatives like this one. If I had a tattoo I always say it would read: Made in Wales.
What do I do in my spare time? My son, the one I brought swimming here 25 years ago, has his own boy now, and another baby on the way. So in my spare time I enjoy carpentry in my shed. I am just putting the final touches to a new climbing frame for my grandson.
Did you know? Paul isn't just celebrating 25 years as a swim teacher this month, but his 100th blood donation to the Welsh Blood Service. And he told us that when he donated bone marrow (after a call out for a bone marrow match for a teenager with leukemia) he ended up giving the anaesthetist he was chatting to breaststroke breathing tips before he went under!
