This year marks a tremendous achievement for our club. We have been operating for 120 years and have seen the suburb of Box Hill grow and change for well over a century. Watch a snapshot of our 120 years of building the local community through swimming with many stories from our life members, current swimmers, and coaches.
120 years of building the community through swimming
Our member experiences
Alwyn Barrett (1957 – 1964)
Our beloved Alwyn talks about her time as a swimmer with Surrey Park Swimming Club from 1957 to 1964. She swam in “The Dive” in Box Hill and won numerous championships, broke many records, and was awarded Life Membership with the club. Alwyn went on to become a well respected swimming coach as well as a Team Manager for the Australian Institute of Sport.
The history of Surrey Park Swimming and Surrey Dive
Established in 1904, we operate a learn to swim, learn to dive and our famous Surrey Park Swimming Club squad program throughout the eastern suburbs of Melbourne. We are a not-for-profit organisation and pride ourselves on being a part of the sporting life and community of Box Hill for well over 100 years. We are the largest swimming club in Victoria and one of the oldest still active clubs in Australia.
Our story begins when workers accidentally struck a pipe while using machinery in the quarry. The workers luckily escaped but the machinery was submerged under 45ft of water. The Surrey Dive, as it was christened, was eventually fenced and bathing sheds, rafts, and springboards were built. It was leased to the newly formed Surrey Park Swimming Club.
The Club held its first carnival on 23 February 1907. The one mile championship was won, in record time, by Frank (later Sir Frank) Beaurepaire. These carnivals were so popular that people would move into the Box Hill community to live close to the action, and ultimately built up the population of the Box Hill area. In 1925, Female members were admitted to the club and today represent in excess of 60% of the Club’s membership. In the 1930’s Surrey Park Swimming Club moved to the newly built Box Hill City Baths. In 1981, Box Hill Recreation Centre (now Aqualink Box Hill) opened, and the Club started to train in this centre’s indoor pool. The facade of the original kiosk forms part of the Club Rooms – the “Box Hill Swimming Pool” brick building.
Over the years Surrey Park has had great success competitively at State, National and International level in both Age and Open competition. Matt Welsh, now retired, when a member of Surrey Park represented Australia at the Sydney 2000 Olympics. Former Surrey Park swimmer Samantha Hamill also represented Australia at the Beijing 2008 Olympics. More recently we have had Surrey Park swimmers representing Australia at Junior World Championships, the Youth Olympic Festival, the World University Games and Junior Pan Pacs.
In addition to Surrey Park’s Club squad program, Surrey Park Swimming provides learn-to-swim and dive tuition. A team of qualified, experienced and professional instructors are employed to conduct these lessons. To ensure we reach those in need and as a part of our community commitment, we donate a portion of each swim school lesson fee to our Community Access Program for Swimming (CAPS). Through this we have been able to provide free lessons to refugees, those experiencing financial hardship or those community groups who would otherwise be unable to complete swimming lessons. In addition to this our CAPS program provide free interactive water safety talks to local kindergartens, child care centres, primary and secondary schools in our community to ensure everyone is given the opportunity to be safer around water.
At Surrey Park, we are unique in that our learn to swim program has a direct feed into our competitive swimming programs. Under the guidance of our Head Coach and their team of experienced qualified coaches, our swimmers build on skills from the learn to swim program and consolidate their competitive swimming skills to achieve their goals. These programs can take a swimmer from Junior squads all the way through to Open High Performance squads, where they have the opportunity to compete for spots on the Australian National and Olympic Teams.
Our Committee
Surrey Park Swimming Club is an athlete centred, coach driven and parent supported club.
The role of the Committee of Management is to exercise good governance with respect to the strategic and operational requirements of the Club. The Committee is elected at the Annual General Meeting and meets on a regular basis, generally once a month or as required, throughout the season.
The Committee of Management is composed of an Executive Committee as well as a General Committee and is supported by various sub-committees such as the Swimming Sub-Committee. This Sub-Committee is involved in the co-ordination of a number of activities including the several full day external swim meets the Club runs, Club Championships, Club Records, and timekeepers at meets run by other Clubs.
The Committee of Management delegates day‐to‐day responsibility for the management and operation of the Club to the Club’s Chief Executive Officer, but remains directly responsible for Volunteer activities and overseeing the CEO’s performance.
Surrey Park’s Committee of Management – Season 2023/2024
General Committee
Anthony Clements
Officers
Chief Executive Officer: Phillip Kong
Our Vision
Surrey Park Swimming Club seeks to provide the best club environment in Victoria for the development of all of its swimmers to their full potential in an atmosphere of enjoyment and professionalism.
Our Sponsors
Our Partners and Affiliations
