Opinion: Swim schools a valuable asset

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Mon, 23 Mar 2009
News: Queenstown Lakes | Your Town: Queenstown | Queenstown Forum

The Queenstown Times' opinion column, Queenstown Forum, is your chance to have a say about the goings-on in New Zealand's fastest growing town. This week's guest columnist is Queenstown Lakes district councillor Cath Gilmour.

Like many in our community, I was appalled when Lakes Leisure dropped its bombshell just before Christmas that Water Discovery and Wakatipu Swim School were being effectively cut out of Alpine Aqualand.

These two schools have been teaching our kids to swim in private, school and hotel pools around the district for the past 15 years and were staunch supporters of the community campaign to build a year-round pool in Wakatipu.

Lakes Leisure (LL), which runs the pool on the Queenstown Lakes District Council's behalf, set up its own swim school soon after opening last May.

After initially reluctantly allowing the pre-existing swim schools access to the pool several days a week, it has now restricted them to term-time Sundays and limited holiday blocks.

By doing so, LL has effectively given itself a near monopoly in this community-owned pool.

I clearly remember councillors gave a strong message to LL early on that we wanted to retain the expertise, experience, businesses and following of Emma Carpenter and Jane Hughes, who run these swim schools.

In recent weeks, the community has spoken up at a council meeting public forum, through emails and phone calls.

More than 500 Wakatipu and Wanaka learn-to-swimmers have voted with their togs and followed their favoured coaches to pools elsewhere.

That is a lot of pool admissions - especially as siblings and parents often also pay to swim during lesson time - and lane-hire fees that LL is missing out on each week.

I know of families who have cancelled or not bought annual passes because, with their kids' lessons being held in other pools, they now don't frequent the Frankton pool.

LL counters it needs the lane space for its own business during peak hours.

Maybe so, but I quite often see the learners' pool empty or nearly so.

The bottom line to me is Alpine Aqualand is a community pool.

Ratepayers campaigned for years, subsidised its operation by $1.8 million this financial year and will continue doing so for many years to come.

Reducing this "ratepayer subsidy" through LL swim lesson profit is a valid aim.

But at what community cost? Would our children benefit more from a swim school monopoly or from several competing schools keen for their custom? And is killing the competition actually going to make LL money?This is something we don't know.

Despite asking, we don't yet (at the time of writing) have the figures that would prove if this trade-off between commercial and community interests is worthwhile.

The figures that might justify this move should be made public.

Claims of commercial sensitivity, as have been made on figures provided by LL to date, do not wash when the pool is community-owned, funded and managed.

What can we as a community do? Without political will, very little.

It's not quite there yet, though some of us are pushing hard for a reversal of LL's stance.

But strong consensus from the community can make a difference. I cite the overturning of the council's waste management proposal during last year's annual plan on the strength of more than 200 individual submissions.

With political will, councillors could push for a change to LL's contract, to ensure community demand for swim school choice gets due weight in board decisions.

Even better, LL could prove it's listening to the community it was elected to serve by letting Water Discovery and Wakatipu Swim School back in, at least during off-peak hours.

Surely, that would be a win-win-win; LL would get more off-peak income, the community a choice of swim school approaches and two long-serving, strongly supported swim schools would survive.

 

 

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Frustrated by Aqualand

Submitted by QtnMotherof3 on Thu, 02/04/2009 - 11:58pm.

I’m a mother of 3 young boys – a 4 year old and 2-1/2 year old twins. (It would be redundant and an understatement to add “busy” to my title.) Yet I’ve managed to send my kids to swim lessons first with Water Discovery and more recently with Wakatipu Swim School almost every available term including school holidays since they were infants.
My boys are currently having lessons at Queenstown Primary School pool – certainly less than an ideal learning environment compared to Alpine Aqualand last year – because I felt strongly that Jane and her team at WSS were the main reason my boys are so comfortable, confident and competent in the water for their age. After an assessment with Alex and Jade at Aqualand last term to so that the boys could swim year round, we decided to vote with our family’s time and money and stay with Jane, despite quite possibly not being able to continue lessons over winter. Swimming is not the only game in Queenstown and I am hearing a growing consensus from other parents of young swimmers that this is what they will do as well, and perhaps focus on skiing or one of the many other activities instead this winter. That’s not good news for Aqualand, or ratepayers who ultimately have to make up for Aqualand’s management miscalculations. Aqualand’s attitude that they don’t have to be competitive because they hold the keys to the castle, is not only arrogant and untrue, but infuriating to ratepayers who’ve helped build and maintain the long awaited pool and now can’t take full advantage of it.
There seems to be a perception that because Queenstown is a transient resort community, there may not be the same loyalty and memory in the community, but this simply isn’t true. Just look at Jane’s dedicated following at Queenstown Primary School this term for example. She has spent countless hours over the years making sure as many children as possible learn valuable life skills in the water, bending over backwards before each term painstakingly arranging class rosters and schedules to suit as many families as possible including ours, and it definitely hasn’t gone unnoticed. Alpine Aqualand’s attitude when I approached them about lessons was: Here’s our set class offerings, if it doesn’t suit your family, well, that’s just too bad, there are plenty of other families who will take those spots. Next! Who can afford to run their business like that except a not for profit?
Alpine Aqualand Swim School shouldn’t need to artificially stifle competition to make money, it should be a slam dunk. But perhaps the managers at Aqualand should talk to some successful hotel managers around town. I’m sure they’d all love to be able to sell directly exclusively to save on commissions, but very few probably do. The reality is that in order to get maximum occupancy, they usually need a mix of agent and wholesaler support and possibly discounted last minute bookings in addition to direct rack rate sales or beds will go empty and they will ultimately lose money. It’s a huge cost just keeping the pool operating – Aqualand should be doing more to get more paying customers in the door to enjoy it!
All 3 existing swim schools have quite different philosophies, teachers and teaching styles, so why not let Wakatipu families choose for themselves? Healthy competition should lift everyone’s game and that would benefit everyone. Besides, it would mean significantly more memberships for Aqualand (we chose not to renew our family membership now that we’re not taking lessons there and only go as a family occasionally on weekends), extra rent when they weren’t using their learner’s pool for their own students, and more paid customers coming through the door (siblings and caregivers often swim with kids before or after lessons).
Alpine Aqualand as a pool is an amazing facility and we are very lucky to have it in Queenstown, finally. However, if it’s meant to be a community pool, built and maintained by ratepayers predominantly, we should all be able to use it.
Cheers,
Pamela Bramwell

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