During the fall of 2007 we experienced an exodus of swimmers from the team. Some left because of issues with the air filtration system at the pool and some just left. I personally didn?t swim during the Fall of 2007 but returned at the start of 2008 to a seemingly unenthusiastic and tired team. Provincial champs were only three months away and we wanted to improve or at least maintain our 2nd place team finish of 2007. I started to think of how to get people motivated to want to come to swim. At this time we had a total of three participants in the Million Metre Challenge run by MSC and despite trying to get people involved numbers didn?t increase. Yet I knew that if people had an external motivation they would make it to that one extra practice a week and our performances at provincial champs would be better. I believed it was because the Million Metre Challenge was too individualistic in focus and deterred people away. We did come 2nd again at provincial champs and at our August AGM I floated the idea of a team goal ? to swim the distance around the world in a year! Initially the idea met some questions such as ?that?s forty million metres?? But I had done the math and if we had 89 participants swim 3k 3 times per week we would achieve the goal. At the time we would average 20 swimmers per practice over our available nine practices per week, but had a total membership of 100. Meaning roughly half our swimmers weren?t swimming regularly. I would ?piggy-back? our goal off the Million Metre Challenge requiring our team members to register on the MSC site and log their distances on the MSC site. At the end of each month I would just take the monthly team total and record our progress on a map of the world. The response from the team over the communal goal was fantastic. We quickly became one of the most active teams in the million metre challenge. Practices did not change in focus to increase distance. We are still very much technically oriented. However, there were other noticeable effects: participation rates increased in practices; some swimmers would even swim outside practice times to enhance their distance; enthusiasm was up; there was no more talk of poor air quality and we won Provincial champs in 2009! I believe much of this was due to the cohesive team spirit drawn out of the team goal.

So what of the team goal to achieve it in a year? We will fall short, as the math predicted from the onset. But we are already past half way around the world. I asked one of our swimmers if he thought of not achieving the goal in a year would be a failure? ?Sometimes it is not the final destination that is important, but the journey!? was his reply. We have become the team to beat in Quebec; our membership is at an all time high; we have a larger cohesive coaching staff and we have a happy group of swimmers who want to be at the pool! Overall I think the team goal was a big success.