Squad: High Performance

DONNA BOUZAID

‘Coach of the Year’ - Donna Bouzaid
2007 & 2006 Waitakere City Sporting Excellence Awards

Donna has been coaching swimming for 20 years and has produced National and Australian champions. She is a Swimming NZ Level 3 qualified swim coach and has been the West Auckland Aquatics Coaching Director since 2000.

Donna was a competitive swimmer at NZ Open level and also a top marathon swimmer with a long list of open water swim achievements to her credit. Two of her most prestigious swims were conquering Cook Strait in 1985, and being the first person to swim around Rangitoto Island in 1994, a distance of 37 kilometres.

An accomplished all round sportswoman Donna spent her formative years in the Wairarapa participating in a wide variety of sports but swimming was always her priority. These days she plays Golf as a form of relaxation although her competitive spirit remains on the greens.

Donna has a wonderful rapport with swimmers at all levels and excels at building team spirit from the 6 and 7 year olds to the older swimmers in their 20's. She is able to set well balanced training programs so training is enjoyable for all swimmers.

A tough coach who always retains a sense of humour that helps swimmers during hard training sets, Donna is well known for her exuberant personality during swim meets. She is never known to take a backward step and leads by example.

Donna was the NZ Age Group Coach of the Year for 3 years from 1997 to 2000.

In 2002 Donna was recipient of the Waitakere City Coach of the Year Award.

Donna was a Coach of the Australian Tri- Series team in 2002.

In 2003 Donna was a Coach of the New Zealand Youth Olympic Team, which competed in Sydney, Australia.

To be updated shortly to cover 2005 - 2008!

Squads: TAGS, Youth, Aquafit

SIMON MAYNE

Simon joined West Auckland Aquatics in 2002, originally from Islington, North London now resides in the Auckland suburb of Mt Albert. He began coaching Basketball in 1988 having played semi-professional in the English National League. Having worked through the various coaching levels he attained Advanced Coach status and coached to District level. Simon represented England in Basketball at Under 16 level and his district, Bedfordshire.

In 1996 Simon began teaching swimming to a variety of levels whilst studying for a B. Ed. Honours in Physical Education(Major Swimming) at De Montfort University in the UK. He spent s even years Basketball coaching at all levels up to County and three years teaching Phys Ed in various schools in NZ and the UK. Currently Eleven years coaching and teaching Swimming. He has completed the requirements for the New Zealand Swimming 'Performance Coach Award'.

Last year (2007) Simon was named Head Coach for World Blind Champs in Sao Paulo, Brazil and Head Coach for IPC Oceania Games in Darwin. At Youth level he was Sprint Coach for NZ team at Trans Tasman held at 3 venues (Sydney, Gosford & Canberra) and also Sprint Coach for the NZ team at Australian Youth Olympics held in Sydney. At Junior level in New Zealand he was named Coach of the Year.

In 2006 he was Head Coach for IPC World Championships in Durban. Simon was asked to coach at the inaugural SNZ Age Camp in Palmerston North. He was named New Zealand Age Group Coach of the Year and received the Waitakere Sports Award for Coaching Swimming.

In 2005 Simon was named both New Zealand Junior and Age Group Coach of the Year foloowing on from his first National Award for Junior Coach of the Year in 2004.

Squads: Sharks, Orcas, JAGS, AGS,
Marlins

CHRIS ASHLEY

From a young age I’ve always had a passion for swimming. I started myself as a swimmer when I was only 5 years old and carried a great swimming career competing nationally and internationally for New Zealand and gaining and incredible amount of experience.

As a swimmer I enjoyed learning and improving my stroke and times and I felt that I really wanted to give back to the sport that has taught me so much not only about being competitive but also about life. I started to coach when I was 15 as a volunteer progressing into mini squads at a local learn to swim program instantly gaining a passion for coaching swimmers and seeing the swimmer succeed. I then took the plunge and took a small squad at North Shore swimming gaining a handful of New Zealand Junior Qualifiers that went on to become great junior swimmers.

Shortly after I saw the great opportunity at West Auckland at the completion of my degree of Sport and Coaching/Recreation at Unitec and have taken over the awesome junior program at West Auckland Aquatics and have never looked back! I love the club and have a huge passion for us to be the best of the best! Not only do I want to see the swimmers succeed and become stars for New Zealand but I also want to create unique swimmers that will lead the sport Internationally to create a bright future for swimming New Zealand.

ASSISTANT COACHES

Susan's photo to come

SHANA

SUSAN