Together Again

• Hosts: David Stennett and Luke Daly
• Topics covered:
  • Recent events in the aquatics industry: ARV in Victoria, South Australia's aquatic event at the SA Aquatic and Leisure Centre, and more.
  • Career insights: The importance of lifeguard roles and career pathways in the aquatics industry.
  • Discussion on safety: Chemical handling risks, the importance of facility management, and recent incidents, including a gym fatality and a fire at a chemical factory in Georgia.
  • Review of the 2024 Drowning Report: Key insights on child drownings, international statistics, and prevention efforts.
  • Upcoming events: The ARI Awards and preparations for attending, including a bit of fun banter about wardrobe choices.

Show Description: Join David Stennett and Luke Daly as they dive back into Aquatics Only! In this episode, the dynamic duo discusses the latest happenings in the aquatics industry, including events in Victoria and South Australia. They also highlight the critical role of lifeguards and career opportunities in aquatics, while shedding light on some serious safety issues around chemical handling and facility management. To wrap things up, they touch on the 2024 Drowning Report and the industry’s continued efforts in drowning prevention. Plus, get a sneak peek into the ARI Awards and hear some fun banter about tuxes and sparkly jackets!

Thanks for listening to Aquatics Only. If you’re in swim schools, aquatic facilities, lifeguarding, learn-to-swim, programs, products, or anything water safety related, you’re in the right place.

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Transcript

Can you believe it? Luke Daly, we are back on the podcast, Aquatics Only. Here we go. Are you ready? Well, more to the point, we're back on it together, David. I feel like we've been a bit isolated. I feel like the listeners have been, you know, desiring a bit of us together, mate, instead of just my voice with someone else or your voice with someone else. This is correct. They need us. A little bit of the banter and brilliance that only emerges.

when you mix us together. And some might say the brotherhood as well, if we want to go for the B alliteration. Look, I think we can do that. Hey, look, Luke, today we've got a lot to talk about. I'm going to give you a bit of a heads up of what we're going to cover today. We're going to cover four main, I suppose, topics today as we go. Are you ready? I can count to four. I don't even need to take my shoes off. I'm glad. Please keep them on.

We're going to cover off some of the events that have been happening. We're to look at some news around the industry. We're going to talk about career as we always do because it is a wonderful industry to be a part of career in the equatics industry. And we're going to have a look at the drowning report. We're going to review that as well in brief too. So plenty to go through today. Why don't we kick up with events? There's been a few on particularly around sort of the East side last time we sort of got together.

We talking about what happened in Liyue? Well, that's that's feels like eons ago. We talked about splash that feels like eons ago. We talked about the Aster event that feels like ages ago, but ARV we've had down there in Victoria. Yeah. Shout out to Cathy Pardon who ran a wonderful event there, ARV in conjunction with LSV as well coming together on a collaboration there. We were both there, Dave. We were. We were in force. might say, some might say not.

But no, we were there, a wonderful industry event down there in Victoria. It was a pleasure to be a part of, so well done to the ARV and the indeed, a couple of big nights down there with a few of the crew hanging out late into the evening and having a few beverages, I think. Sherbets, we call them. Of which I may have partaken of a couple myself, but can neither confirm nor deny what might have happened the next morning. Look, not just ARV as well, but South Australia. Yeah, that's a...

We heard a little bit about that. think we did. touch on it briefly because we found out about it at the Arna Day, which we have talked about. That's right. We have. Yep. But it was kind of flagged there that there was a bit of a cohort working together on an event and that has now transpired and looking at my mate Jake, Jake Colkin from Royal Life SA. yes. Kind of summed up the event. was a collaboration, let's call it, for the SA community down there held at the SA Aquatic and Leisure Centre.

that comprised of Royal Life Saving SA, Surf Living South Australia and Auschwim as well. So it looked like a great event. They had some pretty heavy hitting speakers. Richard Harris. those of you who don't know that name, was the... Pretend like I don't. Well, he was a rescuer of the Thailand soccer team that got stuck in the caves, I believe. So he's very inspirational. Yeah, incredible story that. Yeah. And Brooke Hanson back to her roots there. We've seen Brooke.

for live. Brooke's fantastic. She is full of energy and calf muscles to die for. Almost as good as mine. Unbelievable. Well, I'd say better. You haven't seen mine in heels though, Dave. This is true. Nobody needs to. Held at the SA Aquatic and Leisure Centre. It looked like a wonderful event. We couldn't get there, but it did. No, I'll be planning on being there next year. I suppose you will be too. We look forward to joining that next year. Look.

You and I are reasonably well connected around the grounds and the feedback South Australia has been very, very good. And look, what else do you expect out of the fabulous state of South Australia and the beautiful city of Adelaide? That's right. Leading the way and showing us, suppose, what's possible when we all come together. I love that. Now, what is coming up? An awards night. Time to get tuxed up, to get frocked up, whatever it is for you. The Ahri Awards are coming up. Luke, you'll be there.

I will be there. I think it's a very important one to get to. Absolutely. That is just around the corner. I have to blow the dust off the suit. Not that it's had time. I'll probably have to get it dry cleaned, frankly. But yeah, no, very much looking forward to that. It's important. I haven't got my Everyone wants to know. like, everyone's just stopped what they're doing now. Music in workplaces turned off. Cars have pulled over getting ready to just take a mental note of what is Luke wearing? Not right now. Dressed by LD is what I will be.

That's for sure. Yeah. That being Mrs. Daly. No. No, her initials are real as well. That's right. But no, I have a, you'll see a photo of me. I've just recently returned from the US Swim Schools Association and International News. Yeah. And over there we had a night. You weren't even arrested this time. No, no. And the theme was sparkles. Show your sparkle. So I had a sparkly jacket and I actually dressed another man as well. So how dare you.

I can show you. yourself onto where I have claimed the jacket status at events over the last number of years. I mean, this probably deserves to be... For our listeners, Luke right now is showing what can only be described as a very sparkly jacket that I think I'm jealous of. I wish I could have it. You're going to have to turn up at the ARRI Awards to see this. It's so good, in fact, that I would wear it. And I have...

jealous vibes. Thursday, October 16. You never know. You might see it live in the flesh and this should be a video podcast just based on that. And if you're lucky and throw us a like and a listen, we might even post a photo of me wearing Just for reference, it could even be Thursday, October 17th. I was a day off. You were. Don't say that on a Wednesday. Wales on the 16th. That's okay. We've got it. So look, plenty going on. Can't wait for those awards night. I'll be there as well. I won't have a jacket to compete with that, but I will do my best.

Look, let's flick around to some news that's been going. We're just going to focus on a couple of different stories. We do actually have some international news and it serves as a bit of a reminder for what we do each and every day in managing the aquatic facilities. The aquatic facilities are kept, well, sanitized, beautiful water for our staff and our clients to be swimming in, for the swim school teachers who are in there for hours every day, for the lifeguard standing around.

But the chemicals that do go into these can be dangerous and as a reminder of that a company that I used to work for many many years ago in the US called Biolab have had another fire caused massive evacuations, pool chemistry, chemical factory fire in Georgia, in Atlanta basically causing huge evacuations and I think it just serves as a reminder doesn't it Luke?

It's always a reminder, especially coming into the summer season over here, in the aquatic space, we do do a lot of chemical handling, whether it's chlorines or acids, we deal with a lot of kind of class five and class eight chemicals. And we even within those classes, they can be mixed and not mixed together. So there often is a factory fire or a storage fire within our industry every year in summer, unfortunately. and it's always just something to be aware of. And when we're handling chemicals and I think beyond that, David, we might touch on it in future podcasts.

But the aquatic space as we've defined it on this podcast, for the purposes of this podcast at least, we do range into the hotels and we often have that. So training we need to be very conscious of with chemical handling and awareness as well. Yeah, too often we get those stories. I remember one from maybe 18 months ago in Sydney with 26 people hospitalized, just being up in their rooms hospitalized because a pool technician managing the pool, the commercial pool, the five-star venue.

Mixed the wrong chemicals that went through the air conditioning vents and thankfully no one was permanently damaged from that But these things shouldn't happen. They ought not happen And that's where as an industry we've just got to continue to push ourselves to be more professional trained and hold each other to account and a high expectation spot on Look also in

news. This one's not from the aquatic sector, but it is from the facilities management sector. And this is from Australian leisure management. There's a story about a very, very sad story. 33 year old man who died in a gym. Now, when I first saw that, I thought I must have had a heart attack. He was doing weights or he's dropped a weight on himself. And he's all of the stories that the horror stories that you think of with gyms. But it wasn't that he was actually in the shower and he

something had happened to him and he passed away while in the shower and wasn't discovered for several hours there. again, just a facilities management story, right Luke? And that's part of it. We manage a lot of facilities, certainly manage a lot of bathrooms and showers in our aquatic facilities. So it's definitely something to be conscious of and slips of walls can happen. And obviously we try and maintain our facilities as best as possible and have- That's right.

pretty strict regimes from what I've seen in the marketplace as well. Probably cameras aren't the right way to go to monitor. Maybe not in bathrooms. Correct. Definitely not in I suppose that is the high risk situation, isn't it? Because this is people's private place. Yep, slips and falls. In a public space, it's their private spot to have a shower and clean up and do what they need to. But when something tragic happens like that, do you sort of reflecting on that go, what is the process?

That's question. It's definitely a question if you know the answer. It's only pod at gmail.com. Let us know or throw us a comment on one of our social posts because I mean, we don't deal with this day in, day out, Dave, but how do you, what are some of the protocols? Let's share as an industry together about what are some of the leading protocols that we have in place to, I suppose, monitor. All right. So we've talked about fires. Not a great story. We've talked about a tragic death in a facility. Again, a little bit sad.

Well, a lot of bit sad really doesn't get much sadder than that. Let's finish our news part here Luke on something that is good and we're going back down to South Australia to the beautiful northern suburb of Adelaide, Gawla. Beautiful just bordering there on the Barossa Valley just north of Elizabeth where the Holden factory plant used to be. You're sort of getting out into some regional area there, stunning area. The Gawla Aquatic Centre, Luke has had some work done.

It has significant investment there by Hydrilla is the organization. Hello Hydrilla do great work there. They do seen a lot of work and they do a lot of work regionally as well. Which is super cool. And it's not always just pools. They also do play centers or play spaces with water involved as well. And actually features. I remember looking at this a little while ago. I've taken a tangent here, but they, it actually becomes a centerpiece and a community asset that people go that attracts tourism to the town.

So just a small tangent of some of the stuff that Hydro-Line work on, was a distraction, it reminded me of it. But yes, reopening again after a major capital works program undertaken during the winter of 2023 at Gawla. The photos look magnificent. It is a beautiful country, Paul, really, isn't it? Just absolutely beautiful there. Yeah, and upgrade after 61 years of service I see quoted here. That's insane.

And anyone who's spent any time in Adelaide, especially those northern suburbs, you know just how hot as hell January, February and March is. I remember spending my time and my university breaks working at the Elizabeth Holden factory plant, day after day after day of 35 degrees plus, just hot as and to have a community space that so many of our communities around this country do have, but that one in Gawla, just beautiful. What a great spot for that community to be able to gather, relax and connect.

And the filtration upgrade there, Dave, we talked just earlier we like this. Time to nerd out. Go nerd out, Luke. You just have a look at the size of these pumps and even the pipe work within them. But obviously things change and progress over the years and simply the filtration had fallen behind on this pool and now it's been brought up to date as well. So good investment there and certainly ahead of the holidays for vacation swimming as well for Gala Aquatic Center to open up and have a bunch more people learning to swim.

and that regenerative media filtration or ultrafine filtration which is known as on that pool now keeping that water crystal clear. Yeah we're a progressive industry aren't we with technology I mean at the end of the day filtration and circulation really 95 % of the job throw some sanitization in there and it works but finding more efficient and better ways to create beautiful spaces for swimming. Look

Our industry does change and I think that leads us on to the next part of our conversation day around career, career pathways. Your career, my career, we've talked about this before, has changed dynamically within the same industry over a couple of decades now. And, you know, even for me, look, a couple of weeks ago when we were in Melbourne, I got to, I never expected this. I got to go to the Pygmy Hippo Pool at the Melbourne Zoo.

to demonstrate one of our products to be able to clean up, well, baby, not baby, I call it a baby hippo. It wasn't a baby hippo, it's a pygmy hippo. They're full grown, they're 300 kilos and they can poo like a 300 kilo hippo. So there's a fair bit of mess in that water to keep. And that's what we're in there demonstrating. But what a cool adventure that the places that industry can take you in your career that you might not expect to go. I'm constantly surprised about the reach.

of the industry and what we do and what we contribute to. And I mean, it makes sense. You just don't think about it in our kind of residential space, which is where we're from, or even our commercial aquatic space with regards to the facilities component. We have no idea, think about the manmade water bodies that are at our zoos, as the example, or sea worlds or sea life. Like that water has to be so delicate, but it still has to be treated because it's not a natural environment.

for the it's a life system. is. It's it's a, it's many of those, those beautiful creatures, animals living in that water. It's got to be right. And it's got to be so in tune as well. Yeah. We think about the margin for error there. Like I think I remember reading something about the dolphin enclosures at SeaWorld not that long ago, but just how precise the tolerances are there and the margin for error specifically on the dolphins. Yeah, correct. Yeah. Very, very important. so

Again, with career, interesting to see the demand on this industry. So a regional council, the Corangamite Council, is offering free lifeguard courses at the moment to try and bring people into industry so they can staff their pools for the demand. It's a great starting point. Many of you listening out there, I know now, be going, yeah, you remember doing your days as a lifeguard on the side of the pool who have worked your way up to...

maybe be facility deputy managers or leaders or regional managers and so forth and taking on health and safety roles or many other things that started by donning on a red and yellow lifeguards, slapping on some sunscreen and a hat, having a whistle and being there at the pool. And it's such a critical function as well. Like we talk about lifeguarding as the entry level, but it's also the first level that prevents drowning in these environments as well. So.

Not only is it a wonderful entry point into our greater industry, which it is, and I know so many people now that have started their journey as a lifeguard, like you said, donning the red and yellow and holding the rings or the boys to help them rescue people, but it's such a critical function as well, making sure that silly people like you or I, Dave, aren't doing flips and stuff too dangerously, though they let us get away with a little bit.

But also being there just if someone turns their head for a second and plucking someone out of the water. I hear stories, unfortunately, but fortunately for lifeguards, constantly around the important part that they play. You talk about silly, but the play is actually really important around the water too. The silliness does make it fun and engaging. I'm going to go down my little tangent now to all my Kiwi friends. I've recently seen something in New Zealand. It's basically a bombing competition.

I know in Europe they do a different one, death diving, DUDES they call it, it comes out of Norway and they dive into freezing water, crazy moves. But in New Zealand they've been doing it for a long time, it's called MANU I believe, forgive me Kiwis if I've got that wrong, fix me up. And it's these bombing competitions, they're super cool and it makes it so much fun. The challenge really is that this needs to be done under vigilant supervision for, because there's risk involved, right? And we don't want to see more

or anyone lose their life. There's an interesting article again, worth looking at where Queensland now Royal Life Save Queensland looking at introducing AI enhanced drowning detection systems, an article worth leading, but that leads us to the last point of the discussion, the review of the 2024 drowning report, Luke. I don't even know if we'll be able to cover it in full depth. And I think you highlighted the top there, Dave, that we'd be covering in brief. No, it's in brief today. I think we can look at this more in future, but just to, just to

sort of top and tail some key points because at the end of this, we look at some of the numbers, right? And the swimming pool drowning is, I say this very, very carefully to anyone who's had a near drowning or lost someone, please understand that I say this with sincere care, but only 11 % occurred in swimming pools. But...

The risk to drowning is far wider than just swimming pools, which means vigilance, supervision and prevention is really important. And that's a passion of yours really is the prevention piece, right? It's massive passion. Look, our swim schools do a lot of that, but I hear a lot of chat too, not just from the learning to swim perspective, but from the greater aquatics. was speaking to swimming WA just recently and it's about learning to swim, but not just for the sake of swimming.

or necessarily competitive swimming, but knowing in all those environments, which you're alluding to there, Dave, without looking at the statistics myself over your shoulder. Yeah. But it's those other water bodies out in the ocean off the back of boats. We are such a water culture. But learning to swim for other purposes, whether it is out in the ocean when we need to save ourselves from a rip. Unfortunately, lifeguards are there as well from the surf life saving side of things, but from the rivers and the lakes, knowing how to rescue people.

is, critical and learning how to swim for sport, for water polo, for canoeing and kayaking, for jumping off the side of a boat. Learning to swim isn't just for a function of having a backyard pool or for the sport of swimming. That that's obviously critical, but learning to swim is a life skill. and that's critical, right? it really is. So look, let me give you some of the stats here just to support that and, and, and, and wrap this up, I suppose, as, we come near to a close of our podcast today.

But 15 children under the age of five drowned. 25 % reduction on the 10 year average. So we're headed the right way. mean, that's 15 families that are grieving the loss of a child. Absolute tragedy. Yet it seems as a trend going the right way, we've got more kids and more kids in pools with less drowning. And so that prevention piece is doing something. can't lose our vigilance and commitment to that. Facts.

25 % of those who drowned were born overseas. We continue to recognise that as an issue. I know places like, or with the community facilities that all of you represent are doing everything you can to engage with your entire community, whether they're generationally Australian or they're new to Australia, to make sure that they're engaged. What was that statistic again, sorry, Dave? One quarter. Yep. So 25%. quarter. Yeah. Yeah. And then also there's a lot of

drownings that happened of people falling in water where they weren't meant to and it's that skill of being able to move through the water in a way to get yourself to safety rather than freak out like you remember that story from a few weeks ago finish on a tragic story was a few months ago now of the two men jumping into a hotel pool to rescue the little girl the father and the grandfather and then the father or the two men drowned but the daughter ended up being safe didn't she?

So they ended up saving the little girl, but they lost their own lives in a small swimming pool because the instant reaction was just pure fear rather than knowing how to get the two meters back to the edge of the pool. Couldn't do it. And so these skills matters. Look, I don't want to end on something there. We are a terrific industry with terrific opportunities, really doing amazing work within the community. And if the sad

tragic parts of today's conversation can help motivate us towards what we do to make life better, which is what we all do, then let's use it for that. And that's a good work that Royal Life do. Royal Life Saving Australia do. They bring awareness to the drowning and they shine a light on the drowning awareness piece. And that's critical work. And the research report that gets put together, it really makes us sit and think. It also makes us sit and talk about things that we can do better or be more conscious of or...

highlight things like that last statistic of the slipping in particular that happens all the time. We talked about it with the gym thing earlier, not around pools, but it could have been a social for we, you and I both know, people who have slipped accidentally for whatever reason. it's a life changing or a life ending moment and accidents happen, but it's, good to take time. It's good to take pause and think about the things that we can be doing better. And we want to constantly keep doing better. We are constantly keep doing better.

I would suggest that our industry, the greater aquatics industry is actually far ahead of any regulatory principles that are out there. We're always doing more than the bare minimum that's required. We want to preserve life. Yeah. And that's what makes this industry great and something Luke, I'll talk for you here and me both that we are proud to be a part of, to work in such a cool space. Until next time, wish you all the best. We'll see you around.

Aquatics only. Let's go. Let's go.

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