Queen’s Birthday Honours for dedicated couple’s service to swimming

Two long time contributors to the sport of swimming have been named in the Queen’s Birthday Honours over the weekend.

Jane and Terry Logan, from Manurewa Swim Club, were awarded with Queen’s Service Medals for services to both swimming and water polo.

The husband and wife’s involvement in swimming began in 1974 after moving to Manurewa with their young family and the pool just five minutes down the road.

“We took the family regularly and I helped the local school team to prepare for Inter School Swim Sports,” Jane said. “And before I knew it I was teaching at the swim school and the two oldest boys swam at the swim club.”

Terry came in to join his wife with a ‘if you can’t beat it, join it’ attitude. Taking on an administrative role he organised fund raising, carnivals, co-ordinated with parents and assisted with the financial side of the club.

He served as a committee member for the Club from 1980 to 1997, three times as club president.

As time went on the couple’s involvement grew with Terry assisting in the administrative side of the club for 20 years while Jane’s commitments continued to develop and evolve.

In the 1980’s and 90’s Jane spent time as the Education Officer in Counties Manukau where she worked on delivering the Kiwiswim program in local schools over the summer giving tutorials to teachers and classes, all while the Manurewa Swim Club kept growing.

Jane also helped teach disable children to swim and coached Paralympic swimmers Jason Griffith and Aaron Bidious who competed at the 1996 Atlanta Games while she attended as team coach.

Since 2011 she has coached Special Olympic swimmers and is coaching Sam Muir James for open water swimming for the 2015 Special Olympic World Games in Los Angeles.

For the past four years Jane has also been bringing groups from the Club to the Epic Swim in Taupo which has seen them be able to gain experience in the open water. She has worked to get funding from Turners and Growers Bonita Bananas brand to help fund these trips.

The pair also has a strong involvement in waterpolo with Terry being a founding member of the Mountford Park Waterpolo club and Jane contributing as a coach for the club since 2007.

They also advocated for a deeper end in the Russell Road Swim Pool in Manurewa so children in South Auckland could be safe and confident in deep water which in turn opened up the opportunity to get the community into trying water polo.

Asked why they have dedicated so much of their lives to swimming Jane says “our whole family were involved and we just feel swimming is for everyone - for fitness and health no matter your age, to become competent swimmers means our community is safe even though we don't have a beach, and to have fun competing both at swimming and Water Polo.”