Holt

Holt is a suburb. It’s located in Belconnen district in Canberra, Australian capital territory Australia. The suburb was named after Harold Holt a Prime Minister of Australia from 1966 to 1967. The street names in the suburb are named after sportsmen’s and sportswomen’s. Holt has a few local shops and a few neighbourhood ovals and a couple of sporting field it also has a school, Kingsford Smith school that goes from preschool to year 10. The population of Holt in 2016 was 4, 814 approximately 52.6% females and 47.4% males According to BBC news 2017.

The funds would help Holt built a community swimming pool for everyone. The nearest family swimming is 7.9km (4.9) away from the Holt suburb, Bruce swimming pool is located at the Australian Institute of Sport that is also surrounded by other facilities around it. For an instant, 7 basketball courts, soccer ovals and many other more. Australian Institute of sport is a training institution for elite sports and athletes, sports of excellence and development facility. In other words, the swimming pool is always busy. According to the Australian Institute of sports website accessed 21. Feb. 2019, the swimming pool is 50 meter and 25 meters deep and also heated. The pool opens from 6:15am and closes at 9:50pm. The cast for a casual swim for an adult is $6.80 and a cost for a child and people with concession is $5.20. I personally think that is expansive and doesn’t need to cast that much for a casual swim around.

With the fund from the commits. The resident of Holt can come together and built a swimming pool that is big enough for a community. The fund can build indoor pools and also an outside pool with the fund just depending on the community. The pool would be located somewhere that isn’t too busy. In another word, somewhere that is far from the school for safety reason put also close enough for the school to host an event or excursion kids like do anything just doing have to do with sitting in class for hours, that when the swimming pool comes in handing for school and their students. I went to Kingsford Smith School from year 6 to year 10 and in those, I’ve been to the pool 3 time and those 3 times were at the end of the year because that’s when Australia has its summer. Those 3 times were for swimming carnival, the last 2 time was a fun day out. The reason why the Kingsford Smith School doesn’t take their kids out to the pool more often is because the big facility like the Australian Institute of sport is always booked out by people other schools around Canberra.

According to sports advisory, swimming pool make a lot of money, especially in smaller towns. A community pool has the biggest attraction during the summer for many reasons. For one reason, not everyone has a pool at their backyard, for two, it seems like in the summer teenagers and families like to come together and enjoy each other’s company social interaction with different people, relaxation and its stress relief. lastly, summer is the time of the year where many people including myself like to travel and see family especially in Australia because Christmas is during summer, so with the swimming pool facility in holt it’s guaranteed that’s it’s going to be the most popular thing in town. The average temperature in summer is around 27 degree (80 Fahrenheit) and humidity after the sun goes down.

Pools are fun to jump into and you don’t have to be a professional swimmer to be able to swim. Not many people know this but swimming is a great exercise because the whole body is moving against the resistance of the water. When a person is moving in the water their heart rate is going up and at the same time its releasing stress of the body, and also improving muscle strength. According to better health, swimming helps a person that focuses on their weight to maintain a healthy weight, swimming also helps to keep a healthy heart and lungs, it improves flexibility. Swimming is a great way to make friends and keep fit at the same time. Anyone from different age can swim and use a swimming pool, swimming also continues for a lifetime.

Swimming pools go back as far as 2600 B.C.E. the first swimming pool that’s ever made was in Pakistan. In the 19th century, swimming pools became popular in Britain. Around 1837 six indoor pools were made in London so the growth of swimming pool was growing pretty fast. According to the Association of Pool & Spa Professionals, There are over 300,000 public swimming pools in the United States.

Having a pool in the small community is great. Public swimming pools like the one I first mention can be expansive and that can be because public pools in big facility like Australian Institute of sport have slides and snake bar and wireless internet that anyone can connect to it and that’s all and great and one but I personally wouldn’t want to go to a pool that its always going to be bust and spending so much many every week just for an hour swim. $6.80 for an adult to use a pool. So the time that for 5 days in a week is $34 and $ 34 every week for a month is $136. An average person that likes to swim in the morning as part of their daily exercise before going to work is paying $136 a month just for an hour and half of exercise.

If the fund help the community built a community pool in the Holt suburb the cost would be different. It would be less than $6.80 and the open hours would be different also. Like mention before the Australian Institute of sport is a really big campus and very busy every hour of the day of the week so you would think that they would open earlier than 6am, in another word, the Holt community pool would be open earlier than 6am. Many people start work at 6am and usually like to at least do some sort of exercise before. Swimming is usually the number one exercise most early workers like to do because it’s easier to get ready and you feel fresh afterward, so that’s was the holt community pool would open earlier than 6am. According to speedo website, accessed February 2019, “Many people enjoy a morning swim to clear their mind, stimulate their body and prepare for the day ahead”.

There different type of swimming pools depending on the purpose of the pool. There is the pool that are a mark out with lanes, those pools are racing and swimming laps and are usually used in competitions for an instant the Olympic games. Those pools are about 50 meters. Other pool types are smaller in shape comparing to the pool that has lanes and is used for competitions. Most of the pools are made to suits the one with disabilities, special features like a life, stairs and sloped entry. With the Holt community pool, all those special features will be added because there is a reason why its call the “community pool” because anyone is welcome and the one with special needs should be helped in any way possible. That’s why the Holt community need a pool so we can put a smile in those face.

Reading this you might be thinking to yourself why you would need a pool when the closest pool is only 7.9km away and that is a good a question. Leaving in a place like Canberra that only has about 400.000 citizens can sometimes feel like a lot but when really thinking about that’s not a lot. Driving somewhere that is 10 to 15 minutes away is pretty far for a Canberran because of most things a close. In the Holt suburb, the closest supermarket is only 2 minutes’ drive and 6 minutes’ walk and that’s what most people in Holt are used to so the thought of 10 minutes’ drive sounds not fun.

According to bear paddle swim school, swimming just doesn’t teach kids water safety but There a few numbers of educational benefits of when I come to swimming. According to bear paddle swim school blog says “Learning to swim can be scary and challenging for young children at first, but it teaches them the value of taking on challenges and persevering. Second, swimming requires coordination and multi-tasking, which is useful for students in school who need to learn to take notes, listen to lectures and solve problems (How Swimming Helps Kids Do Better in School)”. In another word, swimming is teaching children those things that many parents are having trouble teaching their children.

I have little sister 5-year sister that struggle with multi-tasking, yes she might be too young to multitask right now but teaching kids those things will help them down the round in their life’s. Kingsford Smith school have started from preschool to year 10 so imagine teaching those kids in preschool those skills at a very young age and how easy is school going to be for them because they would be able to multi-task understand problems and learning new things easily comparing to other kids. According to bear paddle swim school, starting your child young with swimming lesson, they will gain social skills and will be developed by the time they start big school with other kids.

The suburb of Holt needs a pool facility to bring the community together especially at a time where the community each other’s support. Holt doesn’t have any facility or event that bring that community together beside the weekend football that brings family members and friends where they watch their kids/friends play the game and share drinks and food with each other. In other words, the same enjoyment that happens on the weekend can also happen during the week at the swimming pool if Holt had one open to the community. Parents that have kids that do swimming lesson or swimming competition have to drive 10 to 30 minutes to their distention every day. For example, I have a family friend that go to his swimming lessons everyone at 6:30 for an hour before going to school and then goes back to for another swimming lesson after school for another hour lesson by the time he gets home it’s too late for him do anything with his friends. This goes on from Monday to Sunday. The swimming pool that he goes to is 15 minutes away from him so from Holt, he doesn’t complain about it because he loves swimming but wouldn’t it be easier for him and his family if there was a pool close to his house so in the holt area that he can go to end still have time to play with his friends.

The Holt suburb area is not big at all it’s about 1.274 mi². Because of how small the area is everything is a walking distance, it doesn’t take too much time to walk from one side to the other side of Holt. This is why built a swimming pool in Holt makes sense. It’s the only thing that is missing in the area. The suburb has a super school that goes from preschool to year 10, a supermarket that has every shop needed from fast-food restaurants to café, the area also has a gas station like seven eleven and also the raiders club. The raiders club is a sports club and restaurants that welcome any ages but only at a certain time. With all the resource Holt has to offer the only thing that is a noticeable is the community facility, the swimming pool that will unite the small community once again.