by Phil Tanner
The Mayor of Reading, Councillor Bet Tickner, was guest of honour as the town's swimming club held its annual awards nights at Winnersh Community Centre.
Alan Porton of the Evening Post, a major friend of the club over more than 20 years, was granted the rare honour of life membership - awarded in recent years only to Olympian Becky Cooke and Paralympian Graham Edmunds.
Julie Perrin, who fortunately for Reading remained involved after sons Alex and Geoff moved on, won the Enstone Trophy for outstanding service and it can honestly be said that the club would not exist without her vital work as club secretary and treasurer.
The Grace Burt Memorial Bowl was awarded to Jonathan Mills in whose hands the club website www.readingswimclub.org has become one of the best in the country.
Swimmers across all age groups collected trophies won at the autumn's club championships, among them Georgie Wilkins (11), Ellie Wood and David Mills (12) and Adam Barrett (14) making clean sweeps of all the cups in their year.
The 2006 Swimmer of the Year awards went to Garry Dixon (who retained the trophy) and Zoe Hester - a double for both after Dixon won the accolade of Reading's overall junior male sports personality of the year and Hester overall female sports personality at the gala evening at Rivermead earlier in the week.
The Reading Cygnets Friendship Trophy was won by a delighted Issy Keenan and the Joseph Korting Trophy for good sportsmanship went to James Tichband, whose attitude was typified by a great gesture at Reading's Easter Open when he offered his winner's medal to a swimmer from guest club Sliema of Malta who seemed to have the race in his grasp before pulling up.
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Reading life member Graham Edmunds and his relay team partners Matt Walker, David Roberts and Robert Wellbourn added world championships gold to their Athens Paralympic success at the IPC world meet in Durban, South Africa.
In an unbelievable race against the best Australia has to offer, the British 4 x 100m freestyle relay quartet broke their own world record, set in Athens, stopping the clock in 3.58.28 to Australia's 3.58.64.
The Swansea-based pharmacist's next target is to help retain the Paralympic title in Beijing in 2008.