If you’re a Competition Secretary at a UK swim club, March means one thing: the spring gala season has arrived, and it won’t stop until May.

For active clubs, that’s 8 to 12 galas over three months. Entry deadlines overlap. Parents ask “is my child swimming?” five times. Coaches change their minds about squad selection. Payment tracking happens via WhatsApp screenshots. The Comp Sec at the host club emails you a Hy-Tek file you’re not quite sure how to open.

You volunteered for this role because you wanted to help. Nobody mentioned you’d become the club’s gala logistics coordinator, payment chaser, and Hy-Tek file wrangler all at once.

Here’s what I’ve learned watching our Competition Secretary at RTW Monson navigate spring season chaos — and what actually helps.

What Does a Competition Secretary Actually Do?

The role sounds straightforward: manage gala entries and results. In practice, you’re the person standing between chaos and your club actually showing up to competitions with the right swimmers, paid entries, and officials sorted.

Your job breaks down into four main areas:

Entry Management — Receive gala invites, communicate deadlines to coaches, collect swimmer confirmations, submit entries by the deadline (usually Hy-Tek Meet Manager files)
Payment Coordination — Track who owes what for entry fees, chase payments, reconcile with the Treasurer, pay the host club
Officials Coordination — Ensure your club provides the required number of qualified officials (or pay the fine)
Results Distribution — Download results files after the gala, import into your club system, check for PBs, share with parents and coaches

Simple in theory. Chaotic in practice.

Spring Gala Calendar: The Overlapping Deadlines Problem

Here’s what March looks like for an active Kent club:

Week 1: Kent County Championships entries due (200+ swimmers across multiple sessions)
Week 2: Local club open meet entries due (40 swimmers)
Week 3: Regional qualifier entries due (12 swimmers, qualification times required)
Week 4: Another club open meet (50 swimmers)

Each gala has different entry processes. Some want Hy-Tek files. Some want Excel spreadsheets. Some want Google Forms. Some want you to email swimmer details in the body of the message. Modern club management platforms simplify this — compare systems on our SwimClub Manager comparison and view pricing.

Entry fees vary wildly: £3.50 per event at a small club gala, £15 flat rate at county championships, £8 per event at a regional qualifier. Parents ask “how much?” and you’re checking three different emails to find the answer.

The real problem: Deadlines overlap with coach availability. Your lead coach is away the week entries are due. You’re supposed to submit 40 names, but only 22 families have confirmed. Do you submit what you have and add swimmers later (if the host allows)? Do you wait and risk missing the deadline?

There’s no good answer. You make a call and hope.

Entry Workflow Pain Points (And What Actually Helps)

The “Who Is Swimming?” Email Chain

You send an email to parents: “County Championships entries due Friday. Reply if your child wants to swim.”

What happens next:

15 parents reply “yes” immediately
8 parents don’t see the email for three days
5 parents reply “maybe, depends on other commitments”
2 parents reply asking questions you already answered in the original email
1 parent replies two weeks later asking why their child wasn’t entered

Meanwhile, coaches want final numbers to plan warm-up logistics. The host club wants your entry file. You’re chasing 13 families on WhatsApp while trying to remember who actually confirmed.

What helps: A central system where parents can see upcoming galas and confirm attendance themselves. When RTW Monson’s Membership Secretary set up a shared calendar with gala dates and a simple “confirm by Friday” column in a Google Sheet, response rates improved. Not perfect, but better than email archaeology.

Payment Tracking: The Spreadsheet Hell

You’ve submitted entries for 40 swimmers across 6 events each. That’s 240 individual swims at £4.50 per event. Total: £1,080.

Now you need to:

Calculate what each family owes (some swimmers doing 2 events, some doing 8)
Communicate amounts to parents
Track who’s paid
Chase the families who haven’t
Reconcile payments with your Treasurer
Pay the host club by their deadline

Most Comp Secs track this in a spreadsheet. It works until:

A parent says “I paid last week” but you have no record
Two families have the same surname and you’re not sure which £27 payment belongs to whom
Someone pays via bank transfer with the reference “SWIMMING” (helpful)
The Treasurer asks “is everyone paid?” and you spend 20 minutes cross-referencing

What helps: Linking entry confirmations directly to payment tracking. If a family confirms their child is swimming, the system should auto-generate what they owe and track payment status. Swim club management platforms (like Swimly, launching gala entry features in Q2 2026) are starting to build this, but many clubs still do it manually.

Late Withdrawals and the “My Child Is Ill” Texts

Friday night, 10pm. Gala starts tomorrow at 7am. Your phone buzzes: “Sorry, Emma’s got a cold, she won’t swim tomorrow.”

You’ve already submitted entries. Paid the host club. Printed heat sheets (if you’re organised). Now you need to inform the gala organiser, potentially re-jig officials if this affects your club’s duty count, and decide whether to chase the £18 entry fee.

Most clubs have a policy: illness is free withdrawal, “changed our mind” means you still pay. Enforcing that policy while maintaining goodwill with volunteer parents? That’s the art of the role.

What helps: Clear, written withdrawal policies published at the start of the season. “If your child withdraws after entries close, the club still pays the host. We’ll waive fees for illness (proof may be required) but not for schedule changes or preference.”

The Hy-Tek File Mystery

Every Comp Sec has received this email:

“Hi, please find attached entry file for the gala. Import into Hy-Tek Meet Manager and send back by Wednesday. Thanks!”

Attached: SpringOpen2026.zip

If you’re lucky, someone at your club already has Hy-Tek Meet Manager installed and knows how to use it. If you’re new to the role, you’re Googling “what is a Hy-Tek file” at 9pm on a Tuesday.

Hy-Tek in 30 seconds: It’s the industry-standard software for running swim competitions in the UK. Meet Manager creates entry files (.zip or .sd3 or .mdb format depending on version) that Competition Secretaries import, add their club’s entries to, and send back. After the gala, results come back the same way.

The problem: Hy-Tek costs £300+ for a license. Many clubs share a login or rely on one volunteer who has it. If that person is on holiday during entries week, you’re stuck.

What helps: Some clubs are moving away from Hy-Tek files entirely, using SportSystems or web-based entry platforms. Others maintain a shared club Hy-Tek install on a laptop that gets passed around. Neither is ideal, but it’s where we are.

Modern swim club platforms are building native gala entry workflows that export to Hy-Tek format without requiring the software. That would solve a lot of headaches.

Results Distribution: The PB Checking Marathon

Gala finishes Sunday afternoon. By Sunday evening, parents are asking “did she get a PB?”

You download the Hy-Tek results file (if the host club sends it — sometimes they don’t for days). You import it into… what? Your club’s system? A spreadsheet? A notebook?

Then you manually check each swim against the swimmer’s previous best time. For a 40-swimmer gala with 6 events each, that’s 240 individual comparisons.

What some clubs do:

Import results into Hy-Tek Team Manager (separate software, more cost)
Manually update a Google Sheet with PBs
Post results to the club Facebook group and let parents figure it out
Email a PDF of the full results file and hope parents can find their child’s times

What parents actually want: “Your child swam 1:18.34 in 100m Free. That’s 2.1 seconds faster than their previous best!”

Getting from raw Hy-Tek file to that sentence takes work. Some clubs have built custom tools. Most rely on volunteer effort and goodwill.

Tools and Tips from the Trenches

Email Templates (Copy and Adapt)

Gala Entry Request (sent 10 days before deadline):

Subject: County Championships entries due [DATE]

Hi everyone,

Kent County Championships are on [dates]. Entry deadline is [date].

Entry fee: £15 flat rate (covers all events)
Who should enter: Coaches will email recommended events. If unsure, ask your child’s coach.
How to confirm: Reply to this email by [date] with your child’s name and events.
Payment: Via Direct Debit with March subs OR bank transfer to [details]. Reference: [child name] COUNTIES.

Late entries not guaranteed. Questions? Email me.

Thanks,
[Your name], Competition Secretary

Payment Chaser (sent 3 days after deadline):

Subject: Outstanding gala entry fees

Hi [Parent Name],

We’ve entered [Child Name] for [gala name]. Entry fee is £[amount].

We haven’t received payment yet. Please pay by [date] so we can settle with the host club.

Bank details: [account info]
Reference: [Child Name] [GALA]

If you’ve already paid, apologies — please forward confirmation and I’ll update records.

Thanks,
[Your name]

The Gala Entry Checklist

Print this. Stick it somewhere visible. Tick boxes as you go.

10 Days Before Entries Close:

Email parents with gala details and entry deadline
Confirm with coaches which swimmers should enter (and in what events)
Add gala to club calendar and social media

5 Days Before Entries Close:

Send reminder email to parents who haven’t confirmed
Start tracking confirmations in spreadsheet
Calculate provisional entry fees

2 Days Before Entries Close:

Final chase for confirmations
Prepare entry file (Hy-Tek / spreadsheet / web form)
Confirm officials availability (avoid the fine)

Entry Deadline Day:

Submit entries to host club
Email parents confirming their child is entered
Send payment requests with amounts owed
Update Treasurer with total amount due

1 Week Before Gala:

Chase outstanding payments
Send gala logistics email (warm-up times, parking, volunteer roles)
Confirm officials with host club

After Gala:

Download printable checklist (PDF)

What Modern Tools Can Do (And What’s Coming)

The best clubs I’ve seen use:

Google Sheets for entry tracking (shared with coaches and Treasurer)
WhatsApp groups for last-minute comms (illness, logistics)
Email templates to save rewriting the same message every gala
Hy-Tek Team Manager if budget allows (expensive but powerful)

What’s changing: Swim club management platforms are starting to build native gala entry workflows. Instead of spreadsheets and email chains, parents see upcoming galas in an app, confirm attendance with one tap, and payments auto-link to their club account.

Swimly (full disclosure: my project) is building this for Q2 2026. Competition entry, payment tracking, and Hy-Tek file export in one system. The goal is to take “email 40 parents, chase confirmations, build a spreadsheet, export a Hy-Tek file, track payments manually” and turn it into “gala created, parents notified, confirmations tracked, file exported, payments reconciled.”

Whether it’s Swimly or another platform, the industry is slowly moving away from volunteer-hours-intensive admin. Not fast enough for spring 2026, but it’s coming.

You’re Not Alone

Every Competition Secretary in the UK is dealing with the same challenges this spring. Overlapping deadlines. Payment chaos. Hy-Tek mysteries. Late withdrawals at 10pm on a Friday.

You’re doing this as a volunteer. You’re keeping your club’s competitive swimmers active. You’re learning software you never asked to learn. You’re chasing payments from families who forgot (again).

It’s a lot. But here’s the truth: without you, none of those kids get to race. The galas don’t happen. The club doesn’t function.

So if you’re drowning in entry files and WhatsApp threads this March, know that you’re not failing. The systems are messy. The tools are outdated. The workload is real.

You’re doing brilliant work in a role that deserves better infrastructure. Spring gala season will end. And then you’ll have about six weeks before summer championships start.

Welcome to being a Competition Secretary.

Resources:

FAQs:

What does a Competition Secretary do?
A Competition Secretary manages gala entries, coordinates payments, ensures officials are provided, and distributes results. It’s a volunteer role that involves admin, communication, and Hy-Tek file management.

How do swim clubs manage gala entries?
Most clubs use a mix of email confirmations, spreadsheets for tracking, and Hy-Tek Meet Manager files for submitting entries to host clubs. Modern swim club platforms are starting to automate parts of this workflow.

What is a Hy-Tek file?
Hy-Tek files (.zip, .sd3, .mdb formats) are used by Meet Manager software to manage swim competition entries and results. Competition Secretaries import these files, add their club’s entries, and send them back to the host club.

How much do swim club gala entries cost?
Entry fees vary: £3-5 per event at small club galas, £10-15 flat rate at county championships, £8-12 per event at regional qualifiers. Always check the gala invitation for specific fees.

Can swimmers withdraw after entries close?
Policies vary by club. Most waive fees for genuine illness but charge for schedule changes or no-shows, as the club has already paid the host. Check your club’s withdrawal policy.

Drowning in gala admin? Swimly’s competition management module is built for exactly this. Combined with membership tracking and automated billing, it takes the spreadsheet chaos out of gala season. Join the Swimly waitlist for early access.

Spring Gala Season: A Competition Secretary's Survival Guide