Free water safety lessons offered

GET SWIMMING: SwimMagic manager Lisa Stove is offering free swimming lessons at Genesis Recreation Centre. PHOTO/LAUREN HERTZBERG

Masterton's Genesis Energy Recreation Centre is offering families the chance to learn water safety free this week.

The centre and SwimMagic swim school has teamed up with Masterton Trust Lands Trust to create the programme for school-aged children.

Lisa Stove, the central regional manager for SwimMagic, said the programme teaches "paramount" skills.

"We are doing boat safety, survival with life jackets, learning to paddle and flotation and rescue skills," she said.

These are taught at several stations where participants spend about 25 minutes before rotating to the next one.

Ms Stove said a focus in the two and a half hour session is on the families.

"Getting the dads and the mums into the water to learn the key skills in making the right choices," she said.

"With New Zealand being an island and being surrounded by water, we've got to have those basic skills."

With summer activities such as fishing, water skiing and jet boating all involving life jackets, Ms Stove said the education would prove useful.

"Even when you're on the rocks fishing, you never know when the next tidal wave is going to hit," she said.

"We do a 'zip it, click it, pull it' thing to make sure the jacket fits snug."

Feedback from the first session on Monday was great, Ms Stove said.

"We had a little girl who her grandfather brought in, she wasn't confident but by the end she said that she learned how to paddle."

Free, daily, 30 minute swimming lessons are also available next week from January 21-24 at the Genesis Energy Recreation Centre.

The free water safety program runs from 9am-11:30am daily, until January 17.