WaterShapes World Blog
A couple blogs back, I wrote about the National Swimming Pool Foundation’s Step Into Swim program (see “A Campaign Apart,” 10 October 2012). Since then, I’ve been following the program’s progress, digging into its background and getting more and more convinced of its significance. I’ve been around the industry long enough to know that
As I was putting the finishing touches on my plans for New Orleans and the International Pool|Spa|Patio Expo, one of the people I was trying to set up a breakfast with asked me how many of these shows I’d attended through the years. “Hundreds,” I said, without giving it much thought. Attending shows is, after all, one of the main duties associated
For several years now, one of the people in the watershaping realm who has impressed me most is Tom Lachocki. He’s the guiding spirit behind the research programs at the National Swimming Pool Foundation, a mover and shaker with the annual World Aquatic Health Conferences, the ambassador for
Back in 1999, when WaterShapes magazine was just starting, we engaged in lots of discussions about our need for good-quality photography to illustrate the points we wanted to make about superior construction and the minute details involved in
Earlier this year, I devoted a good bit of energy to covering two educational groups and their pursuit of excellence in the classroom. I am happy to report that both Artistic Resources & Training (ART) and Genesis have been far from idle since I last wrote about them. For its part, ART has organized a second program that builds on the first and expands it gloriously. They’re bringing back
In my lengthy publishing career, I’ve experienced a whole pile of rollouts and launches – more than a dozen new magazines, almost as many books and a few Web sites. Truth be told, none of them were ever as long in the making or as painstaking in the details as the one that occurred a few days ago, when the new WaterShapes.com took flight. We started working on this remastering project
As I’ve mentioned previously in this space, I spend a fair amount of time every day searching the Web for items to include in the Around the Internet and Aquatic Health, Fitness & Safety sections of watershapes.com. I only began this exercise last fall – well out of the swimming season, so it’s just in recent weeks that I’ve started completing the cycle and getting a sense of the annual rhythm of these stories. One distressing observation: As the summer wears on, the number of news reports about drownings and near-drownings is simply
Just a month ago, I wrote in this space about the generosity of a group of watershapers and landscape designers who planted a park in a Rochester, N.Y., neighborhood that definitely needed a boost. Ever since, it seems, I have kept running into reports of genuine, aquatically related community spirit. In many cases, for example, threatened closures of public swimming pools have been
Just a month ago, I wrote in this space about the generosity of a group of watershapers and landscape designers who planted a park in a Rochester, N.Y., neighborhood that definitely needed a boost. Ever since, it seems, I have kept running into reports of genuine, aquatically related community spirit. In many cases, for example, threatened closures of public swimming pools have been averted through donations by individuals and businesses in their communities. Local governments, strapped for the cash to pay for anything other than essential services, have seemed all too willing to save money by closing down pools (or shutting off fountains or idling interactive waterfeatures), thereby making
