Contact Us

By email at admin@dsw.org.nz or through our Facebook group

A little history….

The club was originally started in 2008 under the name Wellington Gay Swimmers.  The club began with the express intention of creating a safe, welcoming and competitive space for LGBTI swimmers.  The name was changed to Different Strokes Wellington (DSW) in 2010 to be more inclusive of swimmers of all genders and identities.

We competed first together as a club at the World Outgames in Copehagen in 2009, with 5 swimmers. Following that, the Club became much more formalised in preparation for the 2011 Wellington Outgames, writing a constitution and electing officers.

We’ve benefitted enormously from our highly experienced, friendly and encouraging coaches.   Our first coach was Brett Newell (2011-2012), followed by Paige Crimmin (2012-2014), Casey Glover (2015), Gareth Kean (2015-2018), Tim Fraser (2018-2021), Andre Kudaba (2021-2023) and currently we’re coached by Chris Paproski (2023-).

We have a friendly rivalry with the Auckland LGBTI swimmers: TAMS.   Since 2012 we’ve run a small swim meet alternating between Wellington and Auckland – see this page for more information about that.   In 2016 this meet was incoporated into the Proud 2 Play Event in Auckland.   We also keep in touch with the Australian clubs, and were very pleased to welcome a contingent from the Melbourne Glamourhead Sharks at our annual meet in 2015.  (We don’t mind that they won nearly every race…)

We’ve had DSW swimmers represent us at the World Outgames in Copenhagen (2009), Antwerpen (2013), at the Asia-Pacific Outgames in Wellington (2011), Darwin (2014), at the Gay Games in Paris (2018) and the IGLA Meet in Melbourne (202).

We organise occasional social events too!

Club Organisation

Different Strokes Wellington Swim Club Incorporated is a registered incorporated society. (Registered 6 December 2024, 50223562; NZBN: 9429052514180.)

We have a committee, chaired by the Captain, and including a Treasurer and two or three general committee members.

Towards the end of each year we have an Annual General Meeting for the whole club, and the committee meets through the year.

The Constitution and Rules of the club are attached here.

Our Health and Safety Rules and Procedures are here.

Club Registration

DSW is registered with NZ Masters Swimming and with Swimming New Zealand. We are also registered with International Gay and Lesbian Aquatics (IGLA) who hold an annual swim meet, which includes the four yearly Gay Games swim meet.

Our NZ Masters registration code is “DS4“, which should be used by swimmers registering at national and international Masters events (including IGLA events and the Gay Games).  

An additional personal membership fee is payable to NZ Masters to cover the year when any individual is entering such events.