Sport Development team eager to continue to support clubs in 2025

Swim England’s Sport Development team ran more than 150 courses across the country in 2024 and are working hard to help clubs grow and thrive in the future.

The national governing bodies courses have helped to bring more than 1,500 new volunteers into aquatics in various roles throughout the past 12 months, bolstering the nation’s aquatics workforce.

In swimming, 1,010 volunteers completed their judge 1 qualification with a further 44 and 35 undergoing the respective qualifications in diving and artistic swimming.

As for water polo, seven courses saw a total of 95 volunteers qualify in either referee or table official roles, which has helped to strengthen the sports infrastructure and help provide the best possible experience for athletes.

The development of technical officials in swimming will be a key focus for 2025 as the team work towards an improved member journey. Work has already started on understanding the current journey with the introduction of the centralised judge 2 registration process, as well as looking at areas for improvement.

Going forward, the team have also just launched their first free online learning resources to provide interested volunteers with an insight into artistic swimming, diving and water polo officiating.

The resource, which takes 60-90 minutes to complete, gives people a basic idea of what is involved before going on to complete their judge/officials course. Resources for artistic swimming and diving judging are already available, with a version for water polo scheduled for release later in the year.

Welfare, support structures and increasing participation

In the run-up to the Paris 2024 Olympics and Paralympics last year, Swim England’s Inspired to Try campaign saw 34 clubs deliver numerous taster sessions throughout the summer.

That helped to welcome 164 new members across the nation from the 535 participants that signed up to try aquatic sports for the very first time. And following feedback from clubs a new Inspired to Try toolkit has been set up for clubs to use whenever they need it.

Additionally, Swim England’s Club Links programme is available to help bridge the gap between learn to swim programmes and clubs.

Almost 400 people took part last year with an average of 9.61 new club members for each of the 13 programmes delivered. 85 per cent of those involved agreed it improved local pathways, and 92 per cent said they planned to continue with the programme.

The team have also been focusing on welfare and support structures, following the updates to the Wavepower at the beginning of 2024. The Time to Listen for welfare officers course saw 404 volunteers recruited whilst 2,689 new team managers were trained throughout the year.

Launching the Foundations of Safeguarding for both adults and young people, another free resource, giving those across the community the opportunity to gain a better understanding of safeguarding, welfare and best practice.

The team have also focused on helping clubs develop better working relationships with their pool operators and helped 62 clubs nationally with a range of priorities including pool access, hire charges, aquatic pathways and service level agreements.

More than 250 clubs completed the Club Health Tracker a slight increase from 2023. The Club Health tracker is a self-assessment tool to support clubs with their development in six core areas throughout the year.

Each of these clubs was contacted personally with an offer of further support based on their responses and the tracker will be back again in 2025 to support more clubs.

Financial sustainability

Financial sustainability is a topic that Swim England have been keen to support clubs with on a regular basis.

The quarterly National Finance Forum sessions have been attended by more than 100 club representatives, focusing on topics such as budgeting, payment processing, tax affairs and fundraising to help equip clubs with the tools they need to operate more effectively.

In addition, the six National Chairs forum events brought together 480 individuals to speak with the team on a regular basis. These workshops are aimed at giving volunteers practical support such as the Membership and Secretary workshops, Chairperson’s workshop and the Welfare Officer workshop.

“It’s been another busy but successful year for the sport development team,” said Swim England’s Head of Development, Claire Coleman.

“It’s hugely important to us to support our clubs and volunteers in the best possible way and we want clubs to know that we’re here to help.

“We’ve been working hard with our regional partners to provide them with the support they need, putting on courses to help boost their workforce and reduce the burden on some volunteers.

“By running forums and webinars we hope that the people in those clubs feel like they can speak to our team whenever they need our support.

“As always, we would encourage clubs to get in touch if there’s anything they think we can help with.”

If you want to find out more about any of the courses mentioned and how they can help your club, please email [email protected].