Help Save City of Milton Keynes Swim Club

Aim

COVID-19 has created an uncertain future for our club - our very survival is in doubt. Can you help us to continue supporting our swimmers?

Our story is best told by the some of the swimmers we support. After watching our film, please read on...

Who are we?

CMK is the leading swimming club in North Buckinghamshire. We're a not-for-profit organisation and help children and young adults of all ages develop this amazing life skill, straight from learn to swim up to elite level (with many happy competitive club swimmers in between!)

The club is entirely run by volunteers, but we employ a small team of expert coaches to ensure our swimming kids get the best and safest training they can.

Small and perfectly formed!

Despite being the leading club in our area we only have 300 swimmers, which is small by the standards of a lot of city-based clubs. So it makes it all the more impressive that we're one of the most successful clubs in the country. 

Our talented kids have improved their performance levels year-on-year and are now rocking all meets and competitions they enter. 

We're proud to have nurtured record numbers of qualifiers at county, regional and national championship level, as well as a small number who have competed internationally - plus our most famous current member, Joss Ulyett, has reached superstar status by competing in both the World Championships and Commonwealth Games, becoming multiple British record holder,  and in October and November is swimming in the International Swimming League for Toronto Titans in Budapest!

Amazingly for such a small club we were 'Most Improved Club' at the 2019 British Summer Championships in Glasgow, have qualified twice in the last three years for the National Arena League national finals in Cardiff, and have several swimmers on all stages of the GB talent-pathway programmes.

Recent club achievements just prior to lockdown:

• 65 swimmers qualified for the 2020 Oxon and North Bucks County Champs
• 16 swimmers competed at 2019 Winter Regional Champs (18 medals won!)
• Stormed the 2019 British Summer Championships (4 medals won, 2x county junior records and 9 club records broken)
• 2 swimmers selected for international duty representing the South East Region.

But it's not just about success. Many of our members swim to keep fit and healthy, for the social aspects of being part of a club, or simply because they enjoy their swimming.

Why we are asking for your support

With all this success you may ask why we need help. 

Safely supporting 300 swimming kids doesn't come cheap. We get no large grants of funding from the national bodies, so we have to be self-funding. Our running cost are partly paid for by monthly fees from our members, but also from us hosting our own open competitions which bring in other swimmers (and their entry fees) from outside the club.   

But, as you'd expect, the Covid-19 pandemic has severely affected us financially:

• Being prevented from running the vital income-generating competitions that balance our books has left a £20,000 hole in our finances
• During the first lockdown we were unable to train and that meant we couldn't charge our regular fees, but many of our fixed costs continued
• We’re now entering the second lockdown and our training pools will be closed for all of November - so history will repeat itself 
• When we could train in between the first and second lockdowns, to keep our swimmers safe and comply with Swim England guidance, we limited the number who could be in the pool at any one time. This meant the pool time we had generated less income per swimmer
• Some of our pool suppliers have put their fees up

We're now in the position that despite putting our member fees up significantly, cutting our costs and through several heroic fundraisers, we're still making a loss each and every month. 

Our small reserves are draining away and we can't carry on like this for much longer. 

Sadly, all the signs are that life isn't expected to return to normal until Summer 2021 at the earliest. So, until we can get back to training and run income-generating competitions that get us back to the position of being able to cover our costs again, our financial position will continue to get worse. 

Our viability and very survival are at risk. 

At the current rate, it's likely the city of Milton Keynes won't have a performance swimming club by next Summer, unless something major changes :-(

No swimming club in Milton Keynes would be a tragedy for the children and for the city itself.

What your support will mean for our swim kids

The sad fact is that our brilliant and safe sport is needed more than ever. It’s an escape from the stresses of the pandemic - school and home-life are tough, yet swimming supports mental health and wellbeing, and of course you won’t find a fitter and healthier group of kids!  

Whilst we're a sports club, we are so much more to the swimmers and their families - and indeed to the local community. We are a swim family!

Please consider giving what you can

We're running our own fundraising events but these won't be enough to fill our income gap, so anything you can contribute will help ensure we can continue supporting the swim kids. 

We should be able to secure matched funding from Sport England, so anything donated unlocks support from the Government!

And as a 'thank you' from our swimmers, anything you give will qualify you for the small rewards on this page.

The CMK swimming family thanks you for reading, and hopefully supporting us.

This project successfully funded on 5th January 2021