Alton & District Swimming Club Fundraiser

Aim: We are working hard to raise money to keep our swimming club running!

Welcome to Alton & District Swimming Club’s Crowdfunding page and thank you for taking the time to have a look!

ADSC is a community swimming club, providing competitive swimming programmes for all ages and a development programme for younger children. Our aim, to develop young swimming talent and also welcome swimmers who want to participate in the sport as part of a healthy lifestyle.

We create a community for young people (and masters!) to swim together and build strong relationships and character. The club provides a family style community for swimmers and parents to connect over a common team sport. Swimming can be the foundation of a lifetime of wellbeing and we love being able to offer that to local residents.

Who are we?

Formed in the 1960’s, we are a small, very friendly, swimming club, with approximately 130 swimmers, offering teaching and coaching to swimmers aged 4 and upwards.  Sessions take place in pools in Alton, Petersfield, Bordon, and (for the higher performance squads) Aldershot with the schedule overseen by our highly experienced Head Coach, Luke.  

Swimmers can trial for the club at any stage in their swimming journey and all sessions are delivered by qualified teachers or coaches in accordance with the Long Term Athlete Development (LTAD) model, providing optimal training, competition and recovery schedule for each stage of athletic development.

We also hold the SwimMark accreditation - Swim England’s quality standard for clubs which recognises high standards of governance, sustainability and effectiveness.

We may be small in number but we are mighty in ambition.  As well as the Academy, we have Masters, Swimfit and Competition squads.  Over the years, swimmers have seen notable success in competition.  We’ve had six swimmers represent their country in international competition over the years, one of whom, Lizzie, currently a member of the GB Downs Syndrome Swimming Squad, has also been a World Record holder.  Despite all the disruption to our training that came with Covid, including a huge amount of time without access to pools, at the end of last year, our team finished third in our Arena League competition division, we had a swimmer qualify for National Championships and in January, we have amassed 20 medals at the Hampshire County Championships, including two golds, with further National Qualification. 

Our club isn't just for young swimmers, it's a really important part of the lives of our masters. Hear more on what the club means to our masters swimmers in this short video!

The Impact of COVID-19

In common with many other similar not-for-profit organisations, Covid has been severely detrimental to the financial stability of the Club. With many changes that came our way, we are struggling to keep the club afloat without any extra funding.

Here's a summary of the challenges we've faced over the last 2 years and why we're crowdfunding:

• We were unable to access pools and didn't want to unfairly charge our members, so we couldn’t generate our normal revenue via squad fees or through fundraising activities.
• The distancing guidelines imposed on return greatly reduced the number of swimmers we could have in a lane, meaning we had to hugely increase the amount of pool we hired, and the pool provider – a business looking to make some money back for themselves, also used this opportunity to raise the cost of that hire.
• Being away from the pool for so long also meant swimmers had more time to explore other activities.  Some have decided that they prefer these activities or simply haven't returned to the club reduced our regular revenue.
• Our main pool provider withdrew access to its learner pool for us to teach lessons from because it puts us in direct competition with the lessons they provide.  No other suitable pool provision has been available so we have lost some swimming lessons.
• We’ve had to increase the pay we offer our coaches and teachers to ensure we remain attractive against a back drop of generous increases to their equivalents working for our main pool provider. 
• Increased IT costs of buying software licences to allow for remote working

How will crowd funding help us?

We are currently facing the possibility of having to close the club after April due to the factors mentioned above, as the club will run out of money. It is important to the club to ensure membership is accessible to all and therefore we want to avoid increasing membership fees.

Your donation means that we can keep the club running for our swimmers and potential new swimmers. For more on what this club means to our members, from juniors to masters to coaches, please see our videos. We appreciate your support, and if we meet our target, Sport England will provide a donation through the Return to Play: Active Together scheme. 

The Crowdfunding money will allow us to function normally, day-to-day, and give us the opportunity to regrow the squads and coaching/teaching base, run competitions, pay for pool hire to maintain our pool time, alongside some crucial administrative investment to help in maintaining our systems. We are not looking to be state-of-the-art but to be able to provide the best possible opportunity for our swimmers now and in the future.

Why help us?

We understand that times are hard for people but we hope that you will see a donation to the Club as an investment, not only in the swimming provision for the East Hampshire area, but also in the health, well-being and swimming futures of all who currently swim with us or who are contemplating it. And who knows, one of those might just be the next Adam Peaty or Ellie Simmonds.

ADSC swimmers qualified for Hampshire County Championships 2022! For such a small club to be at this level of competition, competing against the giants, in the finals and winning is awesome. 

If you've got this far.. here's a final note from our Chairperson Jenn and a couple of our brilliant swimmers on how much we adore our club! Please help us to keep running!