Dunstable Swimming Club - Covid Appeal

Aim

The global COVID-19 pandemic has had a devastating impact on our finances, so we are raising funds to help guarantee the future of our Club.

Who are we?

Dunstable Swimming Club is a local community swimming club that operates out of The Dunstable Centre. We also run training sessions at Houghton Regis Leisure Centre and will return to the amazing facility at St Albans School in September 2021. 

Dunstable Swimming Club aims to promote the sport of swimming by providing a training programme to help swimmers reach their full competitive potential according to their individual levels of ambition, ability and application.

The club caters for swimmers of all ages and abilities from the local area with a progressive coaching programme leading through our squad structure. Various levels of competition are catered for with training tailored to suit, from in-house galas and team league competitions, through to county, regional and ultimately national competition level.

We work with a number of Learn to Swim programmes to offer a seamless route into competitive swimming once lessons come to an end. We hold 4 in-house galas a year - our Splash Nights, which are ideal for our younger academy swimmers. This gives them their first opportunity to race against peers, have fun, and help to build the first foundations in what we hope is a lifetime in love with the sport. During our Splash Nights, our younger swimmers are allocated one of the senior swimmers as a mentor. They guide them through the process, give them hints and tips and help them enjoy their gala! This helps build the relationship between the junior swimmers and the experienced senior swimmers. We hope that through this Crowdfunding project, we can secure the future of our club and help other swimmers to achieve their dreams.

A Swimming Club without a pool

The last 4 years have been the most challenging in the history of the Dunstable Swimming Club.  It’s a credit to everyone in the club that we survived and are looking forward to many more successful years to come. 

Our journey started in April 2017 when Dunstable Leisure Centre closed for refurbishment leaving the club without a pool!   

Pool time anywhere is scarce and trying to find availability for all of the swimmers without reducing hours was a huge task.  However, through the determination of the Head Coach and committee we managed it.  The revised programme did result in swimmers and parents travelling the county and beyond several nights a week to use different pools, often late at night.

This was an extremely difficult period for the club. Swimmers were used to spending at least one session a week at the same venue, with all squads training together. However, during the refurbishment period, some squads were never in the same venue at the same time, and some squads spent almost 3 years without seeing each other - this meant that swimmers, parents, and the committee were working tirelessly to keep our swimming family together and engaged as one team. Shockingly though, despite this huge obstacle, we still successfully retained 90% of our members.  The family feel of the club meant that parents pulled together helping with car shares and generally being unbelievably supportive.

Finally back together

Eventually some good news! After several delays and false starts, the pool eventually re-opened 30 months later in November 2019; a joyful time for everyone involved in Dunstable Swimming Club.  All squads were invited to the newly refurbished pool for a fun session before the hard work and training continued. 

Covid-19 Crisis & the effect on DSC

Unfortunately, within a month of returning to Dunstable Leisure Centre, COVID-19 hit and we like all other clubs were unable to swim. This was a huge blow to the club after the high of returning to our home pool.  

As a committee we knew this would be an extremely challenging time for everyone and the committee were determined to do everything we could to keep our members focused, but more importantly still feel part of a club.  The effect on mental health for both swimmers and adults was a huge risk and something we as a club wanted to help with. We also knew that for some parents there would be added financial stress and we had to take this into consideration.

The Covid-19 pandemic presented a huge challenge to our Club and led to a significant detrimental impact on our finances. We have previously gained revenue from hosting galas each year and this income has been completely lost since March 2020, with no dates on the horizon as to when competitions will recommence. This regular income was used to support the club in paying our coaches, paying our pool hire and keeping fees as low as possible to our members.  We pride ourselves on the fact that we have had no membership fee increases in a number of years. However, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, we have lost income from galas, membership fees and the various fundraising activities that we run throughout the year. The financial reserves we had at the onset of the pandemic are now severely depleted and urgent action needs to be taken to secure the future of our club. 

Swimming is a huge part of our members lives; they spend vast amounts of time together at training, taking this away can lead to a feeling of loss and as previously mentioned affect their mental health.

Dunstable Swimming Club Virtual

The committee put a huge amount of effort into creating a fantastic virtual platform for the club. Every week the swimmers had 3 fitness classes with personal trainers and dance instructors. Even the parents joined in!  In addition to this there were weekly Q&A’s with swimmers such as Sharon Davies, Rebecca Adlington and Mark Foster as well as the East Region Talent Officer and Motivational Coaches.  We finished the week off with a virtual social which included bingo, quiz’s, catch phrase, disco’s and our very own Ascot, dress to impress! 

During the 3rd lockdown our virtual platform continued to offer a varied programme from exercise to socials, with heartfelt praise from members for helping families manage their fitness and mental health during the lockdown. Something as a club we are very proud of.

We are now back in the pool on a very reduced timetable due to the Covid-19 restrictions in place, which has resulted in a further loss of income due to the limited number of swimmers we are able to cater for in each session. 

What the funds will be used for

The closure of our home pool had a huge impact on the club financially as pool fees were more expensive.  Club reserves were used to make up the difference rather than impacting on our members who already had increased costs with increased travelling, as we expected to be able to recoup on return to our home pool, however that's when COVID hit! However this is where we need you! We cannot sustain the month on month financial losses that the Covid-19 pandemic has left the club with. Our swimmers have worked so hard to get through these difficult times, and we want the DSC family to always be there for them. 

We reduced our monthly fees during the coronavirus lockdowns to support our members, with the aim of covering our fixed costs only. However the COVID impacts to the leisure industry mean that our providers have increased our costs from April 2021 by 20%, with that and reduced pool time due to the COVID distancing rules, the club may not survive financially without additional support from the local community. We want to use Crowdfunding to help us protect our members, secure the future of our club, and continue to be an integral part of the local community.

Your generous support will allow the club to continue to support children in the local area to achieve their dreams.

THANK YOU

This project successfully funded on 20th August 2021