Haslemere SC - Racing Blocks Campaign

Aim

We are working together as a club to purchase eight essential diving blocks for our hard working and talented swimmers.

Who are we?

Haslemere Swimming Club is a successful, inclusive club that has been part of the local community for over 50 years.  With swimmers from 3 years old to over 70 years old swimming every week, we pride ourselves on having a place for everyone.  We run a  thriving Academy teaching over 122 swimmers, an excellence based competitive structure as well as an active masters programme. 

The club welcomes a fantastic community of enthusiastic and motivated children, teenagers and adults from across three counties.  All our swimmers work exceptionally hard to be the best they can whatever their aspirations and are coached by an enthusiastic, motivated team who strive to help everybody reach their full potential.

 In our first fundraising endeavour, we are looking for your support to purchase essential, up to date, equipment to give those who aspire to be the very best they can, the very best chance of succeeding.

Community impact 

Updating the diving blocks will be an investment in the future of a thriving swimming club with members across three counties, supporting our continued competitive potential.

HSC swimmers are a fantastic group with amazing determination and mental stamina, they learn to reap the rewards of hard work, self motivation and daring to dream. As a community they have great team spirit and develop strong supportive relationships with their peers and a wide community of friends. 

With new, safe diving blocks we will be able to support the wider community including our own academy swimmers, external clubs looking to compete in the area and local schools.

Why are we crowdfunding?

Diving blocks are a fundamental part of training competitive swimmers and are crucial to children at all levels of the developmental pathway. Our diving blocks have become worn and slippery over the years and are not in line with optimal standards for competitive swimming.

New diving blocks will be invaluable to our younger swimmers. They will have the opportunity to train on competitive blocks with back plates allowing them to become more confident in their own competitive ability.  New blocks will keep swimmers safer, enabling them to focus on improving their dive technique and subsequently their racing times.

Our competitive swimmers train to race, but galas can be a daunting experience for young competitors. We want the experience to be as rewarding as possible and confidence is the key.  Training on relevant equipment  will give all our athletes a genuine psychological and practical boost.

This year we have five swimmers competing in National events and the opportunity to fine tune their diving skills, on the proper equipment, in their home pool, would be immensely valuable.

Open Meets are a vital part of any club's revenue. It is crucial to Haslemere to attract other swimming clubs to these events and running successful competitive galas means offering swimmers the best chance to race well. Up to date, optimally safe equipment is imperative to running successful galas is central to the continued sustainability of our club.

Unfortunately, like so many other clubs, the pandemic hit HSC hard.  We held regular zoom land based workouts, kept our swimmers engaged with quizzes and Q&A sessions but, with the pool closed, lost out on valuable revenue whilst supporting our coaches and teachers.  

When we returned to the pool, our Swimming Academy and squads ran at reduced, socially distanced numbers and we were unable to hold any galas.  Pool hire costs have increased and are likely to continue to rise. 

Taking everything into consideration we know purchasing new blocks will depend on our efforts and the support of our wider community.  

 How we’ll spend the money raised

With your donations we want to purchase the eight new s-line diving blocks as soon as we have the funds.  We want these blocks to support all our swimmers immediate and ongoing development.  The new diving blocks will offer up to date, safe, competitive facilities for our academy, competitive and masters swimmers. 

We hope that through this fundraising campaign we can spread awareness of our wonderful community based club and actively encourage new members of all ages, abilities and aspirations. 

We want Haslemere Swimming Club to be part of this community for another 50 years.  

How you can play your part

 There are four simple ways to help us reach our target, and make this project a reality.

 1. Make a pledge. Don’t delay if you’re going to support us because momentum is key to our success!

 2. Spread the word. Share our project on your social media pages and tell the world to get behind us! The more people we reach, the more support we will get.

 3. Offer rewards. Get involved if you are a local business by donating things we can offer to our supporters. We will give you a shout out!

 4. Create a fundraiser of your own. Use the button on our page to get started. Setting up your own page only takes a few minutes and you won’t need any bank details. Just a fun idea!

Thank you for all the incredible support so far

This project successfully funded on 22nd July 2022