Who are we?

Established in 1967, New Earswick Swimming Club are proud to have served York for over 55 years! We are a small, friendly, competitive swimming club, run by a team of dedicated hardworking volunteers. As a close team we work together to deliver high quality swimming lessons and competitive coaching to children of all abilities.

Our established Learn to Swim programme accepts children from 4 years old and upwards. We teach our swimmers through 7 progressive stages, providing each with the required skills to swim all four swimming strokes to a high standard (butterfly, backstroke, breaststroke and freestyle).

In our Competitive Coaching programme, we take those swimmers who have completed Learn to Swim, and we train them to compete. Through carefully structured swimming sets, delivered in a challenging and competitive way, we support our swimmers so that they can successfully reach their individual potential. Our swimmers regularly take part in swimming galas at local, regional and national level.

Why are we crowdfunding?

We are incredibly proud of our history, and of our achievements to date. Our journey is by no means complete, and we know that we can do so much more. Our wish is to continue on our journey, giving more back into the local community, and to continue being able to grow our swimming family. We have big dreams, and lots of ideas. Your help and support is essential for us to achieve our goals, and to surpass them far into the future.

Since Covid we have faced falling numbers in our membership, increased fees for pool hire and a gap in children joining us because of the impact of Covid. The cost of living crisis continues to have a negative impact on the club. Our pool hire fees have increased across the venues that we use in York. GLL Better who operate Yearsley Swimming Pool and Energise, increased their pool hire fees by 10% (April 2023). Friends of New Earswick Swimming Pool increased their pool hire fees by 30% (January 2023). Unfortunately they have increased their pool hire fees again by an additional 20% (April 2023).

Presently, and because we understand that everyone has been affected by the cost of living crisis, we have held off increasing our club membership fees. New Earswick Swimming Club has been taking the pain, by using our bank reserves to support our Learn to Swim and Coaching schemes. Since January 2023 New Earswick Swimming Club has spent over £9,000 of its reserves.

We all want New Earswick Swimming Club to do well, and for us to continue delivering high quality swimming lessons, that are affordable and accessible to all. Simply put, we cannot continue to sustain the increasing costs. New Earswick Swimming Club is the cheapest club in York by some margin. This is made possible by the fact that the vast majority of our operation is run by volunteers, and because we want to ensure that we remain affordable to all, and family focused.

New Earswick Swimming Club is already working extremely hard to raise essential funds. We have lots of ideas, and our swimmers are committed to putting in the time and effort to help the club that they love. In April our Bake & Craft Sale Fundraiser successfully raised £746.20. This amazing achievement was down to the hard work of our swimmers, parents and the local community. Thank you all.

As a Community Sports Club this crowdfunding campaign will also be applying for match funding from the Sport England 'Active Together' fund. Should we be successful in our application, we could receive a pledge of up to 50% of our target. This will only be secured if we hit our target and do so through a minimum number of unique supporters stipulated by Sport England – so please, please support us by donating to our campaign.

We hope that all our extended swimming family, ex-swimmers and supporters and local community will be able to help us and donate towards keeping our current swimmers in the pool and provide opportunities for future athletes for years to come. 

We must succeed in this challenge. It is essential for both the local community, and for the health and mental wellbeing of our swimmers.

How we’ll spend the money raised

This fund is designed to enable New Earswick Swimming Club to continue to operate through our current period of financial hardship. It will help us achieve the following goals:

• support us with the increased pool hire costs
• establish a hardship grant for swimmers of families who are affected by the cost of living crisis
• keep fees to a minimum to ensure we are affordable and that we retain our current swimmers
• provide on-going training for our current volunteer base, including teaching assistants, teachers, coaches, team managers, swimming officials and committee members
• help subsidise coach travel to the Scarborough and District Swimming Association league galas. Unfortunately we had to stop competing in the league due to the travel costs incurred. Our swimmers will be ecstatic if we were able to resurrect this again.
• provide training for our new volunteer base, including teaching assistants, teachers, coaches, team managers, swimming officials and committee members

Community impact

Swimming is an essential life skill, and it's also a great way to keep fit. But it's so much more than this. For our members swimming is a way of life. Being part of the New Earswick Swimming Club Family is essential to our swimmers physical and mental well being.

They train regularly with their friends to maintain a high level of skill and fitness, and challenge themselves to achieve their goals and ambitions. Learning to pick yourself up and try again when you don't succeed, is something that our swimmers know well. Our swimmers are amazing. Their dedication, determination and passion for their sport is inspiring.

Swimming is proven to be one of the best forms of exercise to help a child's physical and mental wellbeing. Our swimmers learn to never give up, and keep trying to achieve their goal. They learn about teamwork, build up their confidence, improve their communication skills and build friendships.

Swimming brings with it many other valuable life skills:

• commitment
• perseverance
• dedication
• confidence and self belief
• organisation
• coordination
• volunteering (many of our swimmers give back to the club as teaching assistants, teachers and coaches)
• timekeeping

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! Please email us at [email protected] and we will organise collection of your donations.

4. Fundraise for us. If you want to run your own fundraiser – maybe a sponsored activity or similar – use the 'contact project' button at the top of our page to let us know. 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 supporting New Earswick Swimming Club