Help us open Birtley Community pool in September24

Who are we and what have we done so far?

Gateshead Council closed Birtley Swimming Centre on Friday 21st July 2023.  In November 2023, a new charitable incorporated organisation, Birtley Community Aquatic Centre (“BCAC”) was registered with the Charity Commission, with the objective of reopening the centre as a not-for-profit, community led pool.  

The trustee group (see photo below), comprising seven local volunteers, supported by our Board Secretary, have a range of relevant skills and experience and are working with a wider project team from the community to reopen Birtley Community Pool in September 2024.  We all share a passion for swimming, from a variety of perspectives, including teaching swimming and lifesaving, lane swimming for fitness, competitive swimming and pool maintenance and operation.

We have already engaged extensively with the local community and local businesses, who have demonstrated their support for our project through a petition signed by 936 local people and a successful Crowdfunding campaign last autumn with 423 supporters which raised £23k, including an £8k contribution from Sport England. 

We have also developed a detailed and robust business case, which has convinced Gateshead Council that the pool can be financially viable (without ongoing grant funding) once it reopens. In December 2023, Gateshead Council approved in principle to grant a 50 year operating lease to Birtley Community Aquatic Centre. The operating lease was signed by both BCAC and Gateshead Council on 31st May 2024, after which the trustees were given the keys and took on responsibility for the pool.

Why is reopening Birtley Swimming Centre important?

The benefits to the local community of the activities we will provide at Birtley Community pool are significant and wide-ranging:

• Learning to swim is a vital life skill which saves lives.
• Swimming is also a fun activity for children and something families can do together.
• It burns lots of calories, working your muscles and your cardiovascular system.
• It’s a great, low impact activity for people with disabilities, injuries, arthritis and asthma.
• It’s also a safe way for elderly people and pregnant women to exercise.
• Swimming improves your mental health, reducing stress and boosting your mood 
• Swimming is still a relatively low cost activity.

We need your support so we can open Birtley Community pool and provide the local community with these life enhancing benefits.

What activities will be available in the centre when it reopens?

We have developed a weekly pool timetable for when we reopen the pool which contains a range of activities to meet the needs of the community.  These include:

• Public swimming
• Family swimming
• Lane swimming, including single sex sessions
• Disability swimming
• Fun session for children including water slide and inflatable obstacle course
• Pool parties
• Aquafit sessions
• Learn to swim for children from 3 years up
• Parent and pre-school child lessons 
• Parent and baby classes
• Adult learn to swim and improver lessons
• School swimming lessons for local schools
• Club swimming sessions

We plan to reopen the pool seven days a week, from 0715 to 2130 on weekdays and from 0800 to 1500 on weekends. Our pricing for activities will be fair and affordable with a membership option and access to discounted prices.

Funding required to reopen the pool

We need to raise £290k of capital funding to reopen the pool, to pay for the following items:

• Replacing the boilers and storage tank, which are at the end of their life, inefficient and require regular repairs.
• Repairing and refurbishing the existing water slide which is not currently serviceable.
• Resurfacing the middle section of the car park which is in very poor condition.
• Installing roller shutters on all entry points and mesh grills on all windows. 
• Buying new equipment for pool activities and for health and safety.
• Buying new signage, IT equipment and furniture.

We also need £93k for non-capital costs that we will incur during the two months prior to reopening including:

• Employment, maintenance and energy costs before the pool re-opens
• Recruiting and training staff and publicising the pool before re-opening
• Consultancy costs for legal advice, health & safety compliance and fundraising.

Funding achieved to date and fundraising plan

We have raised £36k from the following sources:

• Our Crowdfunding campaign last Autumn, which raised £23.5k thanks to the generous support of the Birtley Community and local businesses
• Three fundraising social events which raised £3.5k
• Donations from five local organisations totalling £3k
• Donations from local councillors and supporters totalling £6k.

We have also recently secured £272k of funding from the Government’s National Community Ownership Fund, which will pay for £222k of the above capital funding and £50k of the costs we will incur during the two months prior to reopening the pool.

The Community Ownership fund requires BCAC to provide £56k of match funding for the £222k of capital funding that they have awarded.  We have committed to raising this amount from local funding sources, which includes the £36k that we have already raised.  We are therefore launching a new Crowdfunding campaign, to raise the remaining £20k required for the match funding, which is necessary to secure the Community Ownership funding.

If the Crowdfunding is successful, we still need to raise another £55k to reopen the pool.  We are in advanced discussions with other national funding organisations which will secure this remaining amount over the next month.

Crowdfunding target

We are aiming to raise a minimum of £20,000 from the Birtley Community Aquatic Centre Crowdfunding campaign this summer.   We will receive £10,000 of the Crowdfunding target from from Sport England, more than the £8000 we received for the previous Crowdfunding campaign, so the minimum amount we need to raise from the local community would be £10,000.  That might sound a lot, but it actually represents less than £1 per person from the 18,000 people who live in the Birtley area.  

The biggest expenditure item required to reopen the pool is the replacement of the boilers, which will cost £181,000.  The Community Ownership Fund will contribute 80% towards this cost, and the Sport England contribution will pay for part of the remaining 20% of the boiler cost, which needs to be funded from alternative sources. 

We have set our overall Crowdfunding target at £24,000 but we need to raise at least £20,000 to obtain the funding from Sport England.

Making a donation

You can make a donation to the fund at the top of the Crowdfunding page by selecting the amount you want to donate and clicking on the donate button. 

Buying a reward

You can also purchase one or more of the rewards that are shown on the right-hand side of the page. 

What is a reward?

Crowdfunding rewards are things that have been donated by supporters or local businesses which other people can purchase on the Crowdfunding page at a discounted price.

• Many of our supporters have donated items that someone else may wish to buy.
• Many local businesses have donated goods or services which they normally sell.
• Some supporters have also offered up their time or premises for free as rewards.

If you would like to buy a reward, please click on the relevant “select reward” button at the top of this Crowdfunding web page. 

Adding gift aid on your donation or reward purchase

If you are a UK tax payer, BCAC can claim back gift aid on the cost of your donation as it has charitable status. This will enable BCAC to claim gift aid from HMRC, who will then add a further 25% to the amount of your donation.  Gift aid cannot be claimed on reward purchases. To enable BCAC to claim back gift aid on your donation, please click on the gift aid button when you make your donation.

Obtaining your rewards once purchased

Physical rewards will be available for collection from the foyer at Birtley Methodist church hall on Saturdays between 0900 and 1200 during the Crowdfunding campaign and for two weeks after the campaign closes. The entrance to the foyer is on Station Lane, Birtley, DH3 1DG

People who have purchased these rewards, should come to this location between 0900 and 1200 on one of these days and bring with them either a printed copy of the email they received from Crowdfunder or be able to show the email on their phone.  The reward item will then be obtained from the storage room by one of the Crowdfunding team and given to the purchaser.

Spreading the word

To help us reach our stretch target of £24,000, please share our Crowdfunding page with your family and friends using your social media applications or other mechanisms and encourage them to support us.  The link to our Crowdfunding page is as follows:

https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/help-us-open-birtley-community-pool-in-september24

How else can you help us to reopen the pool?

We have set up a Friends of Group for Birtley Community Pool which will manage the work done by people who have volunteered to help us during the project to reopen the pool, and afterwards once the pool has reopened.

We have identified four types of volunteer role:

• Income generation and fundraising volunteer, who can help with future fundraising activities. These include this Crowdfunding campaign, more social events like the race night and music night we held at St Joseph’s Catholic club and the coffee morning we held at Kibblesworth, as well as other income generating activities.
• Project volunteer, for sub projects that we run which need specific skillsets.  Examples of future projects that we are developing are a photo history archive, an art mural for some of the poolside walls and pre-opening work such as cleaning and decorating.
• Administration and Reception volunteer, who is able to commit to some half day shifts on the pool reception at weekends once the pool is open, as part of a volunteer rota.
• Practical tasks volunteer, for people with a specific skillset who can to undertake a regular activity once the pool has reopened which will help us maintain the centre.  The most obvious example of this is someone who would cut the strip of grass immediately outside the pool perimeter during the summer months.

If you are interested in finding out more about these volunteer activities, or would like to volunteer for one or more of the volunteer roles, please get in touch either by coming to one of our drop in sessions at Birtley Library on the second Saturday morning of each month, or by emailing us at [email protected].