Open Water Swimming

At the recent Swim England Open Water Safety meeting, details were given of the following two free apps which can be downloaded to help with the running of events.  Some of you may already be aware of them.

1.   Met Office App – this will give you 12 – 24 hours warning of poor weather etc.  You may also be able to access flood warnings if you contact the Met Office.

2.   ZELLO – As long as everyone has this app you can contact each other by phone rather than using radios which at times can be unreliable if there are obstructions, e.g. hills.  It does need 3G to work, but it is an alternative if the radios are not working.

Both of these are used by Surf Lifesaving GB

Helen Akers

Swimming Officials Coordinator

Dear Counties

I hope you are all well.

I am writing to make you aware of an important development concerning the registration of Open Water clubs.

All clubs that run Open Water as a discipline or as a stand-alone Open Water club need to ensure that this is reflected in their current constitution and that they are registered with Swim England as an Open Water club/having an Open Water section. Please see advice from Sharon Lock (National Development Officer for Masters and Open Water) re: this process.

1. Any club who has organised open water swimming activities should have a constitution that specifies it is doing open water swimming OR, uses the term aquatics (which covers Open Water swimming) in their constitution.

2. For those clubs that have got Open Water activities they should have ticked Open Water on their membership renewal submission – if they haven’t they will not show on the Integra list of Open Water clubs.

Therefore you need to:

A. Check the clubs constitution and ask them to amend if necessary

B. Inform Martyn Hudson from the Swim England Membership Team that the club has Open Water activities – he will then adjust the clubs record accordingly. Martyn can be contacted on Martyn.Hudson@swimming.org or by phone on 01509 640740.

I would like your help to ensure clubs are aware of this please.

Can you (or the relevant person on your county committee) please check the regional list of Open Water clubs attached and let me now if there are any Open Water clubs who are missing from your county?
Can you email all your clubs to let them know about the need to register their Open Water activity with Swim England and include this in their constitution?
Can you make the person who leads on checking constitutions in your county aware so that they need to ensure the relevant checks and inclusions are made?

I hope that all make sense.

Thanks very much.

Stephanie Gadd

Club Development Officer

E stephanie.gadd@swimming.org