Southwold Swimming Club

FEES

The Management Committee has taken the decision to keep the Annual Membership Fee unaltered and training fees broadly the same for next season.

The only increases in training fees for next season are as a result of rounding of amounts and the merging of payment bands to simplify administration.

The training fees for next season will be collected over 11 months (September-July) which increases the amount payable each month but does not change the total amount payable for the season.

 Frequently Asked Questions

1. Why does the group structure change every year?

We are a continuously improving Club with a constantly changing mix of developing swimmers. This requires regular review of pooltime allocations and group structures for the continued long term benefit of the Club. We have to balance the need  to support an increasing number of very able younger swimmers and a core of older, or less committed swimmers who we want to provide appropriate training for. Therefore, the Club proactively reviews its group structure each season to ensure we continue to provide the best balance across all our swimmers.

 2. Why does the pool time available keeping changing?

As with previous seasons we have kept the bulk of our pool time the same. The Club has added extra time to expand Swim Development and taken advantage of additional pool time made available to us by Yate Leisure Centre where we feel it can be of value to our swimmers. The Committee will continue to manage our pool time in the best interests of the Club overall.

 3.  Why have the fees gone up again?

The Annual Membership fees have not changed. The Annual Training fees are broadly the same but because we have moved to 11 monthly instalments from 12, the actual monthly payments have increased.

 4. Why have we moved to collecting training fees over 11 months rather than 12 months?

Most members choose to pay their training fees monthly hence we have chosen to align the number of payments we ask for to the number of months we train. One of the key benefits of this approach is it reduces any issues with respect to unpaid  training fees  when swimmers leave the Club.

 5. How can we help reduce  to fees

Roughly speaking as we have around 100 swimmers, the Club needs to raise additional funds of around £1100 to enable us to take £1 a month off fees.  The Management Committee are looking at ways to generate additional revenue including sponsorship and putting on our own Open Meet .

 6.  Why are we no longer offering land conditioning  to all the  training groups

After offering land conditioning to all training groups for the last two seasons, we have assessed the cost of providing this specialised  training against the perceived improvement in swim performance.  On balance, we have come to the conclusion that providing land conditioning for all our younger swimmers has not resulted in measurably improved swim performance but significantly increased running costs. The younger swimmers should not have yet specialised and should be doing a variety of other land based activities which should provide the necessary complimentary improvement in their overall core strength and general athletic ability. Our top swimmers have, however, chosen swimming as their main sport and hence swim specialised land conditioning, and potentially training, remains an important part of their overall swim programme. Undertaking other sport activities for this conditioning would detract from the swim training for these athletes.

7. Why have the Masters been moved  to swim at 8p.m. on Sundays.

This was a difficult decision. We have a number of Masters swimmers who have been with the Club for a number of years and who like their existing training time. However, the Committee was keen to expand Swim Development for the long term benefit of the Club. We were not happy to have our youngest swimmers swimming after 8 p.m. so the logical choice was to move the Masters.

Richard Tomlinson, Chair Southwold SC