Stone and District share experiences of ‘extremely helpful’ Club Health Tracker

Stone and District Swimming Club have shared their positive experiences of completing Swim England’s Club Health Tracker.

The tracker, developed alongside Sporting Insights, is available for all aquatics clubs and supports them with six areas of club development.

Clubs take part in a self-assessment survey which, once completed, provides them with an interactive results section comparing their scores to an average from other clubs up and down the country.

Coaching and teaching, financial management, pool operator relationships, governance and standards, growth, and volunteers are all assessed as part of the tracker with support then available from the national governing bodies club development team.

Almost 200 clubs have already completed the tracker that closes for applications for it’s second year on Sunday 25th February. All clubs should have been emailed their login details for the system that you can access here.

One of those clubs that has benefitted from the use of the tracker is the volunteer led Stone and District Swimming Club.

Despite being happy with the way the club is run overall, they took the opportunity to complete the tracker to understand where they stood and how they could improve.

‘An easy process’

Stone and District were pleased with their results but discussed with Swim England that they wanted to create a closer relationship with Freedom Leisure to support the clubs future.

Ian Hall, Stone and District Swimming Club Chair explained: “As a club we wanted to understand what our strengths and weakness were from the perspective of Swim England and to see where we might fit with what other clubs might be doing in the local area.

“Whilst we were extremely pleased with how the club came out as a whole, we knew we needed to review the lack of contract with our primary pool provider.

“After completion of the tracker, Swim England got in touch and their approach was extremely helpful, with them offering a series of potential options.

“As we decided to go forward with requesting a formal agreement with Freedom Leisure, we were surprised at how easy this process became. Swim England took control of the process, negotiated on our behalf, although the final decision making was always ours. As an exclusively volunteer club, it was nice that Swim England took the lead.

“The outcomes are extremely positive, giving the club peace of mind that the agreement gave us along with several benefits, included in the agreement that we were not expecting.”

The new agreement has grown the confidence within the club as they feel more at ease knowing that they can work closer with their pool provider.

You can find out more about the Club Health Tracker here and if you have any questions or want to share your story of using the platform, please email [email protected].

Sporting Insights are working with other sports to offer the Club Health Tracker to more grassroots sports clubs. If you would like to find out more please contact [email protected].