In light of the current situation that our country finds itself in, specifically with the recent closure of leisure facilities and club programmes, the Club Development team are working extremely hard to produce an FAQ document to support our clubs in this unprecedented and challenging time.
The Swim England Talent team have also started to look at how we can provide support and guidance around coaching athletes remotely for the foreseeable future. We want to ensure that every swimmer has the chance to continue to stay fit and healthy and we encourage you to use this time to perhaps address some of the areas of the Optimal Athlete Development framework that can be developed away from the water.
Our online support package will be rolled out daily from Monday 23rd March and we will be using all of our social media platforms, the Swim England website and don’t forget British Swimming already have a fantastic online learning platform, OfftheBlocks that everyone can sign up to by visiting www.offtheblocks.info.
It has been fantastic to see so many clubs and coaches already starting to look at ways to support their athletes and parents remotely and we would particularly like to thank those who have shared these resources for the rest of the swimming community to use!
However, in order for this support to continue we need to be doing everything we can to ensure that our coaches stay in their roles and are tasked to implement different support mechanisms.
Now more than ever, our clubs need to be making effective use of their club databases/ management systems (Team Unify/ Team App/ Swim Club Manager) and their social media platforms (Facebook, Instagram/ Twitter) to be able to communicate effectively. We can also continue to hold meetings and webinars through online systems such as Skype and Zoom. For example, with Zoom free Basic service, you can get access to unlimited meetings, with unlimited minutes for one-to-one meetings and you can have a group of between 3 and 100 video participants that can last up to 40 minutes!
The coaching of our swimmers and support to the wider team does not need to stop, it will just look different! This situation will be a real challenge to our resilience as a swimming community but with togetherness, collaboration, inventiveness and support for each other we can make sure that this adversity becomes an opportunity for improvement.
Our team is here to support you and here are our key contacts:
Sophie Bucknall – Swim England Talent Administrator
Grant Robins – Head of Talent
Lindsay Trimmings – Coach Development Manager
Diane Elliot – Sport Science and Medicine Manager
Mike Parker – National Talent Officer (South East, South West, London and East regions)
Richard Blackshaw – National Talent Officer (North East, North West, East Midlands and West Midlands regions)