92 | UK Enterprise Awards 2023 Apr23357 Best ‘All-Ages’ Swim School 2023 - North East England Swim City GB is the leading Swim School in the North East of England. We proudly offer swimming lessons to people of all ages and abilities in Sunderland. No matter a person’s needs or goals when it comes to swimming, Swim City GB can provide a class for them. We find out more from Abigail Carlisle as the company wins its title in the UK Enterprise Awards 2023. We offer mother and baby classes, a child learn to swim pathway, and adult learn to swim groups. We also offer private lessons and are inclusive in our approach. Currently, we provide lessons to 800+ individuals in Sunderland across 3 venues. Our main mission for the end of 2023 is to add another venue and increase our member count to 1000+, ensuring that the population of Sunderland is both water confident and competent. We are a team of 4 managers and 18 swimming instructors, and we’re constantly growing in numbers and in our skills. To propel ourselves towards our goal, we ensure a high level of teaching which builds a brilliant reputation in our local area. Our best form of marketing is our members, who love our lessons and love to shout about us to friends and family. Swim City’s main value is to ensure all individuals are given the opportunity to learn how to swim. Our vast range of lesson types and tailored learn to swim programmes allow us to provide a service to absolutely anyone. The inclusivity of our swim school is something we place high on our priority list, and we feel that this is shown in the diversity of our members. A project we have engaged in to stay true to this value is being in partnership with a local charity, YAV (Young Asian Voices). Through this charity we are able to provide swimming lessons at low cost or free of charge to the BAME community who ordinarily may have avoided swimming lessons due to their race, culture or socio-economic status. We break these barriers down to ensure that all individuals can access the service we provide. The unfortunate news of swimming pools being shut down across the UK is having a devastating effect on swim schools and is something that, as a business, we hope to avoid. Not only is this effecting businesses and peoples livelihoods, but it is lowering the statistics of how many children can swim by the time they leave school. A big goal that we have at Swim City is to open our own pool, providing all we have to offer without the looming risk that we may get shut down. This meaning we can carry on improving people’s lives, providing them with a life skill as well as employing people from our local area. Ultimately so we can carry on improving as not only a business, but as a whole community in Sunderland. Another great barrier in the corporate landscape of the UK is the cost of living crisis. Prices of all provision is increasing; pool hire, water bills, electricity bills and equipment to name a few. This being said, it is continuously more difficult to provide our service at a low cost for the people in our target area. We elevate the landscape by providing the best service possible at the lowest cost to our members. We have the smallest teacher to child ratios in the UK for group swimming lessons, meaning that our parents pay a lower cost but receive the best service possible. This is something we are extremely passionate about. We believe our members should not struggle financially in order to receive our level of expertise, receiving a life skill in return. To ensure the smooth running of Swim City, we place a large emphasis on having a strong team. With 4 members of management, we split roles to enable us to specialise in what we do. We are constantly looking for additional qualifications and CPD to engage in so that we are ahead of the curve when it comes to any industry trends. To employ new staff, we run a swimmer to teacher pathway which allows our older child swimmers join us as members of staff when they are old enough. A major future project that we are excited to share is that we will be the owners of our very own swimming pool. This will give us a great increase in the amount of pool time and space we have access to, in turn allowing us to teach more people to swim. Not only will our member numbers increase but we will be able to provide even more services. In the future we look to teach the elderly as a form of rehabilitation, provide birthday parties, hold free swim sessions and even hire the pool out to other companies, allowing them to develop themselves also. In the next year, we see ourselves as a larger team, having over 1000 members and providing more services to our local community. We wish to do this all in line with our core values and with inclusivity in mind. Contact: Abigail Carlisle Company: Swim City GB Web Address: www.swimcitygb.co.uk
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