Barbarian Swimmers Trustees Report 2024 Charity No. 1117320
Trustees
Keeley Wolfe Rachel Russell Linda Barnes Laura Turner Lee Cornelius
Committee
Chair: Keeley wolfe Vice chair: Kim Evans Training Officer: Lee Cornelius and Kim Evans Membership Secretary: Linda Barnes Student officer: Sue Leigh Treasurer: Rachel Russell
Assistant Treasurer- Keeley Wolfe Minutes: Kim Evans
DBS: Abbey Aslett
Child Protection: Anna Francis and Keeley Wolfe
IT: Heather Russell
Fundraising: All – Holly Burdett doing forms with help
Rotas: Holly Burdett Health and Safety: Anna Francis Newsletter: Kim Evans and Lorna Stacey
STA Membership: Abbey Asslett
Objectives and Activities
. The Objectives of the Club are:-
The promotion of community participation in healthy recreation in particular by the provision of facilitation for swimming lessons in East Sussex.
The Activities of the Club are:-
The preservation of human life by teaching and practice of Swimming, Diving, Water Safety, Life Saving, Resuscitation
and/or Survival in the water.
This also includes the Club’s OPEN ACCESS Policy which is as shown below:-
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(1) That the Membership is open to all.
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(2) That the cost of Membership does not exclude the less well off.
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(3) That participation in the Club is not dependent on ability.
(4) That income is not expended on social activities (except for where such activities are to raise funds).
Achievements and Performance
2024 saw some training activities but not as much as we had hoped due to the availability of some of the Trainer Assessors. We saw some of our Club members successfully undertake the STA Award in Teaching Swimming (Green Shirt). We also had a range of lifesaving courses, for some it was their first and for other it was renewing their qualifications and skills – Well done to everyone!
Already in 2025, we have a couple of our Swimming Teachers working towards the STA Certificate in Teaching Swimming (Red Shirt)
qualification. We have members who will be looking to complete the STA Award in Teaching Swimming (Green Shirt) and as always there will be lifesaving courses as well.
Our quarterly Ongoing Lifesaving Training for Teachers will be re-starting from September 2025 – More information to follow shortly.
This year we had a group of Club Members who attended the STA’s National Conference. It was a great day where we had the opportunities to see new initiatives and network with other, similar, organisations. Training continues to be a costly exercise for the Club to provide the training for our Teachers but as we can see from a Friday evening our
volunteer Swimming Teachers continue to provide an excellent service which makes all the investment worthwhile. If anybody know of any fundraising opportunities or grants available then the Committee will be interested.
3 committee members attended the STA conference in October 2024
Financial Report Income 2024:27869.90 Expenditure: 27648.95
During the year of 2024 the club made a small profit of just over £200. It is important to remember that as a charity we need to cover our costs not to make profits. However; having said that, it is important that we make enough profit each year to hold enough in reserve to cover increases in expenses easily.
While we took more in admission fees over this year and considerably more in new members (although this has been recorded more effectively this year). This increase has only just covered the increases in pool hire we encountered. It is important to recognise the still reduced numbers of swimmers we have in the club the higher swimming levels (red group and up). This is still a knock on effect from the gaps formed during Covid and will take another few years to correct this completely. This makes it even more important to ensure that new members are brought into the club regularly and at the lower end and we fill all our possible spaces in this area.
Freedom Leisure have stated that there will be no increase in pool hire fees this year but we need to start planning for a possible increase next year, while continuing to uphold the clubs ethos of keeping lessons at a low cost.
We were extremely lucky during 2024 to receive the money from a grant from Sports England. All the money had to be spent within a certain time frame which was achieved and some training money is kindly held in trust with LAC training for courses for the future. This is also an indicator of why the equipment expenses are so high this year. We were able to purchase some new lifesaving training equipment, ropes and a replacement crate as the old one broke.
There has also been an increase in teachers claiming their STA membership expenses back after the drive at the AGM last year which is positive as we don’t want teachers to incur expenses for volunteering. Please can we minute a thank you to Rebekah Crisp for auditing the accounts for us this year for free. Please can I prepose that we ask Rebekah to do this again for 2025 if she is agreeable.
I would also like to thank Keeley Wolfe for her support in recording and monitoring the fees each month.
Independent Examiner of Finance Rebekah Crisp Accounts submitted separately
This report was proposed by Keeley Wolfe and Seconded Rachel Russell all where in agreement at committee meeting 21[st] October 2025.