Dunstable Swimming Club realised very early on in the Corona Virus Pandemic that they needed to remained engaged with their swimmers and their families, and began providing a virtual platform providing three key areas of focus:

1. A fitness related programme to ensure our young athletes remain fit to return to the pool once safe to do so,
2. An educational platform where they invite key speakers for Q&A Sessions
3. A fun platform for social events for all the family to enjoy

DSC Virtual Activities Schedule was launched on the 1st April, just under two weeks after their swimming pool had to close. They decided to run classes during the week and social events every weekend via ZOOM with presentations from the head coach on a Sunday morning. With the ultimate aim to improve the mental health and wellbeing of their members and to bring experts into people's living room. They promote each session and the weekly timetable via Facebook and Twitter so that all their members are aware of any updates and changes to the weekly schedule.

In order to keep the line-up and topics each week fresh and new, the club enlist several local businesses in the leisure sector to deliver their land classes such as Dunstable based company AGYoga. Flexibility is a key component of swimming and a perfect example of how a club can adapt its training programme during lockdown.

They have also enlisted the help of Coaches. Mentors and elite swimmers to help deliver the content including Q&A essions with

• Mindset coach to premiership footballers Drewe Broughton
• Swim England Pathway Development Manager Kevin Pickard
• Olympic Swimmers
  • James Guy
  • Rebecca Adlington
  • Mark Foster

Reviewing the content and finding new ways to communicate with their members is very important to the club, Tim explained, "We are continuously monitoring attendance and also getting feedback from our members. We had great feedback from our Yoga session so have now made that a weekly occurrence. We will continue to monitor feedback to drive what continues on the platform. We are also looking at adding in some weekly competitions for the kids to take part in."

Amazingly the club haven't incurred lots of additional costs for their virtual hub, as they are going to local businesses and asking them to do one session for free but allowing them to promote their products and services to potentially 100 plus local households as an incentive. It's worked well for the club and it's something they will continue to do each week as a way of curating new content.

As a result of this great work the club has successfully seen around 70 members engage in each daily land training session (HIT, Zumba, Yoga) and their weekend fun social session (Bing/Quiz) having 80+ members attending each week.

Feedback from members has been very positive.

Dunstable Swimming Club has shown how a club can pull together during these challenging times, to help their members keep fit, provide a social platform for their members and to connect with their members. "We are thrilled that our virtual platform has been a huge success! Its enabling our swimmers to remain fit and ready to return to the pool, but also keep our many families engaged with the club. We have received great feedback on these activities, and we have shown already that there really is something for everyone from Zumba, Yoga and Hiit through to our fantastic Friday night socials including Bingo, Scavenger Hunts and our ever popular Quiz Nights." Explained Tim.

If you would like some assistance with ways to keep your club communications or have concerns around funding support going during Covid 19 please contact susan@teambedsandluton.co.uk