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RELAXING THE ‘RULES’ DRIVING PARTICIPATION BY CHALLENGING NORMS
My focus is on driving participation in swimming, which is ironic as I never saw the point in swimming when I was younger. It was only in my late 20s that things changed. I worked for a group of leisure centres, heading up retention and sales. We’d done lots of retention work in the gym, boosting gym floor interaction, then received Swim England funding for a range of projects including retention in swimming. I knew I needed to understand swimming in the same way I understood fitness: by taking part. So in my late 20s, I enrolled on a learn-to-swim course. It was a revelation. I realised it was a mental thing: everyone can swim if you get past the negative self-talk. We took learnings from the gym and brought interaction to the poolside, with coaches at each end offering tips and technique. They were private swim trainers and did it for free to promote their services. We also introduced swimming inductions and programmes to give people structure. And it worked: we carried on those initiatives even after the funding ended. We also looked at barriers to participation, with body consciousness a big one. If you’d rather swim in a T-shirt, why shouldn’t you? It’s time old-fashioned pool rules were relaxed and swimming made more fun, interesting and engaging. We introduced dynamic pricing, too, making swimming cheaper and more accessible at quiet times and more expensive at peak times. Of course, driving participation also means broadening your audience and maximising use of your space. Only ever getting the same limited group of regulars swimming lengths? Consider laying the pool out differently throughout the day to suit each daypart’s user groups – and those you’d like to attract. Recreational swimmers aren’t worried about precise distance, for example: their lanes could be shortened to create a full-width area for another activity. Family time could be scheduled alongside swimming lessons – because demand for lessons is surging, with a huge backlog of kids who couldn’t learn during COVID. Parkwood’s doing some great work here, with automated waiting lists ensuring every spot in class is full, maximising revenues. My challenge to operators: if you want to drive participation, it’s time to look at things from a user needs perspective and be less rigid in your approach. Finally, data is key to driving participation, and we’re working on new software to give NGBs the data they need to secure Sport England funding. If they know how long it takes a child in the south of England to learn to swim 25m versus a child in the north, for example, they can make a strong case for funding to address inequalities.
If you want to drive participation, it’s time to look at things from a user needs perspective. Be less rigid in your approach.
MARC JONES Head of Customer Experience, Fitronics
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STATE OF THE UK SWIMMING INDUSTRY REPORT 2023
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