Loughton Swimmers to lose pool place

[broomhillsaved]

http://www.guardian-series.co.uk/new..._pool_time.php

The Loughton Swimmers club which has served the community for over 40 years has been informed by SLM (Sport and Leisure Management) that their Monday evening slot will no longer be available to them, from March onwards.

The club has 185 members and has always kept its prices low, but the Chairman of the club feels that this may be why they have been asked to leave.

The manager of Loughton Leisure Centre claims that the needs of the community are not being met if clubs are operating four days a week there, but this is strongly disputed by club members who say that parents will be dismayed to find that the club is no longer in operation.

[Juicy Lucy]

Sorry, Broomy, you are definitely on to a loser with this one.

Other campaigns of yours are centered around keeping facilities open for public use instead of knocking down pools and selling the land to property developers. And I'm with you on that, especially when it concerns Lidos.

This swimming club has been offered alternative pool time. The management simply want to encourage the public to use their pool in the evenings and want to make more pool time available for public swimming. They should be applauded.

JL

[Verity]

Aren't club members members of the public as well?

V

[Juicy Lucy]

Originally Posted by Verity

Aren't club members members of the public as well?

V

The problem here is that the club swimmers are not paying a fair price to swim. 'Real' members of the public have to pay the going rate.

Typical swimmers! Always asking for swimming on the cheap. If it was free they'd still find something to complain about.

[NotVeryFast]

Originally Posted by Juicy Lucy

The problem here is that the club swimmers are not paying a fair price to swim. 'Real' members of the public have to pay the going rate.

Typical swimmers! Always asking for swimming on the cheap. If it was free they'd still find something to complain about.

So how much do they pay? At my club we pay far more than the going rate for our swims, I'd be very happy indeed to be able to train for the price of a swim in a public session each time.

I don't understand why we can't just have a reasonable split of pool time for different usages. At most pools you seem to get near enough the entire day available for people to splash about in the water, and people who want to swim lengths are grudgingly allocated an hour slot 3 days a week or something. Is it really too much to ask for a 2 hour lane swimming slot each day, can't the people who just want to splash about fit their activities into a mere 10 hours each day?

[Juicy Lucy]

Originally Posted by NotVeryFast

At most pools you seem to get near enough the entire day available for people to splash about in the water,

But this is the problem. It's no good having the pool open for public swimming during the day when people are at work.

During the summer evenings, people will come home from work and want to take their kids to the pool. I've seen the disappointment on their faces when told, "Sorry, we're not open to the public. it's club night."

It's not going to be a popular suggestion amongst serious swimmers, but why not make the public pool available for lane swimming from 1.00pm to 4.00pm every week day?

[NotVeryFast]

Originally Posted by Juicy Lucy

But this is the problem. It's no good having the pool open for public swimming during the day when people are at work.

During the summer evenings, people will come home from work and want to take their kids to the pool. I've seen the disappointment on their faces when told, "Sorry, we're not open to the public. it's club night."

It's not going to be a popular suggestion amongst serious swimmers, but why not make the public pool available for lane swimming from 1.00pm to 4.00pm every week day?

I'd have thought the people who want to splash about would be more likely to be able to go during the way than people who want to swim more seriously.

In any case, there should be plenty of hours in the evening for everyone. 6-8pm for splashing about, 8-10pm for serious swimming? Can't they stay open later as well, why do some pools have to close so early?

[chris_lamb]

Originally Posted by Juicy Lucy

The problem here is that the club swimmers are not paying a fair price to swim. 'Real' members of the public have to pay the going rate.

You can't simply compare the price/person being paid by club swimmers and the general session prices and state that club swimmers aren't paying a fair price.

Do staffing levels have to remain the same during club sessions or can they be reduced? Do club sessions necessitate the same levels of cleaning? What about the quantities of chemicals in the pool?

And of course the regular commitments given by clubs giving a secure source of income is worth something to pool operators over and above the actual monetary value.

[Juicy Lucy]

Originally Posted by NotVeryFast

I'd have thought the people who want to splash about would be more likely to be able to go during the way than people who want to swim more seriously.

Impossible! Surely they would be at work too?

Originally Posted by NotVeryFast

In any case, there should be plenty of hours in the evening for everyone. 6-8pm for splashing about, 8-10pm for serious swimming?

I'd go along with these hours. It makes sense.

Originally Posted by NotVeryFast

Can't they stay open later as well, why do some pools have to close so early?

We're now back to the thorny question of, 'why is swimming so unpopular'. There are not enough people interested in swimming to make the facilities cost-effective. It's not worth keeping a pool open late in the evening for just a handful of enthusiasts.

JL

[broomhillsaved]

What you say here belies the efforts people make to try and keep their pools open eg the Friends of Kirkham Baths have just held a meeting attended by 200 people who don't want to let Fylde Council get away with closing both the Kirkham pool and the St Anne's one.

In this particular case it looks as if the management made a unilateral decision to push the Loughton Swimmers out without consultation, and with no reason or warning given.
SLM run a lot of leisure centres, so it is possible that behind the scenes they are making their own arrangements for classes that will be much more expensive: the 'needs of the community' will not be a consideration then.

[Dave_G]

I do not live in Loughton, but I would be very surprised if this decision has anything to do with 'meeting the needs of the community'. In my opinion, it has far more to do with the greed of SLM and local politicians and, if that should indeed be the case, it is not at all surprising that the decision has been made unilaterally.
I would be the first to agree that there has to be a fair and sensible balance between the rights of the public to use swimming pools, and the needs of swimming clubs to train their members. After all, these could be our future champions.

[niges6]

As a teacher at the Loughton swimmers i cannot give an unbiased view but I’m not sure if you realise that we are a teaching club teaching from the ages of 6 to adult.
As a non profit organisation we can offer cheap lessons and have done for 41 years. It seems to me, and maybe i am too close, that the company does not have the local communities’ interests at heart. This is a local leisure centre run FOR the community.
The alternative time slot offered to us was sat evenings at 6.30 which I’m sure you'll agree would be a difficult time to fill which appears to be the reason it has been offered to us.
if we close (we are still fighting and have been given until the end of April to continue our fight) it will be interesting to see if the pool stays open for public swimming or as i cynically suspect starts its own more expensive lessons in the future.
We still have a long waiting list which shows how well we serve the community and how much we are thought of within the community and lets hope we can continue to serve them well.

[Juicy Lucy]

Originally Posted by niges6

As a non profit organisation we can offer cheap lessons and have done for 41 years.

Hi niges6 (and welcome) could you explain please? Your chairman at the club thinks that the reason you have been asked to leave is because your prices are too low. Have you been asked to raise your prices?

Maybe this would be worth considering, if it meant keeping the management at the centre happy, then you could still use the facility, and probably be able to pay a more realistic price for doing so.

Or isn't it this simple?

[Linny]

I'm afraid that whilst I have sympathy for your situation and you are probably right about the more expensive lessons coming in, I suspect that you are not looking at the whole picture.

Pools are closing all over the place because it is difficult to run a pool and make money or even to run one without losing a packet. The fact that local authorities and leisure trusts do an incredibly bad job of it anyway is by the by, the are obliged to at least try and balance the books.

Pools are very expensive to staff and run. One of the very few profitable ventures that they can run is swimming lessons; yet in your pool you are expecting them to forego any profit that they might make in order to be able to keep the pool running so that you can provide a service to the community as a non-profit-making venture.

The question I would ask of you is "are you really serving the needs of the community by doing this?" Run of the mill public swimming is heavily subsidised and like it or not some of this subsidy has to be found from sources within the pool because local authorities are simply unwilling or unable to fund it any longer.

If you think that you are doing a great service (and I am sure that you are), and want to keep running your lessons, then consider how it might be possible to make your swimming lessons a profitable venture for the pool management.

If you don't do that, chances are that if you don't lose your lessons, you will lose your pool.

[niges6]

As a teacher at the Loughton swimmers i cannot give an unbiased view but I’m not sure if you realise that we are a teaching club teaching from the ages of 6 to adult.
As a non profit organisation we can offer cheap lessons and have done for 41 years. It seems to me, and maybe i am too close, that the company does not have the local communities’ interests at heart. This is a local leisure centre run FOR the community.
The alternative time slot offered to us was sat evenings at 6.30 which I’m sure you'll agree would be a difficult time to fill which appears to be the reason it has been offered to us.
if we close (we are still fighting and have been given until the end of April to continue our fight) it will be interesting to see if the pool stays open for public swimming or as i cynically suspect starts its own more expensive lessons in the future.
We still have a long waiting list which shows how well we serve the community and how much we are thought of within the community and lets hope we can continue to serve them well.