The Swim England Club Health Tracker is an innovative online tool which assists clubs to review and measure their club development work plus benchmark themselves against other clubs on a both regional and national level.
The Club Health Tracker enables clubs to spot areas for development, helps measure year on year progress and highlights successes. It gives clubs the opportunity to quantify and celebrate the work of the committee and the people who have help progress in their club.
The following information provides an initial overview of the overall findings from the 34 clubs representing all aquatic disciplines in the Swim England North East Region who recently completed the tracker.
Clubs were given a percentage rating based on the responses that they gave in six different areas. These were as follows:
| Club Performance Area | National Average Rating | SENER Average Rating | SENER % change from 12 months ago | |
| Governance & Standards | 90% | 88% | – 4% | |
| Coaching & Teaching | 83% | 86% | + 13% | |
| Financial Management | 85% | 85% | +4% | |
| Pool Operator Relationships | 66% | 74% | + 4% | |
| Growth & Retention | 71% | 71% | -5% | |
| Volunteers | 66% | 70% | – 11% | |
| Overall | 78% | 78% |
When exploring the three lowest performance areas, the following points were noted:
Volunteers
- Clubs indicated that they were relatively good at retaining volunteers and providing them with suitable training but less confident at recruiting volunteers and having enough volunteers.
Growth & Retention
- Clubs do have links with Learn to Swim programmes and are able to introduce new members to the club. They feel they are relatively good at retaining members. Clubs generally do have the capacity to have more new members and some have a marketing and communication plan to attract new members.
Pool Operator Relationships
- Most clubs have a contact in place with their pool operator with a pre agreed pricing structure and good communication channels with key individuals. They generally have sufficient access to pool time but feel that the partnership could be better. Clubs feel that the club’s visibility could be better at the primary facility that they use.
Next Steps
All clubs who completed the Club Health Tracker have received initial bench marking feedback. In addition, they will receive further communication from the relevant development team once the information has been assessed in more detail.
The development teams will look to develop opportunities and share resources which help to support clubs in the areas that have been identified as needing assistance and support.
The findings will be shared with board members, discipline leads, counties and other clubs.
Thanks to all those clubs who completed the 2023/24 survey. It’s expected that the next Club Health Tracker will open again for club’s to complete in late 2024/early 2025.
If you have any specific questions relating to the Club Health Tracker or you would like support in any of these club development areas please contact either the Swim England North East Region Development Team at swimnortheast@swimming.org or Swim England Club Development at clubdevelopment@swimming.org.
