Inaugural Festival of Aquatics 2024 – Inspired to Try

The Sunderland Aquatics Centre buzzed with excitement on Saturday, 27th July, as Swim England North East hosted its inaugural Festival of Aquatics.

To celebrate the first morning of action from the pool at this summer’s Paris 2024 Olympic Games, we welcomed 60 enthusiastic participants and their families to one of the Region’s prime facilities for a day of fun, excitement and inspiration. The event showcased three of the aquatic disciplines on offer to the aquatics community across our Region…

This event provided a unique opportunity for our young swimmers and their parents to see Diving, Artistic Swimming, and Water Polo in action. These exciting aquatic sports were showcased by existing participants and coaches from a number of our local clubs. Attendees were treated to an enchanting demonstration from each of the various aquatic disciplines to kick off our first ever Festival of Aquatics in style. From the explosiveness of the diving display, to the creativity and elegance of the artistic swimming routine, to the high-spirited team demo by water polo.. there was something for everyone to whet the appetite for the day ahead.

After the delight of the demonstrations, participants assembled into their groups to have a go for themselves. They did dryland exercises under the watchful eyes of our club volunteers and then had the opportunity to get in the water and learn some of the basic skills required in each of the 3 sports with help and guidance from our fantastic coaches, team managers and helpers. Everyone embraced the challenge and there were lots of smiles on faces as the children had fun at the festival! They each had a special medal and swimming hat to take home at the end of the day, as well as their newly acquired aquatic skills…

Swim England NE would like to thank Sunderland Aquatics Centre and Everyone Active for hosting the event with their brilliant setup team, lifeguards and management staff, and also Sunderland Tesco and Aspray Sunderland – for their kind donation towards the cost of food for the participants and volunteers.

Sincere thanks to our Volunteers & Partners

None of this would have been possible without the tireless efforts of our club volunteers who planned and delivered a simply stunning event. Your commitment, dedication and passion has been relentless from the moment we first shared a novel idea of running 3 aquatic disciplines, side-by-side & simultaneously, in the same venue.

Throughout the planning phases of logistics of who will do what and when, you have collaborated with likeminded volunteers from other clubs to ensure the delivery on the day was out of this world.. You are the lifeblood of our aquatics community, and your hard work made this event a tremendous success. We are proud of each and every one of you!

You #inspire us all!

A special mention for the following clubs and organisations for their invaluable contributions to the Festival:

• Sedgefield Water Polo
• Gateshead Artistic Swimming Club
• City of Sunderland ASC
• Sunderland City Dive Team – SCDT
• Swim England
• Sunderland Council

To capture the essence of the day, we gathered some quotes from participants and organisers:

Young Volunteer – My Experience, by Sophie

We hope everyone who attended had a fantastic time 🥳. Events like these are a testament to the vibrant aquatic community we have in the North East. We look forward to many more such gatherings, celebrating our shared love for aquatic sports and inspiring the next generation of athletes to GET IN THE WATER.

If you have been #inspiredtotry some of the sports featured at our festival and would like to do some more, please find some information below about the clubs who helped deliver the event:

Sedgefield Water Polo club are based in Newton Aycliffe Leisure Centre in County Durham and have members from 8 years up to adult: www.sedgefieldwaterpolo.com/.

City of Sunderland Dive Team is a competitive diving club based at the Sunderland Aquatic Centre in Sunderland. Access to the competitive club is via the Learn to Dive programme which is delivered by their service provider Everyone Active: www.sunderlandcitydiveteam.com.

Gateshead Artistic Swimming Club (GASC) is the only artistic swimming club between Edinburgh and Leeds and is based at Dunston Leisure Centre in Gateshead: www.gatesheadartisticswimming.com.

City of Sunderland Swimming Club have a Water Polo section which trains at the Sunderland Aquatics Centre. For more information about their sessions please contact Dave Clarke on water_polo@hotmail.co.uk.

Stay #InspiredToTry and keep making waves!