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Our representative team currently receives no governmental funding, and therefore to represent Team GB, all athletes pay for their own travel, subsistence and often kit.

Each year we enter a ladies and men’s team into the European Qualifiers, which costs approximately £20,000 per team, and we desperately need your help to support our athletes!

The next competitions will take place in May 2017 (men), August 2017 (women), May 2017 (men) and August 2017 (women).

Support the teams by donating through our Virgin Giving page.

Cumbria ASA have been able to launch a new bursary scheme with support from the Swimming Trust and The Eden Swim Project.

The scheme, which will help swimming teachers and coaches in Cumbria to gain ASA Level 2 qualifications. These qualifications will help ensure that more people are able to learn to swim in safe and secure surrounding and also help to prevent deaths by drowning.

The bursary scheme is supported by £3,000 donated to the Swimming Trust by supporters of a gruelling 9 day, 90 mile swim down the River Eden in Cumbria by brothers Jack, Calum and Robbie Hudson in August 2015. The Swimming Trust donated a further £1,000 to the project which is also supported by £1,000 donated by Cumbria ASA.

For more information about the scheme contact Cumbria ASA through their website http://www.swimcumbria.org.uk

Community swimming group, Swim Dem Crew, have been recognised at the annual British Ethnic Diversity Sports Awards (BEDSA) for their outstanding work encouraging adults from all backgrounds to learn how to swim.

Held on Saturday (6 February) at Grosvenor House in London, the evening celebrated the achievements and contribution of people from black and minority ethnic communities in sport.

Nominated by the ASA, Swim Dem Crew was awarded the Sport England Community Project of the Year Award following the success of their social swim sessions and swimming lesson programme.

Accepting the award alongside fellow members, Peigh Asante, Nathaniel Cole and Andy Akinwolere, GLL swimming teacher Harley Hicks, said: “In a lot of our projects, people seem to have the perception that everyone else can swim apart from themselves, but actually one fifth of adults in the country can’t swim.

“Two of the guys here with me on stage only learned to swim in the last few years; they learned to swim as adults and are now helping to change the perception of swimming. So it’s never too late to learn how to swim.”

Swim Dem Crew was founded in 2013 around a love of swimming. Last year, with the support of the Swimming Trust, they successfully challenged a group of non-swimmers to take part in the Great Manchester Swim. Now the group holds weekly swimming sessions at different pools in London, providing a social space for people to get together and become more confident in the water.

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