The Swim England Regions form the middle tier of the National, Regional and County governance structure for our aquatic disciplines in England. Each region is independently managed and employs its own staff, who work to support the delivery of the region’s strategy and plans each year, alongside a group of dedicated and passionate volunteers who help form the region’s wider governance structure.
The Swim England East Region focuses on the specific needs of its clubs and members, ensuring that our practices and policies keep up to date with the needs of clubs across all aquatic disciplines. We communicate with our clubs and members via our website, newsletters and social media and endeavour to ensure that they have all the relevant information and news that they need.
We work in partnership with Swim England to ensure that we have compatible strategies and development plans, and also work closely with our County Associations of; Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk, Cambridgeshire, Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire to make sure that, by working together, we meet the varying needs of our members.
Development is a key priority for the Region. The Region employs a small team of professional staff, to ensure that our clubs, athletes, coaches and volunteers can access the support, training and education they need to reach their full potential. We provide formal and informal opportunities for coaches from all disciplines across the region to share good practice to develop themselves and their athletes. We are confident that by investing in development, all disciplines in the East Region will continue to improve, and that we will see more of our athletes succeeding on the Regional, National and International stage.
The Region recognises that clubs are the lifeblood of the sport, and it is important to us that our clubs are well-managed and have high standards of governance, sustainability and effectiveness. We work with our clubs to ensure that they all meet the minimum standards required for Swim England affiliated clubs, and support clubs to achieve SwimMark accreditation, which is Swim England’s quality standard for clubs. Although we will not become involved in internal disputes, we support clubs when things go wrong, providing advice on procedures and where they can access advice.
The Region also strives to provide a high standard of regional competitions for athletes from all disciplines. We see regional competition as the stepping stone towards competing at a national and international level and are committed to providing competitions that prepare athletes for progression to the next level.
Swim England East Region Strategy:
Our Strategy gives an overview of the main areas of activity for Swim England East Region. The Strategy is supported by the annual plans and budgets, which include plans for each of the aquatic disciplines.
** We are currently developing our 2024-2027 Regional Strategy to align where appropriate with the new Swim England Access Aquatics Ten-Year Strategy. It is anticipated that our new regional strategy will be published in the last quarter of 2024. **
Annual Report:
Every year we produce an annual report telling our members what we have achieved during the previous 12 months. This report is written for and discussed at, our Annual General Meeting, which is held every April.
Reports from previous years are held in the archive.
Regional Discipline Development Plans:
The Swim England East Region Discipline Leadership Groups are tasked with submitting a proposed annual plan and budget for each financial year, every December.
These plans and budgets are then reviewed by our Regional Operations Committee (ROC) and then our Board of Directors for final approval. Once approved by the Board of Directors, each Group is responsible for delivering their annual plan and budget.
Each Discipline Leadership Group is supported in the delivery of their plans by our regional staff team for any development activities and their Board or ROC Representative, who help ensure all activity is delivered in line with the respective plan and budget for that year.
