THIS TIME AN AUDI TAKES THE PLUNGE

KIDS LEARNING TO SWIM AT THE LIDO BEAT
NATIONAL PERFORMANCE BY MILES! Yeees!

Jayne Barringer, Top-Up Swimming instructor, and lifeguard Lauren Parkinson (centre back) celebrate at the end of The Lido’s Top-Up Swimming programme with year 5 and 6 students from local primary schools

Children taking part in a Top-Up Swimming programme at Chipping Norton Lido have been celebrating their success. The programme has achieved a success rate of 73% in helping local 10 and 11 year olds from primary schools in the Chipping Norton School Partnership reach the national swimming target of 25 metres. Claire Wallace, Partnership Development Manager at the West Oxfordshire School Sport Partnership who funded the programme, commented, “This particular project at The Lido has been incredibly successful and has far outstripped the national target for top-up swimming programmes of 60% achieving their 25m. The children have felt special, coming out of school to visit The Lido, and the instructor, Jayne Barringer showed excellent skills in working with this target group.”

Thirty children in years 5 and 6 at five local primary schools received an intensive course of eight lessons over four weeks in June, culminating in a mini festival event. In addition, another 16 children from Charlbury Primary School received a short course of three lessons, after which eight of them were able to swim 25m.

Claire Jarvis, Lido trustee, added, “We’ve always been proud of our teaching record at The Lido and so we were delighted to work with the School Sport Partnership on this project. Alongside the formal teaching, we also gave each child their own floatation aid and provided the children and their families with free passes to The Lido to encourage them to swim more frequently. Additional funding from West Oxfordshire District Council enabled us to provide specialist lifeguards to act as mentors to the children, and all these factors have helped boost the overall success rate of the programme.”

Dip 'n' Chill was an innovative scheme this summer at the Lido which offered young people free swimming on Tuesday evenings from 7.30 till 10. It was a huge success.

Claire Jarvis reports: 157 young people registered with The Lido (ie when they first came to a Dip ‘n Chill session we asked them to complete a form with their contact details ). There were 13 Tuesday night sessions during June, July and August. Attendance very quickly grew from 18 on the first night to 69 by the last session, and was consistently over 60 from early July onwards. It was funded by a grant from Oxfordshire County Council’s Chill Out Fund plus some sponsorship from The Fox and Andrew Bennett Upholstery. Credit for managing the project and making it such a big success with the young people (and their parents) must go to our manager Marie-Ann Roberts and our lifeguards who helped create an atmosphere in which kids could let off steam and still remain safe. Jane and Tony Parnell from The Fox also contributed to the success of the project by running barbecues and opening the café. On the last night they provided a free barbecue for all the participants. And, yes, we’ll certainly be applying for funding to run it again next year! Below is a picture taken at one of the Tuesday sessions.

Chippy LIDO SCOOPS GOLD
IN ANNUAL SWIMTASTIC AWARDS

Friday 26^th October: Chipping Norton Lido scooped “Gold” as Community Project Award winner at the Swimtastic Awards 2007 in Stratford-Upon-Avon.  In addition, Ken Norman won the silver award in the Fundraiser of the Year category for his achievements in raising funds to keep The Lido open. The awards, part of national awards organised by the Amateur Swimming Association (ASA) and backed by cereal manufacturer Kellogg’s, aims to acknowledge and celebrate pool-based projects in the UK that have benefited their communities the most.

Claire Jarvis, Trustee of Chipping Norton Lido, nominated the lido for the award on the strength of its work with young people.  She said:  “Chipping Norton Lido Ltd is one of the country’s few remaining open air pools. It was saved from closure by local campaigners four years ago and, since then has played an increasingly important role in the sporting and recreational life of the community. Projects aimed at young people included Dip ‘n Chill evenings for 11-18 year olds, top-up swimming lessons and mentoring for 10 and 11 year olds, a lunchtime swim club for local school children, and a junior lifeguard training programme.”   Fellow Trustee Sarah Watson had this to say on winning the award, “Obviously we are delighted to receive this level of national recognition in what is only our third season of independent operation. As a charity and a social enterprise, The Lido can truly be described as a pool with a social conscience. We are passionate about ensuring that all areas of the community benefit from a regular swim, and we hope our work with young people demonstrates just that.”

Picture shows  Sarah Watson with our award together with Commonwealth medallist
Rebecca Cook and British water polo team captain Craig Figes.