Tiverton Swimming Club receives one of the first grants from the Ashfords Foundation

The Ashfords Foundation has awarded another grant to Tiverton Swimming Club, a Community Amateur Sports Club with over 200 members, which was founded over 100 years ago in 1913 and is ran by a group of dedicated volunteers and coaches who support swimmers young and old in the local community.

Tiverton Swimming Club aims to promote the sport of swimming by providing a training program to help swimmers reach their full competitive potential according to their individual levels of ambition, ability and application. The club caters for swimmers of all ages and abilities with a progressive coaching program leading through a squad structure. Various levels of competition are catered for with training tailored to suit, from in-house galas and team league competitions, through to county, regional and national competition level.

In the first year, the grant will enable the club to buy state of the art coaching equipment for the squad swimmers. The innovative Jukes audio headsets are worn in the water and via bone conduction technology and a radio handset they allow the coaches to speak directly to swimmers during pool training to advise them on stroke techniques and how to develop their skills. The first year grant will also fund the purchase of two light strobes which will be used at race events as a visual starting aid for swimmers who have hearing loss. In the second year the club will use the grant to buy six backstroke starting ledges, which will allow swimmers to perfect their backstroke and medley relay starts, and in the third year the club plans to replace it’s PA and sound system to create lively commentaries and a fun atmosphere at their regular swimming events.

Sara Dilks, Club Chairman of Tiverton Swimming Club, said: “We are absolutely thrilled to receive this grant from the Ashfords Foundation, it means over the next three years we can use state of the art coaching equipment to develop our swimmers skills, be more inclusive for swimmers racing in our pool who have hearing loss and also replace the deteriorating sound system we use at our club galas. With this support from the Ashfords Foundation, it's going to be an exciting time to be at Tiverton Swimming club - our Head Coach Lucy Walton is simply thrilled, and the swimmers are getting pretty excited about it too!"

The Ashfords Foundation has been established with very clearly defined objectives to support smaller charities and community organisations through two grant programmes: Supporting Communities and Preserving Communities. The first offers one off grants of up to £750, while the second supports established charities and not-for-profit organisations develop a solid foundation for the future, helping them build sustainability for the long term with grants of up to £5k. In each case, the project for which funding is sought should be local to one of Ashfords’ offices in Exeter, Bristol, London, Plymouth, Tiverton and Taunton. Further details are on the Foundation’s website: www.ashfordsfoundation.org.uk

Chair of Trustees, John Toth, said: “Both our Charity of the Year and existing CSR programmes have been very successful, and partners and staff at Ashfords have been fully engaged in both, as well as in wider charitable fund raising. It is that very success that led us to look more closely at how the firm might make a real difference in the communities in which we live and work, bringing together all of Ashfords' charitable giving as well as building a sense of common purpose among our people. The result was the establishment of the Foundation.”

The Ashfords Foundation
www.ashfordsfoundation.org.uk