Dear Members,

Nearly a whole month has passed since going into full lockdown restrictions (for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland it’s sadly been longer) and I hope everyone is keeping safe, both mentally and physically, through these toughest of times. What has been encouraging to see over the last couple of weeks, is the government’s escalation of the vaccine programme, and this will hopefully mean the current lockdown restrictions can be eased soon and we can go back to something like the former 1-3 Tiers which enabled swimming pools, where it was financially and practically viable, to stay open.

In preparation, we’ve been working busily behind the scenes to not only support members but to make plans for the future. COVID has changed the way we all work and we will make sure all our qualifications, products and services will continue to meet, exceed, the future needs of the industry. Over the last 9 months, we’ve also welcomed many new swim schools to the Swim Star Swim School family – it’s been fantastic to see so many swim schools using this down time to also positively plan for their future. Likewise, the response to our Tutor courses has been incredible, and we look forward to a time soon when we can all meet in person.

In the meantime, the team have lined up a number of free or heavily discounted webinars to help keep you focussed and engaged over the coming weeks – new dates are being added all the time so please keep checking back to the website. I can also exclusively reveal that multi-award-winning Australian sports coach’ Wayne Goldsmith will be back in February to host 4 new webinars every Tuesday. We also welcome your content ideas for future webinars – please email your suggestions to marketing@sta.co.uk

Also, for your diaries, we have SPATEX Virtual coming up at the end of the month and Active Net in March. For all the latest updates, please follow us over on Facebook.

Please stay safe everyone and let’s continue to support each other with the hope that we can get back to the pool very soon.

Take care.

Dave Candler
STA CEO