Start Your Free Lifesaving Team

The Situation

Worldwide many traditional lifesaving clubs have been in decline for some time. It is sometimes hard for them to adjust to changes in society due to the rigid top-down approach of their leadership or national organisations and governing bodies. This has led to staff shortages in leasure centres.

The Challenge

Outdated lifesaving and swimming clubs are now being overtaken by fun driven sports teams, often with support from commercial sponsors. Their organisational structure is simple and very flexible, so they can quickly adapt to new developments.

Your Mission

Help your community. Promote survival swimming and lifesaving through your local team. This is easier than you think, because you don't need a complex swimming club structure. You can run it all from your computer with email and social media, like twitter and facebook. Use our website as your support system.

Keep it Simple

Free Lifesaving Teams are fun, simple and agile. Keep to an easy organisational structure, free from committees, governing bodies, and other such overheads. Just get a few friends together and start training. Lifesaving and survival swimming is more fun in a simple team than a club with complex rules and committees.

Leadership

Many survival and lifeguard teams are very small, often just put together by the team leader. Some are part of hotel staff or a leisure centre, others are just a group of friends. Some are bigger with a wider catchment area.

Forget committees, paper pushers and complex club rules. Decide matters with the whole team when you get together. Run weekly webinars when your team gets bigger.

Membership

You need no formal membership, just a mailing list in your email program. Many lifeguard teams run on a tight budget, so cut out as much paperwork as possible. Besides, paper is a fire hazard.

It might be helpful if someone in your team is a member of a regional or national lifesaving organisation, so you can have their assessors come in for any lifeguarding cetificates you may want. Make sure you keep your independence.