Why we need to fundraise......

The Coronavirus pandemic has hit grassroot sports particularly hard and we are no exception. During the racing season Atlantis hold 3 open meets.  They are all well attended by visiting clubs and the stands are full of entrance fee paying spectators who often buy raffle tickets, programmes and so on.  These meets provide the club with essential funds inluding supplementing the member's fees needed for us to survive.  As a not-for-profit organisation, these meets are essential for us to fund the club's financial commitments throughout the year.

With no competitions for the foreseeable future and limited pool, we are having to review our funding strategy.  We can only flourish if we can hold our regular competitions and take on new members.  Atlhough we have a lot of local interest in joining the club, we are unable to accept all applicants at this time.  This is due to the number of hours in the pool and the Covid-19 restrictions we have in place.

We are, at the this time, operating on reduced membership fees alone. Fundraising is to replace the lost revenue from the open meets and lost fees from new members.

To date:

• We have lost approximately £20,000 revenue from the Summer Splash and Christmas Cracker 2020.  Projecting this forward to 2021, it is unlikely we will be able to hold either our Regional Chaser in March or our Summer Splash in June, a further £18,000 lost.  Plus, the amount the club earns from hosting Club Championships, National Arena and Sussex League competitions.
• Due to restrictions in place, unable to recruit as many new members as we would like
• Operating on reduced member fees - currently 85% of full fees, all squads operating on vastly reduced hours.
• Once open meets recommence, uncertain on number of spectators allowed, number of swimmers allowed poolside - all of which will impact on the amount of money we can raise.

 

What Atlantis means to our members .....

We received so many words of encouragement during our Crowdfunder, here is just one story and thank you Simon for sharing it with us and for allowing us to use it on our website:

'Swimming is in our family’s DNA ... as a young man my father was a club swimmer and competitive diver so naturally my sister and I also became club swimmers, swimming for Barracuda’s SC based out of Morden before in later years it merged with Cheam Marlins.  My father went on to become a coach at Barracuda’s and I had decent success as part of my School team at Caterham.. for me swimming later became the foundation for fun being had with endurance events such as long distance triathlon’s and open water challenges such as the Thames marathon

So I suppose it was inevitable that my three kids would be encouraged towards swimming and in the end two of them found their way to the Atlantis club and swimming family. For me club swimming provides so many things that go way beyond the fun and challenge of competition..
... different social experiences
... the discipline of training and the life impacting health benefits
... self confidence and camaraderie
.... smiles, highs and sometimes lows
... a reason to go to MacDonalds

Supporting Atlantis is a pleasure and an investment in young people’s lives (and those that are forever young in the Masters squad of course ;)). My hope is that Atlantis navigates the current challenges and  continues to go from strength to strength. Perhaps even my children’s children will find their way to club swimming at some time in the future'

Our achievements ....

 

Our fundraising kicked off with Ryan and Emma completing a sponsored litter pick. 

Momentum then picked up with a Club wide project 'Let's Keep Atlantis Swimming' Crowdfunder, this saw phenomenal results and included 2 of our swimmers Aneira and Tennessee completing a 1500m swimathon, through this they raised £1540 for the Crowdfunding project.  We were also granted a Sport England:Active Together grant of £1,000. 

 

The Crowdfunding project acheived it's £2,000 target within 6 hours of opening and was well on it's way to the stretch target of £5000 within 24hours of opening.  It finished on the 14th November having reached £7650.00.

December saw our Christmas Hamper Raffle; congratulations to all our hamper winners. The winning tickets were picked by William Etheridge of County Development Squad and distrubtion of prizes was completed before Christmas.

 

We rounded 2020 off with Ecoracing - a virtual balloon race leaving from Santa's village in Lapland!  We had a fantastic line up of individually designed balloons, the launch went well, followed by some tough racing in challenging conditions.  The Atlantis balloon winners are below and their prizes will be forwarded as soon as lockdown measures allow.

 

To read our story click here.

Fundraising news letters:

Fundraising newsletter 1,  newsletter 2, newsletter 3, newsletter 4

 

Plans for 2021.....

Continue to promote the use of:

easyfundraising: 

Thank you to all our supporters for raising FREE donations for Atlantis SC in 2020 by shopping online via #easyfundraising. The funds that have been raised have made such a difference to us during these challenging times. If you are still buying any last-minute gifts, shopping the sales or planning any 2021 getaways, please remember to keep using easyfundraising so we don’t miss out. If you're not supporting us on easyfundraising yet, please sign up here: 

 

 

Horsham Community Lottery:

Horsham District Community Lottery is an exciting weekly lottery that raises funds for good causes in the Horsham District.  All good causes supported by the lottery will benefit Horsham District and its residents.  Play the lottery - support Horsham. It's that simple!

Tickets:   Tickets cost £1 each per week.  Each ticket has a 1 in 50 chance of winning a prize every week.  With a top prize of £25,000.

Prizes:  Prize draw takes place every Saturday.

Good Causes:  For every £1 ticket you buy, 60p will go to local good causes in Horsham Distract and improving our community.

 

Sponsorship:

We are excited to announce the start of a long term sponsorship with Thakeham Homes.  Final details are being finalised and we'll let you know the latest details as soon as we have them.

 

 

 

 

 

Atlantis would like to take this opportunity to thank the following organisations for their continued support......

Live links are available at the bottom of the Atlantis website homepage.

 

Our longstanding friendship with the co-founder of Essential Beauty, Karen, is something Atlantis is very proud of. Karen not only runs her own successful beauty business from her salon based in Horsham, but keeps us all inline at Atlantis with her ability to juggle a million jobs and still smile!  Our open meets are renowned in the region for their organisation and smooth running and that is thanks to Karen.

Essential Beauty is open 6 days a week, bookings are by appointment and include early morning and evening.  Both Karen and Kate are fully qualified therapists with many years experience and are members of the Guild of Professional Beauty Therapists.

Their contact details are:   Website:  essentialbeautysalon.com.   Email:  [email protected]  Phone:  07745 700088

 

 

Ben has taken photos of our open meets and many examples of his work are available to view on his website.   

This talented photographer covers many genres and can be contacted through this form

 

FINIS products can be purchased through Mailsports or by using this link