Sittingbourne and Milton Swimming Club

My name is Philip Glock and I am the Head Coach at Sittingbourne and Milton Swimming Club.

How can you support our club?

Founded in 1896, SMSC is one of the longest standing swimming clubs in the country. As well as being a welcoming, family-friendly club, offering Learn to Swim lessons, we also have an expanding competitive squad who have represented us at county and regional levels.

Over the years, we have sadly seen local clubs close due to struggles either with funding or lack of volunteers. Our club is run solely by volunteers which helps to keep costs to a minimum and therefore swimmers’ fees as low as possible. However, we rely on the support and generosity of people for investing in our ongoing development for the benefit of our members.

We are a relatively small swimming club compared with others in the county, but we have an ambitious project in the pipeline to grow our membership to allow access to more people within the community.

Until recently we had limited training time, which didn't allow our swimmers to reach their full potential. We have now increased that through the hire of a pool on a further two nights per week. We pride ourselves on keeping costs low and affordable for all, and would like to raise funds to pay for this extra time rather than passing the burden to parents and members.

We would also like to improve the standard of the training equipment such as anti-wave lane ropes, new flags, and modern high-tech coach to swimmer communication devices to enable live feedback and support.

My dream scenario would also be to be able to part-fund summer swim camps where the members can go away during the school holidays to continue their training in state-of-the-art facilities. These camps also promote the social aspect with their peers that harnesses life-long memories and develop peer relationships that will not only grow there sporting performance but their social and mental wellbeing.

We have an incredibly hard-working committee and a passionate and dedicated team of coaches who are all volunteers. Any support would be very much appreciated as we continue to grow.