Update : April 13th 2024

Birtley Community Pool Newsletter   

April 13th 2024 - Progress update for our supporters

Hello again to all our supporters. This is the sixth newsletter that we have produced to keep everyone informed about our progress.

Great news about our Community Ownership Fund (COF) application for funding

On March 22nd we received some fantastic news from the minister for the Department of Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, that our application to fund £222,000 of capital investment, and £50,000 of pre-opening operating costs, has been successful.

This COF funding of £272,000, together with the £32,000 that has already been raised from local community fundraising activities, represent 80% of the total funding required to reopen the pool. We still need to raise an additional £80,000 and we are in discussions with several other funders to obtain the majority of this additional funding.

We also planning to run another Crowdfunding campaign in May and June and two further fundraising social events, from which we hope to raise at least £30,000. We are now confident that raising the remaining £80,000 is achievable over the next few months, with the support of the community and the other funders who we are engaging.

The full press statement that we released on March 23^rd is included in appendix 1.

Sport England Swimming Pool Fund application unsuccessful.

Gateshead Council applied to the Sport England Swimming Pool Fund last year, for funding to install solar panels and replace the existing lighting with LED lights at four of its pools, including the Birtley Pool.

The fund was oversubscribed fourfold, but Gateshead Council had ranked Birtley Swimming Pool as their highest priority in this application, so we were hopeful that the funding would be awarded to us.

Unfortunately, when the funding outcome was announced on 23rd March 2024, no funding was awarded to the Birtley Swimming Pool. We will instead be applying to other funds for the same items, which will significantly reduce the electricity consumption at the pool by £25k per annum.

We will carry out our own feasibility study for the solar panels before we submit our application for funding. We are in the process of obtaining quotes from local suppliers to replace the lighting.

The solar panel investment will deliver £20k of the electricity saving, but we had not included any of this saving in the business plan we submitted to the COF until the year ending 31.03.26, as the savings are only achieved during the summer months.

This means that we have sufficient time to get a feasibility study done, submit our funding application, hopefully receive the funding and then get the solar panels installed outside the pool by March 2025 in line with our business plan assumption.

Procurement progress

We are progressing with the tender process to select the supplier which will replace the existing boilers, water heater, storage tank and other associated assets at the pool.

Short listed suppliers will be visiting the pool later this month to enable them to produce their tender responses by early May, after which we will select our preferred supplier.

This will enable the chosen supplier to place orders for the new equipment, for which there can be a significant lead time, so these items are delivered in time to replace the boilers during July and August.

Birtley Community Aquatic Centre Logo Designs produced by students of Lord Lawson of Beamish Academy.

Voting on the Birtley Community Pool logo closed at midnight on Sunday 10th March.

We received 462 public votes on the three logo designs produced by students from Lord Lawson of Beamish Academy that we shortlisted in December. The design which received the most votes (60%) was the one showing the diver about to enter the water. Congratulations to the student at Lord Lawson of Beamish Academy, who created the winning design.

The logo will be used in a variety of different ways and with different materials, such as our letterheads, staff polo shirts and new signage for the pool etc.

Three members of our trustee group will be meeting all the students who produced the designs later this month at the school to thank them for their efforts. We will take some photographs which will be included in our May newsletter.

Friends of Birtley Community Pool update

We are about to form a committee for our Friends of Birtley Community Pool Group, as we now have two volunteers who will join Jackie Mowbray on the committee; they will together, plan and manage the activities of the group.

Jackie will be contacting all the people who have previously said they were interested in volunteering and will ask them to complete a volunteer application form. Volunteers who join the Friends of Group will also become an associate member of Birtley Community Aquatic Centre Charitable Incorporated Organisation.

Work is progressing on producing the volunteer handbook and policies (e.g. Code of conduct, problem solving) which will provide clarity on what volunteering will mean in practice.

We have identified four types of volunteer role:

• Income generation and fundraising volunteer, who can help with future fundraising activities. These are likely to include another Crowdfunding campaign, more social events, like arranging a race night and a music night at the Catholic Club and supporting events like Coffee Morning, as well as other income making activities.
• Project volunteer, for some projects that we will run which need specific skillsets. Examples of future projects that we are developing, such as a photo history archive, an art mural for the poolside walls and preopening work, such as cleaning and decorating.
• Administration and Reception volunteer, who is able to commit to some half day shifts on the pool reception at weekends as part of a reception volunteer rota.
• Practical tasks volunteer, who has a specific skillset and is willing to undertake a regular activity once the pool has reopened which will help us maintain the centre. The most obvious example of this is someone who would cut the strip of grass immediately outside the pool perimeter during the summer months.

Jackie Mowbray will be at our Drop In Session at the Birtley Library on Saturday 13th April from 11.00 am until 12 noon and is keen to talk to potential volunteers. We are hoping that more people will decide to volunteer to help us reopen the pool and run it afterwards.

If you are interested in finding out more about these volunteer activities, or would like to volunteer for one or more of the volunteer roles, please get in touch either by coming to one of our Drop In Sessions or by emailing us at birtley.aquatic@gmail.com.

Fundraising progress

Since the March newsletter, we have received a donation of £500 from a Swimathon organised by Washington Forge Rotary Club, many thanks for this support.

Drop In Sessions during 2024 at Birtley Library

The BCAC trustees have now booked Birtley Library for more Drop In Sessions during 2024. These will be on the second Saturday of each month from 10.30 am until 12 noon when some of the trustee group will be available to answer questions and listen to any ideas you may have about the pool.

Please feel free to come along and meet us between 10.30 and 12 noon on any of the following dates. You do not need to stay for the full hour and a half, it’s fine to just drop in for a few minutes on any of the following Saturday mornings:

13th April           11th May

8th June             13th July             10th August

If you would like to contact us with your ideas or questions, please email us on:

birtley.aquatic@gmail.com.

On behalf of the Birtley Community Aquatic Centre CIO trustee board :

Yvonne Probert [Chair]                Matthew Grant [Treasurer]

Appendix 1:

Birtley Community Aquatic Centre ‘Press Statement’

Successful Community Ownership Fund Application

Birtley Community Aquatic Centre (BCAC), the charity that was formed last November with the aim of reopening Birtley Swimming Pool, received some great news today. The funding  application to the Community Ownership Fund (COF) has been successful, this will help enable the community asset transfer of the swimming pool to BCAC from Gateshead Council.

Jacob Young MP, the minister for the Department of Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) communicated the following message to the BCAC treasurer yesterday: “We are delighted to inform you that your application has been successful, and to approve in principle the award of a COF grant of £222,383 capital funding and £50,000 revenue funding to the Community Asset Transfer for Birtley Swimming Centre, to help save your treasured community asset and support the ambitions of your community.”

The charity trustees are delighted that the COF application has been successful. The application required a huge amount of information about the plans, which have been developing over the last 12 months. It included a very detailed business plan, an operating model, documents demonstrating the governance and management processes, as well as detailed answers to over 30 questions. The trustees, who are all volunteers, contributed significantly to the application and we also received excellent support and valuable input from Clare Hodgson, of H.C Horizons, an independent local consultant with experience in applying for this type of funding.

The COF funding of £272,000, together with the £32,000 that has already been raised from local community fundraising activities, represent 80% of the total funding required. BCAC still need to raise an additional £80,000 to enable them to reopen the pool, and they are in discussions with several other funders to obtain additional funding.

BCAC also plan to run another Crowdfunding campaign and two further fundraising social events, from which they hope to raise at least £30,000 to meet some of the remaining funding gap.

Yvonne Probert, chair of BCAC said “We are thrilled that our COF application has been successful. The commitment and the efforts by our trustees, project volunteers, advisers, schools, businesses and the local people in Birtley to work together on this community asset transfer has been incredible. We would like to say a big thank you to everyone who has contributed” .

Matthew Grant, treasurer of BCAC said “We are very grateful to the DLUHC for this funding, which will be a key enabler for our plan to reopen the pool in September 2024. We would like to thank our local supporters who raised £23,000 from Crowdfunding (including an £8,000 contribution from Sport England) and £4,000 from other local fundraising events. We are also very grateful for an additional £5,000 of donations we have received from other local organisations.

We still need to raise a further £80,000 to reopen the pool but are confident that this is achievable over the next few months, with the support of the community and other funders who we are engaging.”

Update : March 9th 2024

Birtley Community Pool Newsletter   

March 9th 2024 - Progress update for our supporters
Hello again to all our supporters. This is the fifth newsletter that we have produced to keep everyone informed about our progress. 

Procurement progress

The Community Ownership Fund (COF) has specific requirements relating to the procurement of major capital items. Successful applicants must obtain three quotes for expenditure between £2,500 and £25,000. A full tender process must be undertaken for expenditure above £25,000. For the application that we submitted to the COF on January 31st, we obtained one quote for each expenditure item greater than £2.5k.

Whilst we await the outcome of our application to the COF, we are obtaining two more quotes for the following items of expenditure:

• Repairing and refurbishing the water slide
• Resurfacing the middle section of the car park
• Installing roller shutters on all entry points and mesh grills on the windows
• Painting and decorating the reception, staff rooms and meeting room
• Pool lift for people with mobility issues

We are also preparing the tender process that we will run to select the supplier which will replace the existing boilers, water heater, storage tank and other associated assets. We plan to run this tender process over the next seven weeks, so we have selected the supplier by the time we have received the outcome of the Community Ownership Fund application which should be by the end of April. This will enable the chosen supplier to then immediately place orders for the new equipment, for which there can be a significant lead time, so these items are delivered in time to replace the boilers during July and August.

Voting on the Birtley Community Pool logo closes at midnight on Sunday 10th March

We have received 403 public votes on the three logo designs produced by students from Lord Lawson of Beamish Academy that we shortlisted in December, which are displayed at the end of this newsletter.  You can still vote on your favourite design in person, if you come to our drop-in session at Birtley Library on the 9th March, or by emailing us your choice on birtley.aquatic@gmail.com.  Alternatively, you can copy the link below into your internet browser, or access this link on our Facebook site (Birtley Community Aquatics Centre) to view the designs and vote on your favourite:

https://forms.gle/QbPuaG14ozv5uQdD7

Please note that if you use this link to vote, you will need to provide your email address. 

Friends of Birtley Community Pool to be launched

We have been developing our volunteering approach for those supporters who would like to get involved in the activities required to reopen the pool and then run it as a community asset. We will be creating a Friends of Birtley pool group, which will:

• Identify the different types of activities for which we need volunteers.
• Reach out to the community to seek individuals who are interested in volunteering.
• Collate volunteer contact details, interests, skillsets and availability.
• Match volunteers to activities.
• Manage the work which volunteers will carry out.
• 
  

We have identified four types of volunteer role:

• Income generation and fundraising volunteer, who can help with future fundraising activities. These are likely to include another Crowdfunding campaign if the COF application is successful, more social events like arranging the race night and music night at the Catholic club and supporting the Kibblesworth coffee morning, as well as other income making activities.
• Project volunteer, for sub projects that we will be running for which we are looking for specific skillsets. Examples of this will include people to help with projects we are developing like the photo history archive, an art mural for the poolside walls and pre-opening work such as cleaning and decorating. .
• Administration and Reception volunteer, who is able to commit to some half day shifts on the pool reception at weekends as part of a reception volunteer rota.
• Practical tasks volunteer, who has a specific skillset and is willing to undertake a regular activity once the pool has reopened which will help us maintain the centre. The most obvious example of this is someone who would cut the strip of grass immediately outside the pool perimeter during the summer months.

Our Friends of Group will be part of the Birtley Community Aquatic Centre Charitable Incorporated Organisation (BCAC CIO). Volunteers who join the Friends of Group will also have the opportunity of becoming an associate member of BCAC CIO.

One of our project team members, Jackie Mowbray, has kindly agreed to lead the Friends of Group and she will be at our drop in session at Birtley Library on Saturday morning from 1100 to 1200.

If you are interested in finding out more about these volunteer activities, or would like to volunteer for one or more of the volunteer roles, please get in touch either by coming to one of our drop in sessions or by emailing us at birtley.aquatic@gmail.com.

Fundraising plan

If our application to the COF for £271k is successful, we still need to raise an additional £80k to reopen the pool, as the COF will only fund 80% of the capital expenditure so we need to find other funding sources for the remaining 20%. We have developed a target list of 15 local organisations who provide charitable funding for capital expenditure, with help from our local contact for the National Lottery and Clare Hodgson, the independent consultant who has been supporting us with fundraising throughout the project. 

Yvonne and Matthew are in the process of contacting these organisations to share details of the project benefits and our remaining funding requirement; we hope this will result in additional funding being secured.

Fundraising progress

Since the February newsletter, we have raised more funding, either through events, donations or personal pledges:

• Donation from the Local Councillor fund for Birtley             £500
• Donation from the Local Councillor fund for Lamesley       £500

Total:  £1,000

Tree clearance work at the pool

Gateshead Council have employed a contractor which has cut back the overhanging trees in the car park and cleared the vegetation that has covered some of the car parking spaces.

Drop in sessions during 2024 at Birtley Library

The BCAC trustees have now booked Birtley Library for more drop in sessions during 2024. These will be on the second Saturday of each month from 10:30 to 12:00 when some of the trustee group will be available to answer questions and listen to any ideas you may have about the pool. Please feel free to come along and meet us between 10:30 and 12:00 on any of the following dates. You don’t need to stay for the full hour and a half, it’s fine to just drop in for a few minutes on any of the following Saturday mornings:

9th March           13th April           11th May

8th June            13th July            10th August

If you would like to contact us with your ideas or questions, please email us on birtley.aquatic@gmail.com

On behalf of the Birtley Community Aquatic Centre CIO trustee board :

Yvonne Probert [Chair]                    Matthew Grant [Treasurer]

Update : December 2023

Birtley Community Pool Newsletter

December 4th 2023 - Progress update for our supporters
Hello again to all our supporters. This is the second newsletter that we have produced to keep everyone informed about our progress. We plan to produce one of these at the start of every month from now until we can reopen the pool.

Charitable incorporated organisation (CIO) registration achieved 

On Monday October 23rd, our trustee group submitted our application to become a charitable incorporated organisation to the Charities Commission, together with our Constitution. It typically takes between eight and twelve weeks to achieve this, as the Charities Commission have lots of applications to review, but they have prioritised the review of our application due to the adverse impact on the Birtley Community of closing the pool in July. We responded to their feedback on our application on November 27th and we achieved our registration on November 28th, just five weeks after submitting our application, which is great news.

Our CIO is called Birtley Community Aquatic Centre (BCAC) and our Constitution contains the following paragraph which explains what our purpose will be:

“The object of the CIO is the promotion of community participation in healthy recreation, for the benefit of the inhabitants of Birtley and the surrounding area, by the provision of facilities at Birtley Community Aquatic Centre, for swimming and other aquatic activities capable of promoting physical and mental health and fitness.”

BCAC business plan submitted to Gateshead Council
On November 21st the BCAC trustees submitted our detailed business plan to Gateshead Council. This was a very detailed financial forecast which included the expenditure that we will need to make before the pool opens, and then a forecast  financial result for the first two years of operation at the pool. The forecast shows a small profit in the first full year of trading.

Our business plan submission included a large number of supporting documents, including:

• The pool timetables which include the activities we are proposing to run.
• The income that we are forecasting to achieve from all these activities.
• Our organisation structure, job roles, shift rotas and associated employment costs.
• The other costs that we expect to incur on an ongoing basis.
• Our HR policies and procedures
• Our planned IT investment
• Our plans for preventative maintenance of the assets
• Details of the capital investment we will need to make before the pool reopens.
• Details of the operating costs we will need to incur before the pool reopens.

The officials at Gateshead Council that we have been working with since March 2023 have reviewed our business plan and have been very positive about its content. One of the officials commented that “I have to congratulate you on producing a comprehensive, honest and realistic document that fills me with confidence that this venture will be a success. A huge well done to everyone involved.”

These officials have told us that they will be recommending to the Gateshead Council cabinet meeting on December 19th that our proposal should progress into the final phase of the asset transfer process.

Fundraising Totaliser

We have now secured the following amounts towards our target for reopening the pool. Some of the amounts are pledges from the organisation which have not yet been paid to us,

• Crowdfunding (after deduction of transaction charges)                   £22,888
• Safer Streets Birtley                                                                                        £1,000
• Station Lane Area Residents Association                                                £1,900
• Race night fundraising at Birtley Catholic club on 10th November     £1,613
• Lamesley Local Councillors fund                                                                 £500
• Birtley Local Councillors fund                                                                      £500

                                                                                                           Total    £28,401

We have also received pledges from the following organisations who will be donating equipment that BCAC will need for the pool:

• Rotary Club of Birtley - A Defibrillator
• The Royal Life Saving Society – A PXB Spinal Board
• Chip and Pin Direct – The IT hardware and software

Deferral of the planned reopening date to September 2024

As a result, we need to defer the reopening date to later in 2024 and we are currently aiming for a September 2024 start date. This delay should also enable us to obtain additional funding from these larger funding sources which will be used to replace the existing boilers which are unreliable, inefficient and near the end of their life, and to invest in solar panels and other energy efficiencies which will strengthen our business case.

Gateshead Council have indicated that they will support the deferral of the reopening till we have obtained the necessary funding and made these two investments in the pool.

Progress in the design of the BCAC logo

The students in the art department at Lord Lawson of Beamish Academy have made good progress in coming up with several interesting designs for a logo for the pool.

The BCAC trustees will be reviewing these designs in December and picking a short list of three. We will then share these with the Community in Birtley during January who will be asked to vote on their favourite design.

Next drop in session at Birtley Library

Yvonne and Matthew will both be at Birtley Library on Saturday 9^th December from 10.30 am until 12 noon when we will be available to answer questions and listen to any ideas you may have about the pool. Please feel free to come along and meet us.

If you would like to contact us with your ideas or questions, please email us on birtley.aquatic@gmail.com

On behalf of the Birtley Community Aquatic Centre CIO trustee board :

Yvonne Probert [Chair]                    Matthew Grant [Treasurer]