Peter Tabb Swimarathon Organising Committee
behind the scenes The Swimarathon
is Jersey’s longest running and most successful fundraiser
The first Lions Club of Jersey Swimarathon was held in February 1972. It lasted for two days and raised just over £4,000. When, in 1973, the sum raised was tripled the Lions recognised that they were on to a winner. A winner it proved to be and even a world-beater, being featured for several years in the Guinness Books of Records for the greatest amount of money raised from sponsored swimming at a single event.
Money from the Swimarathon has been used for building an indoor swimming pool for the disabled, a day care centre for children, a day care centre for the elderly, establishing a hospital radio service and supporting many other local and international charities including the Jersey Cheshire Home, Jersey Hospice, Jersey Focus on Mental Health, Holidays for Heroes, Jersey and providing major donations to Channel Islands Air Search, a service founded by the Lions Club of Guernsey. In 2014, the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the Lions Club of Jersey, funds from the Swimarathon were divided among fifty local charities.
A major beneficiary of funds raised by swimmers has been the Lions’ own project, Maison des Landes Hotel for People with Disabilities, adopted by the Lions as a major project as long ago as 1965. Thanks to the generosity of the swimmers and their team sponsors, each year the Lions offer up to three weeks’ free respite holidays to local residents who might, for whatever reason, be unable to enjoy a break in a hotel. This is just one way that the Lions ensure that money raised in the local community benefits those less privileged.
Since 2007 the event has been sponsored by RBC Wealth Management and the Lions are delighted to have such a formidable organisation as their major sponsor and partner in the event. As well as funding most of the publicity RBC Wealth
Page 22 Jersey, a sporting Island
Management also sponsor every lap swum.
This year’s Swimarathon will be the 43rd consecutive event. The concept was the brain-child of a fundraising committee led by the late Lion, John Abraham. They were looking for something as potentially effective as the Jersey World Aid Walks which the public had taken to their hearts and soles (of their feet!) and, in an Island girt by the sea, sponsored swimming seemed to be a natural. The question was asked: “Do you think we could ever raise funds from sponsored swimming?” The answer was a cautious ‘yes’ and with the ready co-operation of the Jersey Swimming Club under the presidency of the late Harold Michel and the then Fort Regent chief executive Duncan Gibson, the Swimarathon at Fort Regent Pool was born.
In those early days
it was actually called the ‘Swimathon’ but common usage soon dictated that it should become the Swimarathon.
Planning each event begins in July of the previous year and is the responsibility of a committee of five Lions members and Administrator Clive Skilton. One of the first tasks of the committee, in conjunction with RBC Wealth Management, is to determine who will be the principal beneficiaries of the funds
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