Richmond Swimming Pool has been recognised by the Amateur Swimming Association (ASA) in their Aquamark accreditation scheme.

The ASA is the national governing body for swimming and Aquamark is its quality seal of approval for swimming lesson providers. It is an original and unique programme, designed specifically to help organisations providing swimming programmes to improve and enhance their service.

Comprising four modules, operators are assessed on areas such as Programme Operation, Staffing, Customer Relations and Policy and Strategy. To achieve the top-level accreditation Premier status, a lesson provider must pass all four criteria. To achieve Approved status it must pass two of the four criteria.

The North Yorkshire swimming pool achieved Approved status earlier this month and the 1,000 people that access swimming lessons each week now look set to benefit from the improved service guaranteed by the ASA’s seal of approval.

Swimming Co-ordinator Nicky Hamer feels that the application process went smoothly and is pleased to achieve the status.

“The whole centre has felt a real boost since we were awarded the accreditation,” she said. “It has really made the hard work worthwhile and we felt the process went smoothly, we applied for the accreditation to assure our customers that we are providing a quality management system

“The application process allows us to be evaluated and this was an excellent way of helping us improve the service we provide for all of our customers. Our assessor Fiona Garnett was very helpful and became very involved with us during the process.”

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For more information contact ASA Media Assistant Gemma Field on 01509 632262, 07917 726431 or email gemma.field@swimming.org

The Amateur Swimming Association is the English National Governing Body for Swimming, Diving, Water Polo, Open Water, and Synchronised Swimming. It organises competition throughout England, establishes the Laws of the Sport and operates comprehensive certification and education programmes for Teachers, Coaches and Officials as well as its renowned Learn To Swim Awards scheme. The ASA supports 1,220 affiliated swimming clubs through a National/Regional/County structure. The ASA aims to ensure everybody has an opportunity to learn to swim.

The Kellogg’s ASA Awards Scheme is the most successful awards scheme in British sport and issues around two million awards every year to swimmers all around the world.

For more information about ASA Awards please see www.swimming.org