Born on the
poolside,
built for the committee room.
Swimly started with a simple question: why is running a grassroots swim club still so painful? We are building the answer.
We have been where you are
Swimly was started by a swim parent who volunteered on the committee of a grassroots club. The kind of club held together by a handful of dedicated people giving up their evenings and weekends so that children could train and compete.
The reality of running that club looked like this: membership records scattered across multiple spreadsheets, monthly subscription reminders sent by hand, session registers printed and photocopied, and safeguarding paperwork stored in a filing cabinet nobody could find the key for.
The software options were no better. Most were designed for American swim teams, built in the early 2000s, and required a training course just to navigate the interface. Nothing was designed for how UK clubs actually operate.
So we started building something better. Not a generic sports platform with swimming bolted on, but purpose-built software for British swimming clubs, designed by people who understand the volunteer burden because they have carried it.
The spreadsheet era
- Membership records in one spreadsheet, payments in another, attendance in a third
- Committee members spending 10+ hours a week on admin instead of poolside
- Safeguarding records stored in formats that do not meet current guidance
- Parents confused about what they owe, coaches unsure who is enrolled
- Handover between committee years means lost data and starting from scratch
Swim England clubs
Volunteer hours wasted on admin each year*
Years tech leadership
Frustrated swim parent
* Estimate based on committee survey responses. Actual figure may vary.
What drives us
Every decision we make comes back to one thing: making life easier for the volunteers who keep grassroots swimming alive.
Built by volunteers, for volunteers
We know the reality of committee life: late nights reconciling spreadsheets, chasing subs, and juggling safeguarding paperwork. Swimly exists because we lived it.
UK clubs first, always
Every feature is designed around how British swimming clubs actually operate. Swim England membership categories, UK bank integrations, and GDPR compliance are built in from the start.
Safeguarding as standard
Wavepower compliance, DBS tracking, and role-based access controls are not optional extras. They are core to the platform because they are core to your club.
Modern technology, simple experience
Under the hood, Swimly is built on modern infrastructure hosted in the UK. On the surface, it is straightforward enough for any volunteer to pick up in minutes.
Designed for British swimming
Most club management software is designed for American swim teams and then awkwardly adapted for the UK market. Swimly is different.
Membership categories, county affiliations, and competition structures built around how Swim England operates.
Safeguarding workflows aligned with current Wavepower guidance. DBS tracking, welfare officer tools, and audit trails as standard.
Direct Debit collection through UK payment processors. No international transfer fees, no currency conversion headaches.
From frustration to solution
Swimly started with a simple realisation: the people keeping grassroots swimming alive deserved better than spreadsheets and outdated software.
Swim parent frustration
Volunteering on a club committee, late nights reconciling spreadsheets, manually chasing subs, and juggling safeguarding paperwork in filing cabinets. The frustration was real.
Building Swimly
Started building the platform swim clubs actually deserve. Researched with 20+ committees across England to understand the real pain points.
Pilot programme launches
Working with founding clubs to test, refine, and validate the platform in real-world conditions. Learning what volunteers truly need.
Founding clubs onboarding
Rolling out to the first wave of clubs across England, Scotland, and Wales based on pilot learnings.
Public launch nationwide
Opening Swimly to swimming clubs nationwide with full Swim England integration.
Built for British swimming clubs
Every decision is made with UK clubs, volunteer committees, and member safety in mind.
UK-built and hosted
All infrastructure hosted in the United Kingdom. Your club data stays in the UK.
GDPR compliant
Built with data protection regulations at the core. Full GDPR compliance for member data.
Wavepower aligned
Safeguarding workflows designed around current Wavepower guidance and Swim England requirements.
Volunteer-first design
Every feature tested with real committee volunteers. No training required to get started.
From the poolside to the codebase
Swimly was built by someone who knows the volunteer burden because they carried it.
Mike Tempest
Founder
LinkedInMike is a swim parent at RTW Monson swimming club in Kent. He has also spent over 15 years building technology products at companies including Google and Apple.
As CTO, he scaled RefME from zero to 2 million users, building systems that needed to handle real scale and real complexity. Currently, he is CTO at Risika, a Danish fintech company, where he leads engineering and infrastructure.
Swimly emerged from volunteering on a club committee and experiencing first-hand the administrative burden volunteers carry. Late nights reconciling spreadsheets, manually tracking subs, and wrestling with outdated software that was not built for how British clubs operate.
The conviction that drove Swimly was simple: the people who give up their evenings and weekends to keep grassroots swimming alive deserve better tools. Not enterprise software with a manual, not American platforms that do not understand Swim England categories. Just straightforward, modern software built for the reality of volunteer-run clubs.
Ready to leave the spreadsheets behind?
Join the clubs already on the waitlist for modern swim club management software built for the UK.
Join the waitlistFree for clubs with fewer than 50 members.