Swim Club End of Season Checklist: 15 Things Your Committee Should Do Before Summer

The last county championships are done. The medals are handed out. The poolside WhatsApp group goes quiet for the first time since September.

But for your committee, this is actually one of the busiest periods of the year. The gap between competition season ending and the new season starting is when the real admin work happens. Get it right, and September starts smoothly. Get it wrong, and you spend October firefighting.

Here is a practical checklist your committee can work through before everyone disappears on holiday.

Finances

1. Close Out the Season’s Accounts

Your treasurer needs a clean financial picture before the AGM. That means reconciling every payment, chasing any outstanding fees, and documenting any exceptional costs (travel, equipment, pool hire overruns).

If your club still tracks payments in a spreadsheet, this is the point where you discover three families who stopped paying in January and nobody noticed. Automated billing systems flag these immediately, but manual tracking relies on someone remembering to check. Compare billing automation on our SwimClub Manager comparison and view pricing.

2. Review Your Fee Structure

Are your fees covering costs? Pool hire goes up most years. Coaching costs increase. Equipment wears out. Compare this season’s actual costs against income and decide whether fees need adjusting for the new season.

Do this before the AGM so you can present a clear recommendation to members, not spring a surprise fee increase in September.

3. Chase Outstanding Balances

Every club has a few families who owe money at season end. It is much easier to resolve this now, while everyone is still engaged, than in September when you are trying to process re-registrations simultaneously.

Send a clear, friendly message: here is what is owed, here is how to pay, here is the deadline. Most families genuinely forget rather than deliberately avoid paying.

Membership

4. Run a Membership Audit

How many active swimmers do you actually have? Not how many are on your spreadsheet from three years ago. How many regularly attend, are paid up, and have current Swim England registrations?

This number determines your pool hire needs, coaching ratios, and budget for next season. If it is wrong, everything else is wrong too.

5. Confirm Squad Allocations for Next Season

Coaches should recommend squad moves based on the season’s progress. Which swimmers are ready to move up? Who needs to stay where they are? Are there any swimmers leaving for university, moving away, or stepping back?

Document these decisions now. Parents expect to know their child’s squad before the new season starts, not on the first night back.

6. Plan Your Recruitment

Are you at capacity, or do you need new swimmers? If you need to recruit, plan your open days and taster sessions for September now, not in August when nobody is available to organise them.

Check your Learn to Swim pathway too. Are there swimmers ready to transition into squads? That is your most reliable recruitment pipeline.

Safeguarding and Compliance

7. Check DBS Expiry Dates

Every volunteer and coach with poolside access needs a current DBS check. Go through your records and identify anyone whose check expires before the new season starts. DBS renewals can take weeks, so start the process now.

8. Review Your Wavepower Compliance

Swim England’s Wavepower policy gets updated periodically. Check you have the latest version, that your welfare officer has completed any required training, and that your club’s safeguarding procedures are documented and accessible.

9. Update Your Contact Details

Do you have current email addresses and phone numbers for every family? Emergency contacts up to date? Medical information current?

This is a data protection obligation as well as a safety one. A quick “please confirm your details” message to all members before the season ends is much simpler than chasing people individually in September.

Administration

10. Prepare Your AGM Pack

If your AGM is in the summer (many clubs hold theirs in June or July), start preparing now. You need:

Financial report (your treasurer’s accounts for the year)
Membership report (numbers, squad breakdown, growth or decline)
Coaching report (achievements, squad development, training plans)
Committee nominations (who is standing down, who is standing for election)
Any constitutional changes being proposed

Give members at least 21 days’ notice of the AGM, though your constitution may require more.

11. Document Everything

When committee members change at the AGM, institutional knowledge walks out the door. Document your processes now while they are fresh: how you book pool time, how you process payments, where the equipment is stored, who your Swim England regional contact is, what the login details are for your various accounts.

A proper handover document saves the incoming committee weeks of confusion.

12. Archive the Season

Save your results, attendance records, financial reports, and committee minutes somewhere secure. You will need them for future reference, and incoming committee members will want to understand what happened before they took over.

Planning Ahead

13. Book Pool Time for Next Season

Pool availability is competitive. If your local leisure centre allocates lane time on a first-come basis, get your booking in early. If you negotiate an annual contract, start that conversation now rather than in August when the pool manager is on holiday.

14. Set Your Competition Calendar

Which open meets and county events will your club enter next season? Map these out now so coaches can plan training cycles and parents can plan their weekends. Early entry often means lower fees too.

15. Review Your Systems

Honestly assess whether your current admin setup worked this season. If your treasurer spent every Sunday evening chasing payments, that is a systems problem, not a people problem. If your membership secretary cannot tell you how many swimmers you have without counting a spreadsheet, that is a systems problem too.

The gap between seasons is the best time to evaluate new tools, because you can set everything up without disrupting an active membership.

Making the Transition Easier

The clubs that start next season smoothly are the ones that did the boring admin work during this gap. It is not glamorous, but it is the difference between a committee that feels in control and one that feels overwhelmed by October.

If your committee is spending more time on administration than on actually supporting your swimmers, it might be worth looking at how modern club management software can automate the repetitive tasks. If your club uses Club Organiser, our honest comparison covers what to consider before renewing. Swimly was built specifically for UK swimming clubs by a swim parent who got tired of the spreadsheet chaos. Explore our membership management, billing automation, and attendance tracking features to see how we help committees spend less time on admin.

Start with the checklist. Tick things off. Your September self will thank you.