Seagulls Swimming Club

Seagulls Swimming Club was first started in 1978 and offers youth swimming, masters swimming, synchronised swimming and competitive water polo. Drawing membership from all age groups – 5 years & upwards, Seniors (18+) & Masters (25+), the club attracts swimmers, water polo players and synchronised swimmers from Christchurch, New Milton and the surrounding areas of Dorset and Hampshire. Today, Seagulls is proud to be the largest multi-disciplined competitive water based sports club in Dorset, England.

One of the club’s primary goals is to target open meet competitions which cater to the skills and abilities of their active members. Participating in these competitions allows their members to qualify for county, regional and national swimming events throughout the year.

These open meets provide the perfect opportunity for the swimmer to showcase their talents, however, according to Seagulls’ representative Colin Burroughs, the only problem with the meets is getting all the members to submit their entries in time. Despite the club’s use of email to prompt members to register, they found that members still missed the entry deadlines. This meant that they couldn’t compete at the smaller events which ultimately resulted in the members being unable to qualify for the larger events.

“Whenever there is an open meet approaching, we send emails to the relevant members to register for the meet via our website. However, sending an email does not guarantee delivery, and even if it is delivered, you cannot guarantee that it will be read,” says Colin.

These two problems lead him to integrate the BulkSMS API into the club’s bespoke management platform. This integration enabled SMS reminders to be sent directly from their platform to any members who have not yet registered for their swim meets.

This use of SMS has provided a simple, yet effective, reminder service for swimmers and their parents which prompts them to register for their relevant meets via the Seagulls Swimming Club website.

Seagulls Swimming Club

When asked how effective SMS has been as a reminder service, Colin told us that the implementation has seen a dramatic increase in the number of entries and has been greatly appreciated by the members.

“Over the past few years, there has been a notable increase in the use of SMS in the sporting industry. Seagulls’ use of our SMS API solution is the perfect example of how SMS is being used to ensure successful communication between clubs and their members. SMS ensures that all members remain informed, and, in this case, given the opportunity to showcase their talents,” says Dr. Pieter Streicher, managing director of BulkSMS.com.