The Friends of Jubilee pool have compiled lots of evidence for why this is so important (https://savejubileepool.org/) so I'll just tell you about my personal and family connection to the pool!
I learned to swim at Jubilee pool. On of my first jobs was as a life guard there. I have so many happy memories of summer inflatable sessions and life saving classes and as I got older have swum many many lengths there. It's always been part of my home life in Brislington (still home although I left over half my life ago!). Now I have children of my own, when we come to visit we come to Jubilee to play, and I bore them with my memories.
The alternatives for the local community offered by the council aren't accessible, aren't affordable, but the council has made a hard decision and decided to close the pool. That's done.
What is on offer is a 'Community Asset Transfer', whereby the pool will be transferred to the local community to run and maintain.
I've seen the power of community in action, where I live in Sheffield the local library was closed by the council and a group of volunteers have kept it open, it's thriving and the community are benefitting so much from it... this CAN be done! The Friends of Jubilee team will do it. But they need support, financial support, to enable them to keep going, paying for things they simply can't do as volunteers.
So my children and I are coming down to Bristol for the swimathon, we're all going to get in and swim for an hour. The boys will see how long they can swim for continuously (lessons have changed so much, I'd done a mile by the time I was their age, distance no longer seems to feature as a thing). We have no idea how far they can go... please encourage them to swim as far as they can, and help us keep this vital community resource open by sponsoring us for the swimathon.
Let's keep Jubilee open!!
