Peel’s Western Swimming Pool has celebrated its 10 year anniversary with hundreds of people taking up its offer of free swimming over the weekend.
The offer was to say thank you to regular customers and to tempt others in the community who may not have visited the pool before.
There are now 700 children learning to swim each week at the Peel facility.
The 10th anniversary celebrations started on Saturday morning with a reception hosted by the current members of the Western Swimming Pool Board and guests including MHKs Tim Crookall, David Anderson and Graham Cregeen, and Geoff Corkish MLC.
Board administrator Melanie Jansen and chairman Peter Dale have been involved with the pool since before it was built.
Mr Dale praised the pool staff for all their hard work and for providing a ‘friendly welcoming atmosphere, a safe and clean pool, and an exciting range of activities for customers of all ages and abilities’.
He added: ‘Thank you also to the customers for supporting new initiatives such as synchronised swimming, snorkelling and adult lessons, which provide coaching for timid beginners all the way through to competitive tri-athletes and open water swimmers.’
Lisa Corlett, who has worked at the pool since before it opened, cut a cake to commemmorate the day. Lisa is a senior lifeguard and swimming teacher.
The cake was decorated with a design created by 10-year-old Katie Roberts from Kirk Michael.
Katie’s bright and cheery yellow starfish design, named Fenella, was chosen as the winner of a competition to design a mascot for the pool’s swimming lesson scheme.
Fenella will now take pride of place on swim caps, towels and other swimming accessories at the pool.
Customers were also given a behind the scenes look at how the pool is run and shown where money had been invested to enable the pool to improve its water quality, reduce running costs and give an overall higher quality service to its customers.
There were also talks about lifeguard training, and pool manager Kath Andrews carried out tours of the pool plant room for the public.
The Western Swimming Pool has been included in the top five swimming pools in the UK by industry experts in terms of water quality.
It was officially opened on October 9, 2003, by Prince Andrew.
The first swimming pool in Peel was at Traie Fogog beach, where an open-air pool was constructed in response to the growing popularity of sea bathing and the establishment of the tourist industry in Peel.
That pool was closed in the 1950s following a series of landfalls and another was built at Marine Parade which was closed in the 1980s.
Western Swimming Pool is offering annual membership cards at discounted rates during December.
There are several new initiatives on the go, such as synchronised swimming, snorkelling and rookie lifeguard courses.
For information about the pool visit www.westernswimmingpool.im or call 842525.
