We are delighted to share the news that Active Life Swimming Instructor, Julie Maver, has been shortlisted as a finalist for the Physical Activity Hero Award at the upcoming UK Active Awards. It’s a fantastic achievement to be chosen as a finalist from such a strong field of entries.
To vote for Julie visit: www.ukactive.com/ukactive-awards-2022-stage-2-public-vote/
Julie has been a swimming instructor for over 20 years at Active Life. She’s taught thousands of swimmers from 3 to 93 years old. Although she is employed as a swimming instructor she is so much more. Julie is an inspirational character not just within the centre but within the local community, having taught people to swim in the sea as well as in the pool, training people to swim the Channel, complete their first triathlon etc as well as teaching all ages to swim in the pool. She is a pleasure to work with as she is so enthusiastic and knowledgeable and mentors other swim instructors. How she has time for everyone is a miracle as she’s always being stopped by customer who have directly or indirectly been taught by her and she always has time for them.
Recently Julie has been the driving force for organising sea swimming lessons for Active Life. Not only has she spent hours looking at the tide times and creating course content, but she delivered a presentation to local sea swimmers to get them onboard as sea swim champions and recruited people to attend the sea swimming lessons. She become a NOWCA open water Level 2 coach to qualify and keep her knowledge up to date. This summer will see 48 people go from the pool into sea swimming lessons due to her enthusiasm for creating a journey for her swimmers.
Julie has had a connection with the local College for international students for years, having spent time abroad and developed an interest. She has taught countless international students from Japan to swim in our pools and involved them in community events as marshals and volunteers. Active Life would not have had the relationship with the College without Julie. She is involved with Active Life’s Triathlon events programme having volunteered to get on board initially as some of her swimmers were taking part and she wanted some of the international students to see different elements of UK life. Since then she has taken on roles as Swim Director, Transition Director and Finish Director and is key to the public face of the event.
Julie has recently started an inclusive swimming lesson and spent time outside of work devising the questionnaire required to understand where participants looking to be referred are physically, mentally and from a swim experience perspective. She is excellent with people from all backgrounds and keeps pushing for more pool time to reduce inequality.
We’re keeping everything crossed for the UK Active Awards in June, please join us in congratulating Julie for her achievement so far!