Google WEFTE.org, a partial solution and an opportunity.
I work alone. I have no money, power or authority. I must encourage, convince, inspire and persuade.
My Aim is to encourage pool managers and owners to provide WEFTE sessions for elderly swimmers’ and non-swimmers’ mobility.
My Objective is to increase the number of elderly people swimming or doing water-based exercises.
My Method of encouragement is to correspond with 5072 pool managers and owners who could provide these opportunities. My database contains considerable detail including their emails, Facebook, Twitter, phone numbers and postal addresses.
You may object, “During covid, exercises are demonstrated in the home. We don’t need WEFTE.” On the contrary, what is demonstrated by lithe, sprightly, amazingly fit young trainers is unrealistic and a ‘turn-off’ for the elderly. It’s a negative message.
WEFTE.org demonstrates, for the elderly, by the elderly, without aiming perfection. The message says ‘I’m elderly. You CAN do this too. Feel the difference. It’s not about muscles and strength. It’s about joints and mobility to beat arthritis’.
My message: the elderly have potential is to change attitudes of pool managers and the elderly themselves.
If pool managers complete the WEFTE survey, their websites will provide, and automatically update, detailed answers to questions the elderly ask:
Which local pool best suits my needs?
What’s their contact details?
When are your timetabled sessions for the elderly?
How do I get from home to poolside with my disabilities? (eg bus routes)
Do the changing rooms provide what I want?
What’s the pool like (eg size, depth, temperature)?
Do they have the equipment for my exercises?
Has management agreed policies for the elderly?
Can I contact my LocalAgeUK on your website?
Do they provide supervisors?
Can I contact pool owners to adapt premises (eg. handrails, ramps, private cubicles)?
Wefte.org reflects my philosophy. Wefte should be a well-informed rational activity as well as healthy, great fun and invigorating.
The exercises section has 76 short videos by the elderly relevant to the joints and locations of common ailments amongst the elderly.
The “News and Information” section offers education and research relevant to exercises recommended by a hydro-therapist.
Details in the “Find a pool” section show pool managers and owners currently neglect the needs of the elderly and disabled. Change that at no cost to save the NHS.
Publicity. What I need is not money, but publicity and marketing. There are two kinds, National and Local.
My thoughts have had to be on publicity without expenditure. Most influential will be the BBC, YouTube, Instagram and other media.
Nationally, I have to work through other organisations, most obviously Swim England, Scotland, Wales and services in Northern Ireland. I aim to contact charities concerned with the elderly of which there are 26. Naturally they are concerned with their own special interest not mine, but there is some appreciation that we should work together for my aim to reduce pressure on NHS, Home Care and Social Services. Also there are numerous care associations for particular afflictions, many of them terminal, who may recommend WEFTE to lengthen patients’ mobility and survival.
Local has to be done by the pool manager. If pool managers have completed the WEFTE Survey, they can email their LocalAgeUK from their own website. Run a minibus from care homes. From an NHS viewpoint, this is more preventative than curative. It produces more swimmers than exercisers.
The best curative source of exercisers is from physiotherapists. Pool managers should Google csp.org.uk/public-patient/find-physiotherapist. Then click on PHYSIO2U. Insert their postcode in “Search by postcode” and click on SEARCH THIS AREA. Typically, this will yield a half to two dozen exercisers.
GPs may also recommend their patients; I work through the Royal Society of GPs. Paper publicity it is binned. Email contact is better. It costs nothing.
Building and Community Development.
The crises in the NHS, Residential Care and Social Service are a massive unified problem. I am not pretending that WEFTE is anything but a drop in the ocean, a contribution, fuelled by enthusiasm.
There aren’t enough pools. Large employers, hotels, the police and others might be persuaded to loan their pools at low demand times. Their pools are suitable; but their number is not significant addition.
In recent years, public pools have been closing. We need to build more. How? Here is an interesting fact. A number of open-air pools (which obviously make no winter contribution to WEFTE) are at primary schools. It seems, some time in the past, enthusiastic parents, teachers or governors have built these pools with permission from their local education authority. They can form a stable, responsible, managerial structure. Waiting at the school gates everyday are parents who know each other, the germ of a local community with a common identity and common family concerns within the school’s catchment area. Typically, grandparents are not far away. If the energy is there, walls and a roof can be added after parents run marathons or other sponsored activities. Enthusiasm costs nothing. A typical school pool is 20 x 10 x 1 to 1.5 metres. There needs to be a surround of 2.5 metre at one side and end; and 1.5 at the other. Thus, a typical site is 24 x 14 metres. A small addition to house the boiler, pumps and filters is needed. The overall cost being around £120,000 varying with the materials used and the size of the pool. The building could be multi-purpose if the pool is drained and covered over. Then the school replaces the church as a much-needed place of community focus. It is feasible.
Mine is a post-covid 10-year proposal I have started to put into practice at virtually no expense. I run my LocalAgeUK socially very diverse group at a small profit for the charity. Chlorinated pools are safe. Cubicles give assurance. In future only vaccinated people should be admitted, and they by showing a personal vaccination card. Receptionists may also have carrier detection equipment.
Encouragement does not have to be government controlled or financed.
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