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Jane Coode and Helen Killa have successfully run Poseidon Swim School for the past 18 years. Jane is married to Chris and has one son Tommi. Helen is married to Paul and has four children, James, Jessica, Lauren and Alice. This is our story.... Jane and I met during the spring of 1991 whilst both working at the old St. Helens baths in Swansea. At this time I was working as a Lifeguard and Jane was teaching the schools swimming programme. We both shared a love of swimming and instantly clicked with a strong friendship following fast. My background was very much competitive swimming where I swam for the Swansea Otters Club for many years before joining the Caswell Bay Lifeguard Club where I volunteered many happy hours as a Lifeguard at Caswell Bay. Jane came very much from a recreational swimming background enjoying snorkelling, canoeing and Lifesaving. Qualifying as a swimming teacher at a young age and later progressing to tutoring, Jane rapidly fed her love of anything to do with the water! Realising Jane and I had so much in common we set up Poseidon Swim School during the summer of 1991. When we started in September 1991 we had 200 pupils and 2 teachers which we employed. Over the years, our customer base grew and currently stands at over 2,000 pupils with the school employing around 30 staff. In 1999 Poseidon entered the Evening Post Enterprise Awards in the Small Business of the Year category and got through to the final, before achieving runners up along side Lara Johnson Hairdressing. During the years that followed we worked hard at becoming a self sufficient school, training all our own Lifeguards and putting in place a teaching programme for prospective swimming teachers which we are very proud of. Training our own staff means we always get an excellent calibre of teacher with a sound Poseidon attitude. Poseidon is very much a family business which now employs Helens sister Anna Roberts (senior teacher) brother Mark Roberts (senior lifeguard and pool maintenance) and mum Thelma Roberts (Admin). We have recently been joined by Helens son, James (teacher) and daughter Jessica (trainee lifeguard and teacher) One of our biggest achievements along with teaching many thousands of children to swim with excellent technique is our annual sponsored swim which over the years has raised over £37,000 for charities. Have a look at our Sponsorship Page for all the details. The nicest thing that anyone has ever said to me about the swim school is this "You can always pick out the children who have learnt to swim with Poseidon as they are the ones doing it correctly and they always look so good." That statement just sums it up for me. |