13/09/2026
THANK YOU! 🙌💙
We can’t believe it’s been a week since we closed the door on our 2026 summer season!
A huge THANK YOU to everyone who has helped make this summer at Buckfastleigh Open Air Pool - Victoria Park such a brilliant one. The pool really is a community effort, and we couldn’t do it without you.
Firstly, to everyone who visited us this summer, thank you! 🏊♀️☀️
Every swim, tuck shop purchase and visit helps support the pool, and it has been fantastic to welcome so many familiar faces alongside lots of new visitors from Buckfastleigh and beyond.
To our amazing local businesses who supported our Business Supporter Scheme and helped us fundraise for our new thermal pool cover - thank you!
ClearMoor Accounting
J Searle & Son
And thank you to everyone who donated through our Crowdfunder.
A huge thank you goes to Peter from Swimfix and Rob who supported us with sourcing and installing the new pool cover, and who continue to support us with other projects!
To Mark and the team at Earth Wrights Play - thank you for your continued support in keeping the play park safe and enjoyable for everyone.
To Pam Barrett - thank you for your continued support of the pool, including hosting the bat walks as part of our special night swim events! 😄
To Dartmoor Skies - thank you for joining us for our starry night swims and sharing the wonders of the night sky with our swimmers.
To Charlie Scullion — thank you for all your work maintaining our play park as a brilliant community space and wildlife habitat, and for your involvement in an exciting new project we have coming up!
To Better Places - thank you for including us in Hello Summer and for helping us make the most of Victoria Park this summer. ☀️
To all the groups and individuals who booked the pool this summer — thank you for choosing to spend time with us! 💙
A special thank you to:
• Buckfastleigh Youth Club
• The Orchard Saturday Club
• Girlguiding Ashburton and Buckfastleigh
• Blue Sky Fostering
• 1st Buckfastleigh Scout Group
• Bovey Tracey Scouts
• Ivybridge Scouts
• Heath Church Youth Camp
• Torbay Youth Justice Service
• And everyone who celebrated a birthday with us! 🎉
To our local schools:
Buckfastleigh Primary School, St Mary’s Catholic Primary School and Landscove Primary School - thank you for using the pool and working with our teaching team to help your pupils develop their swimming and water skills.
And to Bidwell Brook School, thank you for continuing to use our pool as a safe and welcoming space for your pupils to swim.
To Camphill Devon Community — thank you for once again joining us for summer swimming sessions.
To our grant funders — thank you for investing in our pool and our community:
• Ashburton and Buckfastleigh League of Friends who enabled us to purchase new lifesaving equipment including a PXB water rescue board and 3x training defibrillators
• South West Water for giving us funding to provide swimming lessons to children and adults
• Devon Community Foundation for providing us with funding to offer a number of free sessions for our community!
The National Lottery Community Fund for providing us with funding towards our new thermal pool cover
• Those that have supported us through the Charities Aid Foundation
Your support has made a real difference this year.
To Mary from Gong Song - thank you for working with us on our new sound bath sessions. We loved bringing something a little different to the pool this year!
Thank you to FURNØ who have supported the pool this year and brought their fabulous pizza along to the park on Mondays and Fridays throughout the Summer.
Thank you to everyone who came along, supported and donated as part of our 24-hour lifeguard Swimathon event. We raised over £1400 and our lifegaurds swam an incredible 35.53 miles! 👏
And thank you to everyone who bought solar eclipse glasses, helping us raise over £990 for the pool - what a fantastic fundraiser! 🌞
Thank you to Sound Diving for using the pool to train up new divers - we love to support local businesses.
Thank you also to Debs for supporting some of our lifegaurd team through their Open Water qualification!
To our wonderful volunteers - thank you! 🩵
Whether you helped behind the scenes, at events, with fundraising or simply gave up your time when we needed you, we are incredibly grateful.
To everyone who has donated - thank you! 💙
Whether it was £5 or £500, a one-off donation or a monthly payment, every contribution helps keep our community pool going.
To our swim teachers, Emma and Sophie - thank you! 🏊♂️
Thank you for helping our swimmers build confidence, improve their technique and develop their water safety skills throughout the summer.
To our Trustees - thank you! 💙
So much work happens behind the scenes to keep the pool running, and we are incredibly grateful for everything you do.
And finally… our amazing lifeguards! 🛟
A HUGE thank you to Ian Savage, Victoria Park Manager, and our brilliant lifeguard team for keeping the pool open, keeping everyone safe and making sure our visitors could enjoy the pool all summer long.
You have worked incredibly hard, and we genuinely couldn’t have done it without you.
And to anyone we’ve missed — THANK YOU! 💙
Every person who has volunteered, donated, visited, organised, fixed, baked, cooked, promoted, supported or simply cheered us on has played a part in making this summer happen.
Thank you for another fantastic summer at Buckfastleigh Open Air Pool.
We’ll see you in the water again soon! 🏊♀️❄️
