Loveswim history: Dia Huizinga
It was autumn 2014 when three people including me had to organize something to get our assistant swimming coach diploma and decided to organize a safe swimming event in the Amstel, for Amsterdam, for our LHTBIA+ community and for our swimming club.
At one of the first meetings I enthusiastically told about the idea of organizing an outdoor water swimming event in the Amstel, the river that flows through our city. We had just discovered that summer how wonderful swimming was in the Amstel, even though it was not allowed by the water police, and we wanted to give this to the city and ourselves as a gift. We made an appointment with the people of Roeicentrum Berlagebrug who responded enthusiastically. We could start there and use the changing rooms. We had a meeting at the Pride headquarters and decided to organize it during Pride. We got to work on putting our event on the map. One of us designed the house style, the website and the logo. She thought it would be useful to put flyers everywhere in the city, postcard-sized flyers and smaller flyers with a photo of LoveSwim and a registration link and we entered into a contract with Flyerman who would distribute our flyers. I arranged the entertainment, I knew a nice DJ who I asked to come and play and he was happy to come. I also approached a photographer to record the event. I contacted the female Samba band Bumba to open LoveSwim swinging and festive. Because we wanted a safe event, I contacted the Rescue Brigade. Another went after sponsorship. The first year we mainly had sponsors from the Gay World, we received money from Trut, the Bob Angelo Fund and Mr B. The three of us had regular conversations with the Berlagebrug Rowing Centre and met once a week, with delicious coffee, at one of our places on the Weesperzijde. As entertainment in the water we asked the synchronised act of our sister swimming club Upstream. People could order T-shirts separately and there were many who choose tot o that. According to some we could be happy if fifty people showed up. We ourselves hoped for 100. On the morning of the big day, number 100 registered. Early in the morning of the big day, the three of us got together to make sandwiches for the many volunteers who had registered. We wanted our volunteers to have everything they needed. At 4 pm the drummers of the Sambabad Bumba started playing in the middle of the Berlagebrug, drumming, whistling and swinging they came closer and closer, down the stairs until they started dancing with everyone on the jetty with a grand finale.
The alderman for Sports Erik van der Burg came to open LoveSwim. We had made a kind of tent from large colorful cloths where swimmers stood and after a speech by the alderman for Sports,Erik van der Burg, he pulled the cloths away and LoveSwim was opened.
July 31st 2015
