In 2014 Sian Richardson stepped alone into the icy, silky winter waters of Porthsele beach in Pembrokeshire. She shrieked at the cold yet persevered not once but day after day. She’d set herself a cold-water swimming challenge and was determined to complete it, partly because of the recent health troubles that had affected her mobility.
In those days before the explosion of cold-water swimming in the UK Sian was very much an oddity – a sight so unusual that some people were worried she may be suicidal. Just eight years later she is the head of an international movement with more than 100,000 members.
The organisation she founded – The Bluetits Chill Swimmers – began as an informal affiliation before becoming a social enterprise and is now heading for charitable status. Many people credit the Bluetits with changing their lives – and it all began with one determined woman standing in a swimsuit on a wintry beach in Pembrokeshire.
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A lifelong inhabitant of St Davids, Sian and her family run the Pencarnan Farm campsite on the edge of the tiny city. She’s always loved getting outdoors, taking part in triathlons, swimming, and endurance events, but by the time she started her winter swims she had become far less active.
“My body wasn’t working brilliantly any longer,” she says. “It had kind of given up but I was still in that frame of mind where I enjoyed challenges and somebody asked me if I had heard of the ‘ice mile’ – a one-mile swim in water temperature of five degrees Celsius (41F) or less wearing just a standard costume. I didn’t really hear the word ‘ice’ – I naively thought it would be quite easy: I would go out that winter, become an ice-miler, and that would be that. It actually took me three winters before I completed it.”
Unknown to Sian her efforts to become an ice-miler would mark the beginning of the Bluetits. The more she swam the more people noticed what she was doing and became curious about it.
“I gained quite a lot of attention along the way because I’m quite noisy,” she says. “Every time I squealed or shouted or whooped somebody would come and say: ‘What are you doing?’ I’d tell them and a few of those people said they would like to swim with me. Our numbers grew very, very slowly. There was no intention to be a group but as the group took shape we decided to call ourselves the Bluetits.”
One of the earliest people to join was Sian’s son’s girlfriend, Sarah Mullis, who has since become her daughter-in-law. “I got involved in a dipping in 2014 because I was newly going out with Sian’s son and I asked him how I could make his mum like me,” she recalls. “He said: ‘I’m afraid you’re going have to get in the water’. I started dipping in December 2014 and loved it. It’s helped me with anxiety and body confidence – it’s just been incredible for me.”
Soon people staying on Sian’s campsite were joining in too. Sarah started running the social media accounts for the group and this helped to spread the word. People who had swum with the Bluetits in St Davids went on to form their own groups using the Bluetits name.
Another key new member was Samantha Minas. Samantha had moved to Pembrokeshire in 2016 and was managing an adventure company when she spotted Sian and the Bluetits on the beach.
“I loved my life and Pembrokeshire, but in winter I was quite bored and I didn’t have people to laugh with – I hadn’t found that group,” she says. “A friend of mine from back home suggested I join the Bluetits because they looked like they were having fun. I stalked the Facebook page for quite a while and then I would turn up at the beach when they were there although I didn’t have the confidence to walk up, say hello, and ask to join. Eventually Sian clocked me because she knew who I was through work and she asked if I was coming in.”
In 2019, with their numbers growing, the team decided to hold an event, inviting 100 Bluetits from all over the UK to descend on St Davids for a weekend. “It was an incredible weekend – we called it The Great Tit Weekend – and it cemented our sense that this was really happening,” says Sian.
As the groups proliferated across the UK a leadership team started to coalesce in St Davids with Sarah as head of marketing and Sian, Samantha, and Gail Bainbridge, who had just sold her accountancy business and moved to Pembrokeshire. The team was cemented on a trip to Barmouth and Harlech to film for Visit Wales. By the time they had come back they had decided to set up the Bluetits as a social enterprise.
This enabled them to set out a clear set of guidelines and rules for the formation of groups, which are all open to people of all genders and all abilities. People with mobility problems are assisted by other group members. This has special significance for Sian, who needed a double hip replacement at the time she started cold-water swimming.
“I was on the waiting list for quite a long time and it meant the world to me that I had a physical activity that I could do,” she says. “For the that time I was in the water I was weightless so I was pain-free – and I knew that for a few hours afterwards I would be pain-free.”
She’s not the only one who reports health benefits from cold-water swimming – she regularly hears from members who have found it helpful for everything from menopause symptoms to mental health. However she believes the benefits don’t just come from immersion in cold water – they come from being in a group.
“Before I had my first hip replacement I couldn’t even get in the water,” she says. “Getting onto the beach was a struggle – I was using sticks and it was wonderful to just to turn up and be there with people who didn’t make a fuss of me, who just accepted that I was there, and I enjoyed the company.
“That is very much part of what makes us feel better – it’s meeting up with like-minded people and all being part of this challenge. We appreciate each other’s courage, we appreciate the laughter. We’re in the company of people who accept us, who don’t make fun of us, and we become part of this flock, this group, of people. So it isn’t just the cold water that makes us feel better – it’s the whole package.”
Perhaps that’s why the group also has “dry Bluetits” who don’t swim but come along because they enjoy the camaraderie. “Even though they don’t go in the water they still say that it’s benefiting their mental and physical health just getting to the beach, enjoying the company, and holding people’s towels,” says Sian. “We call it ‘Bluetitting’.”
For those that do go in the water there is a definite high caused by your body’s response to the cold. Sian says that for the first 90 seconds people feel pain but then she sees their bodies adjust.
“As we approach the water we’re often saying or thinking that we don’t want to go in,” she says. “We tend to turn up and talk for 30 minutes about why we don’t want to do it. Then someone will say they’ve driven 30 minutes to get here we’ll say: ‘Okay, sod it, we’ll go in’. We scream a lot but we know that in two minutes’ time we’re going to start to feel a lot better because our body has gone through a process of survival and now our brain is full of adrenaline.
“I encourage people to swear and shout anything they like and all sorts of interesting things come out of people’s mouths when they are about to go in the water,” she says. “Nobody cares. Nobody listens but we all laugh about it. And the good thing is that as long as you’re talking or whooping or screaming you’re not going to start hyperventilating.”
Bluetits are advised to stay in the water for two minutes in order to feel the true benefits. “If you come out before the two minutes you don’t get to find out how amazing your body is,” says Sian. “If you run in and you run out like they do on Christmas Day swims all you remember is the cold, the pain. You remember your skin cooling but you don’t get to experience what happens as your skin gets to a level where it goes okay and everything becomes marvellous. You think: ‘I’ve survived! Oh my God – it’s amazing! The sun is shining! Look at the ripples on the water!’ You see things so clearly after those first two minutes – and then of course you know that you’re getting out and that’s great because you know that warm coffee and wonderful adrenaline-fuelled chatter are waiting for you.
“We tend to swim for around three minutes or four minutes then we get out and spend another hour getting dressed, trying to find our knickers, spilling hot coffee all over our feet, and talking. You’re feeling amazing so you really chat a lot. You have to get dressed very quickly so we share a lot of advice on what to wear: big baggy T-shirts, thermals, anything with polyester in because it doesn’t stick to your skin. Jeans are a bad idea.”
One of the things the team are proudest of is the fact the Bluetits is a uniquely accessible way to be an endurance athlete – even though most members are not even aware that is what they are doing. “We’ve got people swimming all over the world and none of them would see themselves as endurance swimmers or athletes or anything like that – but they are,” says Sarah. “They’re dipping in the sea and lakes at low temperatures and that’s a big thing to do. But these are people who just come along with tea and cake and say: ‘Are we popping in then?’ and there’s all the fun and the friendship that surrounds it but at the centre of it it is an endurance sport. Our strapline is: ‘Challenging our limits together’. It’s a challenge every time you get in the water and it’s amazing that people who maybe don’t really see themselves as having masses of endurance regularly demonstrate that they do.”
The benefits of the Bluetits go beyond personal achievement, friendship, and bonding however. There is increasing evidence that having a Bluetits Chill Swimmers group in your area has a very positive impact on the local economy including bringing tourists and visitors to areas that would otherwise be quiet and empty in the winter. Beaches that were once largely empty out of season are now frequented by swimmers and this gives a much-needed boost to local businesses.
This effect has increased since the end of Covid lockdowns with Bluetits becoming ever-more mobile and traveling to other areas to swim with local groups. “When we saw that a lot of Bluetits started travelling around and visiting other flocks Sian created the Tits on Tour badge and T-shirts and they are everywhere now,” says Samantha.
Because Sian runs a campsite many Bluetits head for St Davids where Sian is quite a celebrity among members keen to see where the whole thing began and to meet the woman behind it. “We’ve travelled around a bit ourselves and every time there’s a Bluetit flock that grows and becomes successful in an area there are knock-on effects,” says Samantha. “These are generally coastal locations that are dead in the winter but when the Bluetits flock comes out the coffee bars are busy, the beach side places are busy – they’re still selling their gloves, wet boots and swimsuits, maybe some wetsuits. The car parks are busy. It creates an extra layer of business and income where there wasn’t one before.”
A new development is Bluetits Holidays, which will further boost this effect by enabling swimmers to book stays in areas that have Bluetits flocks. This will benefit accommodation providers by bringing them out of season bookings they would not previously have had. Alongside this a growing number of Bluetit members are launching their own microbusinesses creating Bluetits products to sell to other members.
“We’ve seen things like Bluetits earrings, Bluetits changing mats, all sorts of things, where they’ve been given permission to use our logo because they create such lovely things,” says Sarah. “We then invite them to have stalls at our events.”
Meanwhile The Bluetits is developing its own product offering. With membership free and Bluetits badges provided free to new members the organisation initially lost money. Sian decided to start selling T-shirts to fund the badges and a whole product range has grown from there – you can now buy everything from a Bluetits apron to a Bluetits belly board.
“It’s just grown and grown,” says Sian, who is keen to be able to reward as many people as possible for the time and love they put into supporting the organisation. “As the Bluetits grew and people started to help me they were doing it for nothing. They were working a lot of hours for absolutely no money so we decided we needed to do this properly and start paying people.”
They now have some paid staff and intend to have more. “The aim is to provide some jobs in the winter and to provide the tourist industry with people in the winter months – not just in Pembrokeshire but also around the world,” says Sian.
The Bluetits is now very much a global phenomenon – it has flocks in places as diverse as Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Estonia. In order to increase the benefits it’s able to deliver to individuals and communities it is now aiming for registered charity status or to have a charitable arm of the business.
Examples of The Bluetits’ work to help others includes its recent initiative to help people learn to swim safely. Last year some of the money from T-shirt and other product sales was put into a bursary fund through which The Bluetits Chill Swimmers has supported the training of 20 swim coaches.
“We’ve got qualified swim coaches in 20 locations throughout the UK,” says Sian. “Those people are on the ground, able to give safety inductions and so on, and just spread the knowledge because part of our mission is to create a capable, confident swimming community.”
The Bluetits have also received funding from WCVA to employ a community development manager who looks after all the admin volunteers for the Bluetits flocks. Another project, Ein Dwr, funded by NRW, will bring people who would not normally access the marine environment towards the water’s edge and possibly into the water.
“There’s a lot more that we can do,” adds Sian. “The aim is to pilot projects in Pembrokeshire and then roll them out across the UK – and if we are a charity or have a charitable arm it will enable us to attract funding to create more community benefit.”
Meanwhile the Bluetits are enjoying their busiest period yet. Their numbers are higher than ever and always increase during the winter. This might seem counterintuitive – why would people prefer to swim in the cold? – but Samantha says the thrill of getting cold is part of the attraction.
“We think that there are several reasons why our numbers go up in winter,” she says. “What we do is cold-water swimming and dipping water is colder in the winter so it’s more of a challenge; people are looking for something to get them through winter which takes them outdoors. And camaraderie is stronger in winter as the conditions become more challenging, which builds stronger connections within the swim community.”
Every winter The Bluetits set a different winter challenge to spur their members on. For 2022 the challenge was to swim 20 times over 20 weeks.
“We knew that this winter was going to be particularly difficult for quite a lot of people in the UK so we focused on getting people together to have fun,” says Sian. “We call all our challenges Arctic Flappers and this year’s is titled Chattering Chums with Frosty Bums.”
With financial hardship in mind the organisation has created an option to buy a challenge for a buddy and for businesses to sponsor places on the challenges. “For the first time ever our volunteer admins approached businesses and invited them to sponsor places for people for whom the £5 fee for the challenge was just too much of a stretch this winter,” says Sarah. “We’ve got around 450 sponsored places. We’re very focused on helping as many people as possible battle loneliness in what is going to be a tough winter for a lot of people.”
If you feel inspired to try cold-water swimming this winter Sian’s top advice is to swim with friends. This isn’t just about safety – it’s also about fun and support. “Of course people go off dipping by themselves but swimming with the group is where you get the real benefit,” she says. “You get to meet and chat to different people, you experience the fun of helping other people. When you go in the water and a little wave comes in and somebody’s unsteady you automatically put your arm out and you help them or they do the same to you. You help people get their socks on or get back to the car.”
Safety is always a priority for The Bluetits so they provide advice on their website and on their Facebook groups on how to swim safely in winter – a key part of which is knowing how to warm up afterwards. Layers of clothes and hot drinks are important and you need local knowledge to be sure you are safe from flooding or wild stormy seas – again this is where swimming with a group is invaluable.
Making sure 100,000 members are supported and well informed is a big job and Sian, Samantha, Gail, and Sarah have come a long way in an incredibly short space of time. What started as a quirky hobby is now a job and a way to create positive change in individuals’ lives and communities worldwide.
“We don’t often stand back and talk about what’s happened over the last eight years because we’re immersed in it,” says Sarah. “We worked so hard on it and for ages it was just the four of us doing everything largely unpaid.
“That’s beginning to change and that’s amazing. We’ve got loads of really good people around us who are equally as passionate. We’re so involved in the day to day – we often talk about what newsletters are going out, who Samantha’s meeting about the next round of funding, and all of that but it’s very rare for us to sit back and acknowledge the fact that we are now a worldwide movement of swimmers.”
Sian adds that they never could have anticipated just how spectacularly things would develop. “In 2014 I was the weirdo swimming in the water. Recently we were doing some filming in Goodwick and the camera operator said it was like a train station with people swimming, swimming, swimming all the time.”
It hasn’t happened by accident – a whole community of dedicated staff and volunteers have driven the Bluetits’ success. “I am the face of the Bluetits but what goes on behind me is constant work, constant evolving and developing and learning and making mistakes and learning from them,” says Sian. “This team works constantly to promote the Bluetits. They don’t stop and that is what’s driving this forward.”
She adds that she is proud that The Bluetits is a fully inclusive community that’s welcoming to all. “We are predominantly women in what’s traditionally been a male space – in harbours that have tended to be the domain of fishermen and boat owners. Now there are women in places that we’ve not been before. But we have never been a women-only group. Anybody can swim with us, and the men that come and join us particularly like that it’s non-competitive because there are not that many things that men can do socially that are non-competitive
“A unique thing about swimming with the Bluetits is that it’s very childlike. It’s an opportunity to go and be a big kid and it’s completely liberating. Bluetits are loud, they’re laughing, they’re swearing, they’re unapologetic. They’re not asking anyone’s permission. They’re usually dressed in red and white polka dots. It’s great fun and it’s free.”
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