June in the open water community

A new swimming lake in Staffordshire joins the NOWCA network and Mental Health Swims heads to Parliament. Stay up to date with our outdoor swimming community news for June 2025

NOWCA: More water in Staffordshire!

Words by Anna and Mick Brookes

We’re so excited to have officially opened our lake for swimming! Field Head Farm is a family run dairy farm tucked away in the stunning Staffordshire Moorlands, right by the Peak District. For years we’ve been welcoming people for glamping weekends, paddleboarding, and kayaking – and now we’re sharing our lake with open water swimmers.

Opening the lake has been a dream of ours, and teaming up with NOWCA has not only made the process easy, but a reality. From the start, they’ve been incredibly supportive, and it’s felt like being part of a really special family.

We’ve created a safe, calm swim loop (200m with walk-in entry), and every session is lifeguarded – because safety is our priority. We’ll be starting small but can’t wait to grow our community and we’re already planning for some full moon swims.

After your swim, you’ll find free parking, changing rooms, a cosy log-burner hangout, and of course, good coffee (Nespresso, naturally). If you’re feeling a bit peckish, we offer locally sourced snacks – the brownies, in particular, are incredible!

We can’t wait to welcome you – come for the swim, stay for the views (and the brownies!).

Download the NOWCA Wild app and follow the FIELD HEAD FARM group for more news and updates.

Mental Health Swims: Marking Mental Health Awareness Week

On 12 May, Mental Health Swims had the pleasure of hosting an event in Parliament to kick off Mental Health Awareness week. This year’s theme was ‘community’ so it was the perfect time to celebrate the work we do to create safe and welcoming swim communities for people experiencing mental health issues.

We had amazing speakers: Hayley Jarvis from Mind, Dr Hussain Al-Zubaidi, Helen Marney from Swim England, Torsten Bell MP and our very own managing director, Rachel Ashe MBE.

We also showed a film that we’ve been working on over the last few months with the wonderful Film Maker, Joby Newson. The film features some of our community members from across the UK sharing their lived experience of mental health and how the Mental Health Swims community has helped them. You can view the film on our ‘Mental Health Swims’ YouTube channel.

Thank you to everyone who attended our event and took part in the film. If you feel inspired to get involved, you can support us in a number of different ways. You can:

• Introduce us to people who can help us grow our community
• Share our video on LinkedIn, Instagram or your internal comms platforms
• Become a sponsor or corporate partner.

If you can help with any of the above, please email us at hello@mentalhealthswims.co.uk and we can set up a call – we’d love to hear from you.