British Water Ski & Wakeboard (BWSW) is a progressive sporting organisation helping to deliver a dynamic and exciting sport that has the potential to capture the hearts and minds of our participants for life. As an organisation we aim to deliver clear and inspirational leadership for water skiing and wakeboarding to ensure a vibrant and empowered sport at every level that can evolve to meet every challenge.

BWSW is committed to the creation and enhancement of an inclusive climate which enables elite success, individual achievement, and a vibrant, attractive and sustainable sport that can captivate both existing and new audiences.

We have set ourselves goals to improve equality, diversity and inclusion:

1. We will ensure equality and diversity and inclusion is driven by the Leadership of BWSW – that is the Board of Directors and senior staff.

- We will appoint an Equality, Diversity & Inclusion (EDI) Board Champion to make sure EDI is at the heart of everything we do

- We will publish our successes and commitments to achieving equality in water skiing and wakeboarding

2. We will improve our understanding of equality and diversity issues within our organisation.

- We will ensure a better understanding of the equality profile of our organisation

- We will look at ways of improving our monitoring data in order to understand inequalities within our organisation and sport

3. We will raise awareness of and embed equality and diversity throughout our organisation
- We will ensure that all our employees will receive approriate EDI training

- We will provide information for clubs, coaches, officials and members to help them tackle inequality and discrimination in water skiing and wakeboarding

- We will review our policies, procedures and processes to ensure that they are inclusive and do not discriminate

4. We will understand and tackle barriers for under-represented groups in water skiing and wakeboarding and bring water skiing and wakeboarding to new audiences. We will encourage all sections of society to participate in our sport. In particular, we will look at improving participation of:

- Women and girls

- People with disabilities

- People from different ethnic backgrounds

We want to become a leading National Governing Body in promoting inclusion and equal opportunity and have selected our Independent Director Clare Lobb as our Equality, Diversity & Inclusion Board Champion and he/she will champion equality, diversity and inclusion in everything we do.

A diverse board contains a broader mix of skills, knowledge and experiences which should give it greater flexibility to overcome challenges.  Fair and open, with greater public confidence in its makeup, greater accountability, fresh eyes and it should not succumb to "group think" / unchallenged decision making.  Above all however board directors must have the skills, knowledge and experience required to fulfil their role. Ultimately they need to be motivated by the organisation’s aims and it is of no benefit to either party to appoint someone purely to make up a diversity ‘quota’ - this would simply amount to tokenism.

View our diversity and inclusion action plan 

View our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion policy