Swimming South Africa: A Decade in the Pool

Ten years later, we're still in the water together.

Background

Swimming South Africa (SwimSA) is the national governing body for aquatic sports in the country. 

And when we say aquatic sports, we mean all of them: Swimming, Open Water, Waterpolo, Diving, Artistic Swimming, Para Swimming, and Masters Swimming. Beyond competition, they run the Learn To Swim initiative with the Department of Education, bringing water safety and swimming lessons to schools across South Africa. First splash to podium finish.

They also publish. A lot. Over 600 news articles in the past decade. The site integrates with Hy-Tek (now Sports-Tek) for meet results, athlete registrations, and rankings, so it's always been a living hub of South African aquatics.

We built the original site on Plone 4 in 2015. In 2023, we migrated to Plone 5.1 with the intention of a revamp, but as often happens with active organisations, the priority was continuity. Same template, keep things running. Then in mid-2025, we got the green light for a full redesign, and the move to Plone 6 with Volto gave us the tools to do it properly.

What the redesign unlocked

The previous site was responsive and functional, but the real pain points were around editability. SwimSA's team is hands-on with their content. They wanted to do more, and the old setup was holding them back.

Here's what changed:

Inline galleries in news articles. This was a big one. Previously, adding a photo gallery meant working around the system. With Volto, the SwimSA team can now drop a gallery block directly into a news article. Race day photos sitting right alongside the story.

A custom events agenda block. We built a dedicated block for their events that presents them in an agenda-style layout. This makes the events calendar much more accessible, especially on mobile, where a traditional calendar view can be fiddly.

Using the mega menu. With seven disciplines, each with their own subsections for rules, events, selection criteria, and teams, navigation could easily become a maze. The mega menu makes all of those subsections visible from the top level, reducing clicks and helping visitors find what they need without drilling down through multiple pages.

A hero block with video overlay. The homepage now opens with a full-width hero that can feature video content, setting the tone for the site and giving SwimSA a more dynamic presence.

Better content structure overall. The move to Volto's block-based editing means the SwimSA team has much more control over how their pages look and feel, without needing to call us every time they want to try something new.

A 10-year partnership

What makes the SwimSA relationship special isn't just the technology. It's the longevity. Ten years of working together means we understand their content patterns, their audience, and their needs. We know that their editorial team is active and capable, and that the tools we build for them need to stay out of their way, not create new obstacles.

The progression from Plone 4 to Plone 6 with Volto mirrors how we work with many of our long-term clients: steady, pragmatic steps forward, timed to when the organisation is ready. Not every migration needs to be a revolution. Sometimes it's about waiting for the right moment and then making it count.

"At the end of 2025, we dove into the new digital home of South African aquatics! We were thrilled to launch our brand-new, improved website, the go-to hub for all the latest photos, videos, news, and updates from the pool to the open water." — Swimming South Africa, December 2025

Visit the site at swimsa.org