Louise joined the OSS group of volunteers in January 2010 taking the role of Course Manager to help the society expand its offering of fitness courses throughout the UK.

A regular swimmer and novice triathlete, she is training for her first sprint triathlon in August this year. She currently lives in Devon and is making the most of being by the sea although after December's Boxing Day dip in Paignton is looking forward to the warmer months!

Previously, a project manager for the REACH Registry; an international, observational registry assessing patients at risk of atherothrombosis. Louise is a medical communications consultant with a special interest in cardiology.

Adam joined the raft of volunteers in May 2009 to bring new organisation and power to our swimming map for the summer.

A regular outdoor swimmer and swim-planner, having been reintroduced to the outdoors again by a swim with OSS Oxford. He now swims most weekends. 

Please check out the map  and send in contributions - wherever you swim.

Anna has been going on Great British wet weekends and seaside holidays since she was three and travels everywhere with her swimming costume. Anna describes herself as a swimming 'plodder'. Alongside contributing wonderful spots to our swim map, Anna edits and writes stories for the newsletter, and has a roving brief of spotting interesting things from Pestival to Caught by the River that interest water lovers and bringing them home for the rest of us.  

When Anna is not looking for ponds, lakes or sea to jump into she can normally be found knitting, sewing, camping, enthusing about the great outdoors, adopting chickens, singing or playing folk instruments. Aside from that, she is a writer and new media and communications consultant.

Jonathan can often be found at London Fields Lido, and also enjoys swimming off Dorset's Jurassic coast. 

To make ends meet he works as a researcher for a politics website, and he regrets that plans to build a floating lido just down the river from the Houses of Parliament were never realised.

Jonathan aims to help make the OSS Website an essential 'port of call' for the whole of the UK and Irish outdoor swimming community, providing inspiration and practical guidance to existing outdoor swimmers, while encouraging more indoor swimmers to venture out from under their covered pools. 

Rob works as a Chartered Architectural Technologist for Derby City Council, and lives with his wife on a steel cabin cruiser they are slowly renovating, which is moored at a marina on the River Trent.

He became interested in trying to increase outdoor swimming facilities in England, after experiencing the plentiful swimming lakes in countries such as Germany, France, and Switzerland.

He is now working with several councils in the East Midlands to try to set up inland bathing beaches in local lakes, and is interested in sharing his increasing knowledge in these matters with any other OSS members wanting to pursue this goal in their area who can contact him via Facebook or email him.

For me, the society is about submersing oneself in nature, and getting to know and appreciating the wonderful landscape we have on our doorstep.  With this in mind, it would be good to get as many images of some of the hidden gems around the country as possible, perhaps with an update on the swim map.

There are many great pictures on this and the OSS Facebook site, particularly around the OSS organised events & campaigns and I would like to encourage people to keep those rolling in! 

Also, if anyone have any old/historic photos of wild swimming that have been in the family, and would be willing to share them, it would be fascinating to compile some kind of visual history of wild swimming through the ages.

There are some great waterproof cameras out there now – so go on, stuff one up your wetsuit sleeve and share some of your adventures!

In the cold water.. the fast water.. the race.. remembering a kingfisher.. ignoring the signs.. the world becomes green and blue.. the reeds.. the granite.. the bank and the drop of a stone.. the mill pool.. the tidal pool.. the sea and the salt water.. and the little camera recording small remembrances..

Jon is a creative practitioner and educationalist in photographic culture. He is a lecturer at Plymouth College of Arts & University College Falmouth and co-directs Fotonow CIC. Natalie is a photographer who has recently graduated from BA Photography and has been working on the picture desk at Tatler magazine.

Over time.. Jon and Natalie will be evolving the OSS Archive to bring together images of the many swimming events that happen around the OSS and the broader culture of water. The OSS Archive will be cultivated over many years to retain our beautiful experiences from disappearing and to share them visually between all.

Rebecca is a life-long swimmer, writer and general nature-lover. She enjoyed many years of summer holidays as a child, jumping off rocks and prodding rock pool life in Cornwall, and thinks she may have missed her true calling of Californian surfer (or even deep-sea diver).

Instead, she is the Director of Hot Tap Media, an Editor of Heritage Key, and the OSS's Digital Developer, tasked with whipping the website and social network into shape and, hopefully, one day, helping launch the OSS iPhone app (any donations of time, skill or money welcomed).

As one of the OSS's most northerly members, she regularly braves the freezing temperatures and relentless midges of Scotland's mountain rivers and incredible Highland and Hebridean seas (they look tropical), and is happiest soothing away her 'wetsuit tan' (blue arms and legs - pink wetsuit shape in the middle) with a dram of whisky by a roaring camp fire.

Whenever he can escape his desk, Nathan heads for the water. His favourite swimming holes are London Fields Lido and St. Ives bay in Cornwall. He is always on the lookout for new and fun swimming challenges and has particularly enjoyed swimming the Solent and Hellespont.

Nathan is also a lawyer, and his firm Berwin Leighton Paisner and has been providing legal advice to the Outdoor Swimming Society on a pro bono basis since 2008.  Their advice to the OSS covers many issues including access rights for swimmers, intellectual property and legal liability issues.

Swimming outdoors  is potentially a risky business and so we are profoundly thankful to BLP for providing the OSS with a framework that allows us to continue to do so with passion, common sense.

Sarah is currently building up a social network of swimmers in the Lakes and North Yorkshire, organising swims in the sea, rivers, lakes and tarns. To join her swims see OSS Facebook.

Sarah developed a love of swimming at an early age whilst growing up in Yorkshire, a passion which has followed her through life. With a swimming cossie always packed in her hand luggage on holidays just in case her bag goes missing, and a kit bag in the car she’s happy swimming outdoors all year round.

Sarah works is a rural and environmental policy adviser and is currently studying an MA at the University of Exeter.