Whitby Lion's Boxing Day Dip is back for 2023! Are you crazy or brave enough to run into the North Sea on Boxing Day for charity?        

It has become somewhat of a tradition in our beautiful little seaside town to enjoy a rather refreshing dip in the North Sea on Boxing Day morning. It's certainly a unique and memorable experience that will raise lots of money for local charities. Fancy dress is a must, for many dippers, with prizes available for the best! In previous years, we have had some fantastic costumes such as dinosaurs, Batman and Robin, Christmas trees and even a team of traffic cones and a fancy dress wedding proposal!

Entry costs £10 per person; this will be paid direct to Whitby Lion’s. To pay your entry fee and request a sponsor form for the dip, please go to www.whitbylionsclub.org.uk and go to the Boxing Day Dip page to pay by PayPal. Alternatively, you can entre and pay at The Whitby Pet Shop, 15 Station Square, Whitby and collect a sponsor form. You can also entre and pay on the day by credit/debit card at the registration tent which is located near the bandstand on Pier Road.

Participants who wish to raise sponsorship for their chosen charity, with 100% of the money they raise going to the charity/organisation of their choice. Participants will be fully responsible for collecting and then distributing their sponsor money to their chosen charity. Whitby Lion’s will not be involved in the process. This method of running the event has hugely increased the numbers of people wanting to take part.

This fun and frantic event has now been running over the last 49 years, originally seeing numbers soar from a handful of brave local citizens to over 250 eager individuals travelling from far and wide, desperate to run into the wintery ice-cold waves of the North Sea. Although as you’d expect, you are more likely to see the big numbers witnessing the excitement from the side-lines. The Boxing Day has become a traditional family friendly event with many families meeting up after Christmas Day to spending a lovely Boxing Day morning together.

Our 2022 dip was the biggest ever with a record-breaking response with over 250 dippers taking part and at least a thousand spectators supporting the event and joining in with the fun. As a result, the club directly raised nearly £4,800.00 to support their work helping local organisations and charities. The dippers themselves would have raised many thousands of pounds for various local and national charities. During our 2019 dip, we also featured on national television with BBC Breakfast filming live at the event on Boxing Day morning. We hope for another equally successful event this year, thank you to our local community who generously support ourselves, our dippers and the many charities involved by donating to our bucket collection. Keep an eye out for our festive street collectors.

To keep up to date for the latest event information please visit the Whitby Lions Facebook, Twitter or Instagram pages. The club would again like to thank everyone who enters, volunteers and especially The Whitby Pet Shop for taking the time to register our dippers, Whitby Diving Club who help to ensure the safety of our dippers and Whitby’s R.N.L.I. inshore lifeboat.