Much like the whole country, we’ve had to overcome a number of challenges in recent years, but we can be proud of the position that we start the new year.
2022 was a year where we rebounded from the significant challenges of the pandemic and delivered fantastic participation figures across our wide range of facilities.
Each month we supported:
• More than 1 million people swimming at our facilities
• 10,000 seniors attending sport and activities
• More than 28,000 disabled people or people with long-term health conditions attend a sport or activity session
Last year, we revisited our business strategy to ensure we remain commercially effective following the pandemic, and continued our drive towards reaching the net zero ambitions of the business, including positive steps to deliver a net zero Support Hub by the end of 2023.
We are proud to remain heavily focused on our community’s health and wellbeing. As part of our Community Health and Wellbeing Strategy, we supported memberships for those who need it most in the community, including people living with Parkinson’s and their carers, Ukrainian guests and cared-for children.
Well, we couldn’t have predicted the scale of the energy crisis which has heavily impacted the sector.
We are aware this will continue to impact us over the longer term, as the tripling of energy costs cannot be
sustained by the industry. Therefore, we must continue to operate efficiently to offset the rising costs, while working closely with our local authority partners to secure the future of our leisure facilities that support the mental and physical wellbeing of the nation. The continued impact of the cost of living crisis cannot be underestimated, with people looking to cut back on expenditure. For many, monthly payments for leisure activity and memberships are under consideration. We must ensure that the people most affected are supported and can continue to access facilities for their health and wellbeing.
I also hope this year will provide an opportunity for the leisure industry to work closer with the health sector. As a nation we need to create a healthy society that is supported and maintained by our sector. We’ll continue to work in partnership with ukactive and new Chair, Mike Farrar, to communicate this strong message.
As an industry, whilst we continue to look for solutions to the energy crisis, we cannot afford to neglect investment in digital innovation. We’re proud to be leading the way in this space and will make further digital advancements to bring Personal Training (PT) services online this year and digitalise access control. This has always been a strength of ours and in 2022, we played our part in supporting the Digital Futures report by ukactive and Sport England as one of the industry’s digital leaders.
With more than 200 facilities nationwide and thousands of fitness users each day, our ambition is to provide the best user experience to our customers.
In January 2023, our regional director Duncan Jefford spoke to Liz Terry at Health Club Management to reveal all about our shake-up in the fitness environment.
Duncan highlighted the need for continued development and innovation in centres: “As one of the leading leisure operators, we’re continually looking to evolve our offering and provide the best facilities and services within local communities.
“Post-pandemic, we’ve seen a fundamental change in the way people want to exercise, and in response we’ve developed our fitness product to deliver an omnichannel 360-degree experience for our customers.
“These factors, combined with research into our customer data from the past 10 years, have led to the launch of our refreshed fitness offering.
You can read the full interview with Duncan here: https://www.healthclubmanagement.co.uk/health-clubmanagement-features/HCM-People-Duncan-JeffordRegional-director-Everyone-Active/36232?source=search
With a large database of gym users each day, we have an opportunity to regularly analyse and optimise the latest customer data.
We gathered a range of information from 10 years’ worth of Gymetrix data at our facilities, enabling us to understand the latest customer demands and predict the trends for years ahead.
“Across the sites we’re refurbishing and opening as new, we’ll be investing £7.5m in our fitness services over the next 12 months.”
SPACES FOR MIND, BODY & RECOVERY
STRENGTH MACHINES ARE A PRIORITY FOR OUR CUSTOMERS IN RESPONSE TO THE DATA, WE ARE ADAPTING THE LAYOUT OF OUR FITNESS SPACES, INCLUDING:Duncan Jefford
Our service is about bringing together the equipment and environment to create a holistic solution and a real experience for our customers.
Therefore, our changes in equipment are also reflected from a visual perspective. We’ve worked with GT3 Architects to refresh our interior design concepts within our fitness spaces.
• Increase mind and body zones (between 10% - 15%) with a bespoke design for functional fitness.
• Our universal zones (between 35% - 40%) with more accentuated touches
• Dynamic areas (50% +/-) with a strong presence of accentuated finishes driven by the Everyone Active brand colours
These exciting developments will be implemented at refurbishments and new centres, including 21 fitness facilities across the country over the coming six months.
In 2022, we utilised our customer and colleague feedback to understand the changes in customer demands and the importance of building a relationship with new or existing visitors at our facilities.
We found a gap in the market for interaction at the initial stage of sign-up, focused on building valuable face-to-face interaction with customers from their first visit and helping customers understand all the latest innovative equipment we offer.
We are proud to have introduced new 45-minute gym support sessions to give new or existing customers an increased understanding of the wide range of equipment available at their centres. There are five educational sessions available to all customers, including strength equipment, cardiovascular machines, free weights, functional kit and group exercise.
As part of our wide range of services, we’re proud to have developed several boutique sites across the Everyone Active brand. These facilities offer a unique experience through bespoke exercise classes and exclusive spa facilities.
The bespoke boutiques include our recently-launched Fortis. Combining the use of high-tech machinery from Speedflex and technology equipment from MyZone, it offers a premium workout experience. The fitness classes have gone from strength to strength with an eighth site opened in January at Harpenden Leisure Centre.
Our boutique fitness offering is not limited to Fortis. We work with F45 and CrossFit and have launched a new cycling concept, EA CyCle, with two new studios in Westminster Lodge and Harpenden Leisure Centre.
Our new partners will also open the door to providing wellness, recovery and stretching solutions within our functional spaces. This includes working with muscle recovery equipment, Therabody, and medicallygraded body composition products, InBody.
In January 2023 We hosted 12 open days at our facilities across the country, giving the local community an exclusive opportunity to try out our centres.
Celebrity attendees including former football manager, Harry Redknapp, 2x World Champion hurdler, Colin Jackson and England football legend, Alan Shearer
Freestyle footballers, Ben Nuttall and Jamie Knight demonstrating their football skills throughout the day
More than 10,000 visitors on the open days across the country
Free family activities, fitness introduction sessions and sports taster events for children, including a swimming race against Olympic swimmer, Mark Foster
Fundraising events and challenges raising money for our charity partner Dementia UK
on a specific topic, ranging from weight loss hints to busting strength training myths to women’s health and fitness issues. We’ll also be chatting to some awesome guests and bringing you a raft of great ideas to help improve your workout regime.
So far, we’ve found out all about our fantastic hosts – what makes them tick and how they got into fitness, given some top tips on keeping motivated and staying on track with your new year fitness regime, taken a deep dive into calories and weight loss, as well as having a fascinating interview with Sarah Merrill – a Dementia UK Admiral Nurse – about how exercise can have a positive effect on the symptoms of dementia. There’s so much more to come, too!
The podcast is available to listen – and watch – now, on YouTube and wherever you normally get your podcasts, with new episodes coming every week:
https://rb.gy/wpac1p
Applications for our 2023/24 scheme will open on the Sporting Champions website from Monday 13th FebruaryFriday 31st March. Click here for more information:
The Age Is Just A Number campaign aimed to engage older people in activity at our centres. As well as celebrating those who are already using our facilities to keep fit, we wanted to encourage and inspire the senior population.
Over the month of November 2022, we promoted senior sessions through our weekly comms, social media content and internal colleague communication. We saw a positive increase across both senior activities and senior swimming on the previous month, with up to a 120% increase on sessions in November.
5,600
Senior Swimming Sessions
9,100
Senior Activity Bookings
Inclusion is not just one person’s job within the organisation – it must be driven through the whole business with the support of our stakeholders – including our clients who know their local areas well and in consultation with the local communities we serve.
J ules spoke about her experiences and focuses for 2023, at what is an exciting period of growth for Everyone Active, she said: We want to provide opportunities that are open to all and we are committed to delivering services which embrace equality, diversity and inclusion. From a personal perspective I’ll be looking at how we reframe our EDI policies and procedures for colleagues, how we communicate our vision to stakeholders and how we promote the accessibility of our sites to potential members.
I’ll be pulling on my previous experiences, including at the Activity Alliance, delivering their Inclusive Fitness Initiative – a funded programme to make physical activity more accessible for disabled people. I’ve always been a strong advocate of the benefits of physical activity on mental health and the ethos that physical activity should be accessible and inclusive for all.
Our ambition is to ensure that the EDI commitments are reinforced by our values and embedded into day-to-day working practices with all our customers, colleagues and local authority partners.
Each one of our sites will be unique in terms of its demographics and the diverse needs of its local community. However, there will be programmes and themes across our Community Health and Wellbeing Strategy that will we continue to develop across the business nationally.
We need to think about how inclusion can help reduce inequality and exclusion in society and support the vision for sport and physical activity to get more people active and fulfil the vision for uniting the movement.
As an industry we’re making progress through collaborative work with the health sector and we’ve been able to utilise measurement tools such as the Social Value Calculator to showcase the true value of leisure facilities to the NHS.
This work and projects that support the NHS, will continue to be crucial, with programmes like Good Boost where people can continue to be active whilst they’re on NHS waiting lists for musculoskeletal procedures.
In 2022, Everyone Active delivered a Social Value of £201,360,310
Jules will play a key role in the delivery of our Community Health and Wellbeing Strategy, while putting our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) ambitions at the forefront.
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Edwards launched new weekly boccia sessions at Mid Suffolk Leisure Centre.
Evie, who represented Paralympics GB in boccia at the Rio 2016 and Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games, officially opened the new activity on January 19 before leading the session.
In boccia, players propel a ball with the aim of getting closest to a jack. The sport is played while seated, making it suitable for people with disabilities.
Boccia is being delivered at the Gainsborough Road site as part of a partnership initiative with ActivLives, supported by Active Suffolk and Sport England.
Evie said: “Boccia is so inclusive – I’ve never met anyone who couldn’t play it.”
Anselm Gurney, partnership manager, said: “We are delighted to be offering these sessions to the local community, which are helping to fulfil our objective of getting everyone active.
“We are very grateful for the support of our partners who have made these sessions possible –ActivLives, Active Suffolk and Sport England.”
A spokesperson for Mid Suffolk District Council said:
“We are very fortunate to have a Paralympian like Evie leading this first session. This is a fantastic opportunity for residents to learn a new sport in the new year, and another great way for people of any age or ability to build physical activity into our daily lives.”
We’re delighted to have opened a women’s only facility, which has benefitted from a £350,000 investment. The site features a range of new equipment including free weights and cardio and strength equipment.
The renovation also included brand-new fixtures and fittings, to create a more refreshed and open layout. The new offering at Abbey Leisure Centre, run in partnership with London Borough of Barking and Dagenham, launched with an hugely successful open day event on 26th November.
Visitors at the open day were offered a great range of free activities including HIIT classes, virtual cycling and PT taster sessions.
Since the facility opened, a large number of local females have signed up to the centre and we’ve seen great participation figures every day.
If you have any questions about this newsletter or would like to offer any ideas about how we can improve it, please email: newsletter@everyoneactive.com