Places Leisure Partner Newsletter Winter 2021/22

Whatever place you’re into

Partner Newsletter Winter 2021/22

A welcome from Paul McPartlan Happy New Year and welcome to our Winter Newsletter.

Thanks for your ongoing support and your feedback on the last edition.

You asked for more detail around energy saving and the environment. It’s a big-ticket item for Places Leisure and our wider group, so we’ve included a comprehensive article on our actions and plans.

Many of the challenges we are navigating will be familiar to you and all sectors of the UK economy. Covid variants and the increase in actual cases affects both customer confidence and our workforce, we face this at the same time as supply chain challenges (domestically and internationally) and of course recruitment.

It remains a challenging time, and I’m confident our teams will continue to rise to the challenge - we’ve our usual updates on Customer Experience and our People.

In December we held our quarterly General Manager meeting, and whilst

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it’s been a tough two years, (this year via Teams), we had a chance to say thank you to those really driving our values.

At a time when financial prudence is still key, a real celebration was made possible by the generosity of our suppliers and sponsors. You’ll recognise some of the teams and individuals that are really making a difference to your own communities.

Thanks,

Paul McPartlan Chief Executive

General Manager Meeting December prize winners We held a General Manager (GM) meeting in December, gathering our GMs from across the estate. The teams continue to come through for us and we wanted to celebrate outstanding achievement around our key values.

This celebration was made possible by the generosity of our suppliers and sponsors. Here are our lucky winners!

Safety Coordinator of the year

Highest energy consumption saving

The winner is...

The winner is...

The prize...

Balham Leisure Centre

Social stories hamper

The prize...

Jayne Roots Wandsworth Contract

Sponsored by

Sponsored by

TROPHY

Best bounce back recovery

Colleague engagement Highest participation in our colleague surveys

The winner is...

The prize...

The winner is...

The prize...

Romsey Rapids Sports Complex

£250 voucher

Roehampton Sports & Fitness Centre

£100 John Lewis voucher

£250

Sponsored by

Sponsored by

Colleague engagement Trust and pride in their workplace

Colleague engagement Highest compliance training

The winner is...

The prize...

The winner is...

The prize...

Ongar Leisure Centre

£100 John Lewis voucher

Epping Sports Centre

£100 team cash prize

Sponsored by

Sponsored by

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Ambassador for change

Ambassador for change

The winner is...

The prize...

Mike Wells Apple Airpods Contract Manager - Sandwell, Birmingham, Wolverhampton

The winner is...

Jamie Callary General Manager Rotherham Leisure Complex

Places Pulse - mystery shop magical moment

Outstanding delivery of swim lessons - voted for by customers

The winner is...

The prize...

The winner is...

The prize...

Bulmershe Leisure Centre

£250 One 4 All gift card

The Triangle

£250 One 4 All gift card

Sponsored by

Apple series 7 watch

Sponsored by

Sponsored by

Sponsored by

Outstanding member experience - voted for by customers

Our most connected colleagues

The winner is...

The prize...

The winner is...

Wisewood Sports Centre

£250 One 4 All gift card

Jacqui Booth £100 Amazon Waendel Leisure voucher Centre

Sponsored by

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The prize...

Sponsored by

The prize...

Our most connected colleagues

Creative use of Local Marketing

The winner is...

The prize...

The winner is...

The prize...

Susan Murdoch Thorncliffe Leisure Centre

£100 Amazon voucher

Richard Hayden Parish Wharf Leisure Centre

Cartwright & Butler Grosmont hamper

£100

Sponsored by

Sponsored by

Who’s In challenge

Most supportive fitness team - voted for by customers

The winner is...

The prize...

The winner is...

The prize...

Wyre Forest Leisure Centre

Technogym multifunction bench

Ripley Leisure Centre

Fitness bundle

Sponsored by

Sponsored by

Most inspiring and motivating classes - voted for by customers

Outstanding contribution to Catering and Retail

The winner is...

The prize...

The winner is...

The prize...

West Bromwich Leisure Centre

Stages power meter and Dash

Sarah Hallam & Dover Leisure Centre Team

Fortnum and Mason Grosvenor hamper

Sponsored by

Sponsored by

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Technical and Environmental update

Steve Parker

In our technical and environmental update we give an overview of how we’re responding to the changes within the energy market and how we’re focused on being environmentally responsible in all we do.

Head of Technical and Environmental

Environmental update The energy crisis You will be aware of the global energy crisis and the disruption in the availability and supply of energy resources to the global economy amidst increasing demand for energy. Major economies such as the US, China, Europe and India are currently all being impacted by demand and the unprecedented and record high tariff prices. The main reason for the current energy crisis is the increase in demand following the Covid-19 pandemic. A cold winter in 2020 and hot summer 2021, as well as an economic growth, has equated to electricity shortages in China, with China now stockpiling domestic coal and gas reserves, Russia has limited the gas supply to Western Europe and there are supply chain and logistic disruptions to the supply of natural resources.

Supply chain bottlenecks which not only affect commodity prices but a whole host of goods in general, mean it is likely that Gas prices will continue to remain high throughout 2022.

The wholesale market tracker gives an indication of what has happened within the marketplace.

Gas (p/therm) 200.00 170.00 200.00 140.00 170.00 110.00 140.00 80.00 110.00 50.00 80.00 20.00 50.00Mar-19 20.00

Mar-19

Jun-19

Sep-19

Dec-19

Mar-20

Apr-22 Jun-19

Sep-19

Jun -20

Sep-20

Dec-20

Oct-22 Dec-19

Mar-20

Apr-22 200.00 Electricity (£/MWh)

Jun -20

Mar-21

Jun-21

Sep-21

Rolling 12 Month Sep-20

Dec-20

Oct-22

Mar-21

Jun-21

Sep-21

Rolling 12 Month

170.00 200.00 140.00 170.00 110.00 140.00 80.00 110.00 50.00 80.00 20.00 50.00Mar-19 20.00

Mar-19

Jun-19

Sep-19

Jun-19

Sep-19

Apr-22

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Dec-19

Mar-20

Apr-22

Jun -20

Sep-20

Dec-20

Oct-22 Dec-19

Mar-20

Jun -20

Oct-22

Mar-21

Jun-21

Sep-21

Rolling 12 Month Sep-20

Dec-20

Mar-21

Jun-21

Rolling 12 Month

Sep-21

Our response We closely monitor energy tariffs and check these on a daily basis to ensure we can monitor the market and gain value for money, but unlike in previous years where it has been beneficial to purchase energy in advance to secure more efficient tariffs, the opposite currently applies, with the market ‘day ahead tariff’ the most viable option at this time. We will continue to monitor this to ensure we apply the most economic value to your contract. We review each of our centres and provide individual energy action plans, as well as offering training and support to the leisure centre teams to ensure we are running the facilities as efficiently as possible. Throughout the COVID-19 period, the lockdowns gave us a unique opportunity to optimise and review the run times of all mechanical and plant equipment and as a result a significant number of our centres have reduced energy consumption, thereby mitigating costs to our partner clients. For more information, please speak to your local team.

We always strive to look at new initiatives and ways of working to improve our customer experience, whilst reducing our impact on the environment.

Some good examples are: Trialling new motor technologies that reduce motor running cost by up to 60%.

Partnering with British Gas on a roll out of electric vehicle charging.

Working with partners, including Brunel University, to submit a bid to Innovate UK on new heating technologies not on the market yet.

Meeting with Bosch on the future of gas technology and the introduction of green hydrogen burning boilers and CHP’s (Combined Heat and Power).

Looking at operating on DC power rather than AC and the saving that could be made if this technology becomes used more widely.

We have been working with a number of our Local Authority Partners to apply for the Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme to replace boiler systems with air source heat pumps, solar PV arrays and solar thermal. Whilst looking at these submissions, we’ve also reviewed internal lagging and thermal values and submitted these as part of these bids.

If you’d like to understand more about energy usage and what we’re doing within your contract to tackle the energy challenge and reduce our impact on the environment, please speak to your Contract Manager.

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Our commitment to being environmentally responsible in all we do Being environmentally responsible is at the forefront of what we do and since we’ve reopened, we want you to be assured we haven’t forgotten our commitment. We’re continuing our journey to be environmentally responsible and here are just some of the ways we’re making it happen.

Single Use Plastics Since 2019 we’ve reduced the number of plastic lined cups reaching landfill by 1.2million by using compostable cups in all our centres. Our partnership with Cafeology has helped us to eliminate the use of single use plastic cutlery, plates, packaging, and straws and replace them with paper or biodegradable alternatives. We encourage our customers to bring their own reusable water bottles and no longer purchase plastic disposable water cups.

We’re promoting the use of reusable cups for hot drinks and offer a minimum 30p discount off hot drinks when served in reusable cups

Since 2019 we’ve reduced the number of cups reaching landfill by

1.2million

Waste segregation We’ve established a partnership with Method Recycling to supply our internal waste bins in our centres. Their segregated waste management systems include educational boards, which help take the confusion out of recycling and provide guidance to customers on the types of waste that can be recycled and how to segregate items for collection, helping to reduce waste to landfill and contamination. In addition, all bins are manufactured from 50% recyclable materials and are recyclable at the end of life!

80%

Method Recycling’s waste management systems have been proven to reduce waste by up to 80%

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Refill Campaign

Costa’s commitment

We’re a member of the National Refill Campaign which aims to reduce single use plastic bottle usage through providing customers with free water top-ups for their bottles in all our cafés.

We’re promoting the scheme and raising awareness that our centre’s offer this service annually on National Refill Day.

We’ve partnered with Costa with three Full Costa stores and ‘We’re Serving Costa’ at several more of our Leisure Centres. Costa is fully committed to reducing waste; all their takeaway cups can be recycled and are manufactured using sustainable pulp and vegetable rather than oil-based inks. Costa are aiming to recycle up to 500 million takeaway coffee cups per year.

In addition, Costa has launched an in-store recycling scheme, where they recycle takeaway cups left in, or returned to their stores.

Zoggs Sustainability Mission The retail offering within our leisure centres is supplied by Zoggs. Reducing the consumption of plastic and creating sustainable swimwear is at the heart of the Zoggs Sustainability Mission. Pioneering eco-friendly swimwear, 90% of the Zoggs global range is made from recycled fabrics and they’ve developed their Ecolast range made from recycled post-consumer plastic bottles. 100% of their packaging uses recycled, recyclable or degradable materials and we’re creating awareness of this on our retail displays in our centres.

Our Supply Chain Code of Conduct We’ve a Supply Chain Code of Conduct that we ask all our supply chain partners to sign. It means that to be a supplier of Places Leisure, companies must: •

Comply with existing and future environmental legislation and have processes in place to ensure compliance.

•

Identify, measure and reduce any harmful environmental effects which may arise from business activities through clear environmental objectives and targets.

•

Understand and minimise CO2 emissions including but not limited to waste, energy, and transport.

•

Minimise, re-use and recycle materials wherever practicable and disposing of waste to landfill only as a last resort.

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Social Value generated in 2021 2021 and 2020 were challenging years with Covid restrictions resulting in closed or restricted activities and capacities. So, we look forward to 2022, creating active places and healthy people and celebrating why we do it.

Our Social Value calculator measures the good we do across 4 key areas of society, and is available at centre, client, and national level.

We’ll be updating you on a regular basis on the difference our partnership makes to your communities.

£61,853,429 Physical & Mental Health

Subjective Wellbeing

Calculated based on the health care cost savings for eight health outcomes based on the reduced risk and prevented cases combined with reduced GP visits and psychotherapy usage for physically active people.

Refers to the increase in life satisfaction. It is calculated by multiplying the value of increased wellbeing derived from a participant’s engagement in sport by the number of unique people taking part.

£10,000,588

£35,254,418

£8,994,926 (Jan20 to Dec20)

£30,537,862 (Jan20 to Dec20)

Individual Development

Social & Community Development

Refers to the improvement in educational attainment and higher starting salaries gained through participating in sport at university.

£498,347 £419,789 (Jan20 to Dec20)

Represents the reduction in crime rates for young males and the social capital based on improved networks, trust and reciprocity.

£16,100,076 £13,943,185 (Jan20 to Dec20)

Datahub Social Value Calculator Report. Jan 2021 - Dec 2021

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Fitness and Healthy Communities update

Sarah Roberts Head of Fitness and Healthy Communities

The Health and wellbeing landscape is fast paced and ever changing, we’re continuously working to tackle inequality and break down barriers to participation in activity within our communities.

Helping our members with long covid stay active Our COVID Recovery programme is now being delivered in nearly 60 Places Leisure facilities and communities across England. Over 120 of our colleagues are trained and able to provide support for people suffering with long COVID on their journey to recovery.

Since the programme launched in August, over 80 individuals recovering from COVID-19 and Long-COVID after the acute phase have now joined the programme with 33% of them new or existing members.

We’re proud that our COVID Recovery Programme provides targeted therapy and rehabilitation for individuals who have endured COVID-19 or who have been affected

by Long COVID. Despite being early days, the feedback has already been extremely positive.

“I was initially really anxious to start back at the gym and you really helped me with that so much with your calm approach. You’ve honestly given me my confidence back and I am amazed at how far I’ve come over a matter of weeks and that’s thanks to you.”

“You’ve encouraged me to push myself but also learn about my own body and its limits. I am extremely excited about what my future back in the gym holds and I have your knowledge and fitness experience to thank for that!”

With COVID cases continuing and the longterm effects still being felt we are delighted to have in place a solution that will help many in our communities on their road to recovery.

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Increasing activity in women and girls Sport England’s This Girl Can campaign was developed to promote sport amongst women. It was as a response to Sport England’s Active People Survey, which reported that in 2014 there were two million fewer women participating in sports than men, despite over 75% of women aged 14–40 saying that they would like to exercise more. Based on the responses to the Active People Survey, women’s lower level participation was due to fear of judgement.

We’re running This Girl Can pilot classes in a number of our leisure centres which have been designed to offer inactive women a non-intimating and welcoming activity experience. In partnership with Sport England, we’ve trained our instructors to deliver classes with a variety of content, offering women the chance to try different disciplines and then move into the mainstream activity programme over time.

Sarah Roberts, our Head of Fitness and Healthy Communities, has been part of the task group formed by ukactive, and Sport England’s This Girl Can campaign, to publish a practical guide for increasing activity in women and girls. The guide is filled with fresh insight, guidance and tangible solutions to support fitness and leisure operators in getting more women and girls active within their facilities. It’s designed to help gyms and leisure facilities to reduce the barriers experienced by many women and girls who would like to be more active. It includes practical guidance and checklists to help improve the engagement, experience and confidence of women and girls using gyms and leisure facilities.

“We want to engage with inactive women and girls within the communities we serve so that they can enjoy the benefits of being active in an environment they feel is comfortable and made for them.

We are proud to support this work, and we hope that by offering fun and interactive options in a nonintimidating setting we can help more women to be active.”

Sarah Roberts, Head of Fitness and Healthy Communities

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View the practical guide here

In other news…

The health and wellbeing landscape is fast paced and ever changing, we’re continuously working to tackle inequality and break down barriers to participation in activity within our communities.

Here’s what’s coming up for us in 2022 Women in Sport Big Sister project The Women in Sport’s ‘Big Sister’ project is one of the projects benefitting from the Government’s Tampon Tax Fund. The project aims to break down barriers to healthy, happy and active lives through a supportive ecosystem of ‘Big Sister’ peers and coaches mobilising participation in sport for young women and girls. Women in Sport aim to ensure no one is excluded from the lifelong empowerment of physical activity. As part of this we’ll be providing free, focused sessions, and gym membership, along with free period products, across all centres in our Amber Valley, Rotherham, Sheffield and Norwich contracts. The locations were identified using social demographic information to identify where high levels of deprivation & period poverty may be present, results will inform the next steps for ourselves and the wider project. Bespoke digital content and workout sessions will be available across the estate via our new Big Sister channel on our virtual studio.

Adult Tier 2 weight management Earlier this year we submitted a bid to be a delivery partner within the Government’s Dynamic Purchasing System (DPS). We were successful in this bid to deliver the activity element of adult Tier 2 weight management in our Rotherham and Sheffield Contracts. We are proactive in our approach and have planning in place to ensure that we’re in the position to bid for future funds as and when they become available.

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Funding available through the school holiday activity fund Local authorities across the country have been given central government funding to provide holiday activities and a healthy meal for children who are registered to receive free school meals, under a new scheme called the holiday activities and food programme.

A number of our centres in Horsham, Mid Sussex, Rotherham, West Bromwich and Sheffield, have worked with their local authorities and are attracting funding for their programmes.

On these programmes, children aged between five and 11 years can enjoy sport, arts and crafts and soft play, and many get to experience sports and activities they hadn’t experienced before. Feedback from parents has been extremely positive, highlighting that this all-day provision enables them to work or carry out other responsibilities during the holidays.

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Within West Bromwich we have successfully delivered 6,120 hours of enriching activities through the funding with our partner Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council and are delighted to have given out 824 nutritious midday meals, with the majority of participants coming from 0% to 20% most deprived postcodes in the county (according to index of multiple Deprivation).

We’re proud of the role we’ve played in our communities as we’ve been able to utilise this funding to deliver fun and accessible activities for children; providing valuable support to those who otherwise may not be able to enjoy these opportunities.

If you’d like more information on this funding in your area, please contact your Contract Manager.

People update

Clare Garcia People Director

This quarter we include an update on how we’re responding to the recruitment challenge, we share information on the roll out of our new management training programme and introduce our new Head of Learning and Development

The recruitment challenge With the whole of the UK struggling to source talent caused by a culmination of Covid-19 and Brexit, and 2022 being dubbed the ‘Great Resignation’ with 1 in 4 considering quitting their job, we wanted to update you on some of the things we’re doing to support these challenges.

As well as these measures, we’ve been successful in securing funding for 48 roles via the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) Kickstart Scheme.

Our partnership with LeisureJobs recently included a targeted email campaign sent to over 14,000 individuals actively seeking work in the leisure industry letting them know that we’re hiring. We’re planning another email campaign with LeisureJobs in early 2022, which will focus on our centres being great venues to train and learn a new skill.

The Kickstart Scheme provides funding to employers to create jobs for 16 to 24 year olds on Universal Credit who are at risk of long term unemployment

We’ve enhanced our online journey for people looking for careers with us and have created a new page on FAQs as well as a banner on all our centre pages. There’s been over 18,000 visits to ‘Our People’ page making it the fifth most visited page on our website and 9,000 people have clicked through to our group job board.

We’ve produced recruitment marketing materials for our teams to use in your local communities, for example, schools, colleges, job centres and with our members themselves.

What is the Kickstart Scheme?

With 72% of our colleagues saying that we’re a great place to work, we’re also focused on retaining our colleagues too, and we’re working on a number of initiatives to understand how we can improve our reward and recognition programmes, including the pay and benefits of our teams.

From January, we’ve introduced the following benefits for all our colleagues; a free Premium Plus membership providing access to all our centres, a free Premium Plus membership for a nominated person, up to 4 free Junior Premium Plus Memberships, five day booking rights and 30% off clip and climb. This is just a start, with more benefits coming this year.

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Our new Lead with SPIRIT management training programme We rolled out our new Lead with SPIRIT management training programme, with 18 of our managers graduating in December 2021. Following its success, we are planning for two further cohorts to commence in early 2022 with more to follow later in the year. The 4-month management development programme focuses on giving managers the skills, knowledge and behaviours to Lead with SPIRIT. The programme ensures managers are given relevant, up to date training on a variety of leadership topics and all learning is mapped against the SPIRIT values and the Chartered Management Institutes (CMI) competencies.

The programmes have been designed so the learner can immediately implement the learning into their job role. The blended learning approach ensures all participants are engaged and learn at their own pace. The programme has been designed to upskill existing managers in all aspects of leadership and to encourage a culture of networking, sharing and collaboration.

S P I R I T 16

Support Always there to help customers and colleagues.

Positive A ‘can do’ attitude; encouraging others to achieve

Integrity Always delivering on promises; being open and honest

Respect Treating people fairly and with understanding

Innovative Open to new ideas; not afraid of failure

Together Believing more can be achieved by working well with others

What is SPIRIT? SPIRIT is a set of values and behaviours that describe how we work together. They encapsulate how we collaborate, hold each other to account and how we challenge each other. Created by our colleagues, the values influence and help govern the decisions we make every day.

All colleagues within Places Leisure embody these values regardless of role or level. These values help us to shape strategy, interact with one another and get work done here.

Introducing our new Head of Learning and Development We’re pleased to introduce Adele Tomey as our new Head of Learning and Development.

Adele joins us with a wealth of experience in Learning and Development, working across various industries, including retail, telecommunications and hospitality. Adele’s experience spans leadership and management development, apprenticeships, performance and development and psychometrics. Adele will be responsible for developing the capability of our workforce by providing strategically aligned, high quality and tailored learning and development interventions to build and maintain a high performing workforce.

We hope you’ll join us in giving Adele a very warm welcome to Places Leisure.

An enhanced learning experience with Places Academy We’ve upgraded our digital learning platform to a new platform called Places Academy, to offer our colleagues an enhanced user experience. Places Academy offers colleagues a smoother, more efficient learning experience with automatic login, easier tracking of compliance courses and allows colleagues to book face-to-face learning sessions.

Along with the enhanced functionality, colleagues now have access to a library of courses in new subjects such as Diversity and Inclusion, Health and Wellbeing, Leadership and Management, which they can complete at their own pace.

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Customer Experience update

Andy Glover Head of Marketing and Customer Experience

We’re delighted to share our customer insight, and as we look to values lead marketing, we share two recent campaigns from the team. Our first foray into ‘surprise and delight’ and we took the opportunity to celebrate the achievements of the children learning to swim in our centres.

Customer Survey Our most recent NPS is 36.2 and we emerge from the pandemic with our customers more likely to recommend us than at any time previously.

Jun 2018 - Mar 2020

Reopening 1.0 & 2.0

We’ve touched upon the Covid variants and resourcing challenges in December, so the performance is a real vote of confidence.

Customers feedback on the quality of the activities, cleanliness, support in hitting their goals and online systems. A highlight of December was that half of our customers left a specific ‘thanks’ for a team or team member.

Reopening 3.0 to date 0

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Net Promoter Score (NPS)

Would our customers recommend us? The best marketing of all…

Net Promoter Score (NPS) measures what’s being said about us in offices, pubs, in front of the TV and even in our own centres. The higher the number, the better and the louder that noise!

DETRACTORS

PASSIVES

PROMOTERS

Moving Communities “Moving Communities conducted a sector wide survey that forms part of the National Leisure Recovery Fund, offering a rare opportunity to benchmark ourselves in the sector.

The second of these was in October, where our NPS was 16 points ahead of the national average, and this followed the May survey, where we were 14 points clear. NPS is a very difficult score to improve – as you must deliver on all aspects of the experience, and every customer places differing priorities on each. We were delighted by the vote of confidence from our customers.”

Andy Glover, Head of Marketing and Customer Experience

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Places Pulse – Mystery Shop We conduct up to 100 visits per month to our centres, and December was our highest performance since re-introducing the programme and introducing the Placemaker role, pulling many roles, including membership sales, front of house welcome and swim lessons into one function for a better experience.

Our shopper panel consists of 90,000 members of the public, and they measure several areas of the experience. The key to securing a membership is an outstanding needs analysis (getting to know the goals of the person in front of you), a great tour (showcasing all we have) and building to recommendations of, not just a membership, but the benefits that enhance their experience.

Places Pulse - Mystery Shop scores 2021 July 50.5% August 60.7% September 58.1% October 61.3% November 61.4% December 67.2% 0

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*All figures and customer testimonials are available at centre, client, and national level.

A huge thanks to our teams, we have thousands of testimonials, here are just a few that capture us at our very best.

Alfreton Leisure Centre

Loughton Leisure Centre

Parish Wharf Leisure Centre

Andrew in the gym has been really helpful and has supported myself and my daughter at the gym. He makes sure we’re comfortable and has offered to help my daughter build her stomach muscles up as she struggles with her muscles because of her disabilities.

David Is an amazing instructor who really motivates and clearly puts a lot of prep into his classes.

He’s full of energy and there’s never a dull class.

Martine made us welcome and gave us plenty of her time and was there to answer any questions. She was very friendly.

Candy took us around the gym and gave us clear instructions on what I could use safely because of my knee. Very pleasant too.

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12 Days of Giveaways

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To mark the festive period after a tough year, we’ve enjoyed surprising and delighting our customers with our 12 Days of Giveaways.

From 1-12 December, we ran a giveaway campaign, where centres gave away presents on a daily basis to individual members and/or visitors to our centres.

We wanted to celebrate the Season of Giving by showing our members a boatload of gratitude and thank them for sticking with us through the pandemic, throughout the lockdowns and into reopening.

We wanted to make our centres everyone’s ‘Happy Place’ this winter – and that begins with having some fun!

Aside from the delight of those receiving our thanks, we recorded 1160 social posts across all centres, c.4,600 engagements (customers liking, sharing, using an emoji) and it appeared in 500,000 different individual’s social media feeds.

Here are just some of our incredible teams showing our thanks for all the support!

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Swimmer of the Year In offering swimming, gymnastics and trampolining lessons we account for the vast majority of first-time activity for all children and some adults too. Active children become active adults so we’re proud to shine a light on the successes of our customers and the incredible team of instructors that support them. How do we begin to identify a swimmer of the year?

– with difficulty!

We asked the centre teams to pick their own – and worked up a shortlist. From overcoming personal challenges to sporting prowess, we were inundated – below is our winner and shortlist, and just a glimpse at the achievements of the amazing kids active in our centres.

Swimmer of the Year appeared in over 65,000 different individual’s social media feeds and 7% clicked through to read these stories, proof of a really engaging campaign.

Archie Ongar Leisure Centre

SWIMMER OF THE YEAR

Read Archie’s story

FINALISTS

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Soraya

Rosie

Billingshurst Leisure Centre

Risborough Springs Swim & Fitness Centre

Read Soraya’s story

Read Rosie’s story

Kacper

Stanley

Riverside Leisure Centre

Steyning Leisure Centre

Read Kacper’s story

Read Stanley’s story

Jayne

Reece

West Bromwich Leisure Centre

William Gregg Leisure Centre

Read Jayne’s story

Read Reece’s story

We’re the first operator to launch Rise Gymnastics We’re pleased to be the first leisure operator in England to introduce Rise Gymnastics. Rise Gymnastics, from British Gymnastics, is a fun packed programme that provides a progressive gymnastics journey, building key foundation skills for life.

Designed in consultation with the gymnastics community, the programme is structured into three distinct learning phases - Discover, Explore and Excel – and brings gymnasts on a progressive journey, from their first steps all the way through to advanced skills.

AVAILABLE HERE! A3 Rise main poster template_Marketing hub.indd 1

12/08/2021 16:49

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Good news travels fast.

For media enquiries, please contact your Contract Manager or our Central Support Communications Team on news@pfpleisure.org Places Leisure

Places for People

placesleisure.org

placesforpeople.co.uk