movingforward
Dear all,
CHIEF EXECUTIVE JO CHERRETT
As most of you are aware I have spent the last few weeks, utilising community spaces, to share with you Trafford Leisure’s new Vision, Strategic Outcomes, Values and “what we are going to do”, “Inspire and create opportunities for the people of Trafford to move more and live longer, healthier, happier lives”.I have thoroughly enjoyed delivering the sessions which were made even more enjoyable and easier by engagement and participation of you, our team. I have come away with lots of ideas, things to reflect on and consider but more importantly an overwhelming feeling that everyone felt they could help and contribute in one way or another. I will look to arrange one further session, (we will record it too and upload to Flex) a weekend session, to support some of the swimming teachers unable to attend.
Our move Values – “Making a difference, Open and Honest, Valuing Diversity and Empathy and Energy” will start to feed into our recruitment processes over the coming weeks. As shared at the roadshows, the values will need a little time for us all to start demonstrating collectively and consistently and at some point, in the future they will become Non-Negotiable – ensuring we can truly achieve our plans. I have my new CEO support role starting w/c 22nd July, her name is Jessica McGarry, and I will be asking her to go through the flip chart paper and ideas collected from each of the sessions to consolidate into one “idea’s plan” that will be shared fully with the leadership team, and we can share back fully with you as part of the next newsletter.
Investment Plans - I hope you like the new images we have included in the newsletter for move Altrincham and move Partington and don’t forget to check out the new move Altrincham milestone on engage to see the latest video. move Altrincham is progressing despite the on-going challenge of the weather but as far as an opening date is concerned, this won’t be finalised until we are 12 weeks away from opening – this is exactly what we did with move Urmston. Partington LC closed its doors to the public on Sunday 30th June and over the coming weeks, as the centre is fully cleared, our presence in Partington will continue as we will still be able to use the outdoor leisure and community facilities. Trafford Leisure will build on the successful “test and learn” that has taken place in Partington over the last 9 months –building a rapport with the local community and neighbourhood partners to support and deliver physical activity and movement sessions in and around Partington – inside and outside. With the Levelling Up Funding (LUF) secured by Trafford Council, an outdoor gym is currently being procured and once in situ will see Trafford Leisure engage and support the local community to use.
Net zero by 2038 – Hot off the press our partner planet mark has completed the measuring of our carbon footprint for the last 12 months. Great work Shaun, looking forward to you sharing our baseline in the next newsletter as we also seek out our sustainability champions.
FACT – Well done Stephen Darroch and team – more woman and girls’ football is now taking place at Partington than boys – with no reduction in boys football compared to last year!
A great customer case study - “I have just completed my six-month questionnaire with Hayley, I never thought I would be sitting here, saying that I love exercise and I am participating in four exercise sessions per week. This programme has changed my life and my outlook on life. I have lost two stone and I am no longer pre diabetic, my blood pressure has been the lowest it has been in two years and my BMI has reduced from 32.4 to 28. I have never been optimistic about my future until now and I can’t thank the team enough” FACT – Moving matters, move more everyday...
Manchester FA and Nike came to film our walking football session on Wednesday 19th June. This project was selected out of several funding projects across the UK, the project is about empowering women who are menopausal. This session has become increasingly popular and is attracting a lot of attention due to the health benefits the women are experiencing. On the evening that was filmed, we had 22 participants and some of the women were interviewed to talk about the impact the sessions have on them, such as improved mental and physical health. The session is going to be promoted on a popular podcast called ‘In the Box Podcast England Football’, as well as the Nike, England and
Manchester FA websites and social media platforms. It will also appear in football game. programmes. The evening also attracted a special guest called Rachel Pavlou who is the Women’s Development Manager for diversity and inclusion at the football association in England. Next step, sessions across all facilities...
The golf team have certainly been challenged over the last couple of months, although like me, most of us are a little fed up with the weather – imagine what the level of rain has meant for the greenkeeper and golf team. in over 20 years, I have never seen a water table so high (The water table is the boundary between the unsaturated zone and the saturated zone underground). We actually had to close the golf course for most of May this year – normally one of the busiest months of the year. It is a credit to the team that they have dug in (probably felt literally at times) and the course is really starting to recover and look/play how the team want it to be. Let’s hope that it stays dry, a little sunshine would be nice and we have a long dry stretch to help the team pull back the revenue lost at the start of this financial year.
The finance team have been busy with all thing’s year end accounts and audit. An external auditor comes into Trafford Leisure for 2-3 weeks to look at all aspects of finance and control. The results are now in, and the business has been given a clean bill of financial health for 23/24. I look forward to sharing these results with the TL Board at the end of July.
Work is ramping up in readiness for move Altrincham, pricing, pre-sale, spa branding, recruitment, and marketing plans all very live and real at the moment. Our new Spa Manager Bev Hinnigan started on the1st July – just one day a week for now to help support the next stage of the plans. Hope you like the image later in the newsletter of what our new SPA is going to look like. Brand name to follow over the coming weeks...
We have reintroduced a new corporate induction programme for new starters, Leanne Wheatley our head of people and myself have delivered two sessions so far with great feedback to tweak and improve as we embed in our people plan for the next 12months. All new members of staff will attend the corporate induction during their first 12 weeks.
Fabulous effort from about 25 members of staff from support office and sites in the month of May and before I shared the strategic outcome of “Healthy Outcomes for All”. We took up the challenge of moving for a mile everyday – for some this was a walk, others a jog/ run but every single person regardless of personal activity level at the start completed the challenge. Brilliant – you know who you are well done. With this in mind, “your health is for life (national fitness day) comes back round again in September” – Danny Norris is leading on what we do this year.
Although I am away when this takes place (our support team will just have to survive without my GOAT skills - Our 5v5 football tournament will be going ahead on the 12th July 5pm-7pm at PSV. Looking forward to hearing who won on my return.
Keep moving, keep inspiring and look forward to updating you again next month...
Milestone 7 Build Update
We’re seeing some real change on site now as we approach summer, with the gym & spa extension going up, the pool plant technology going in, and much more. Watch the latest update from the move Altrincham build, hear from our new GM and get exclusive sneak peeks!
To view the full roadmap and more content, head to the link below. Use password: staffonly23
BEHIND THE SCENES
• CGI image of our brand new Spa
• CGI image of our refurbished pools
• Rendered image of our centre & entrances
WHAT’S NEW?
@ Stretford Sports Village
SWIMMING SUCCESS
A really proud moment for team Streford as Leila competed in the CP Sport Gala, winning three gold and one silver medal! Leila was in our Alpha programme and now teaches as a Level 1 Swimming Teacher with us at Stretford. Keep smashing it, Leila!
MARATHON SUCCESS
Trafford Leisure’s relay teams made us all extremely proud as they individually completed their legs of this years’ adidas Manchester Marathon back in May. Collectively, the Men’s and Women’s teams came in with some brilliant times, where the Men 3rd overall with a time of 3:06:31 and the Women crossed the line with a 4:19:12. The best effort of all was raising over £700 for Cancer Research UK, so a massive thank you to all who donated and here’s to next years marathon relay!
MENTAL HEALTH WEEK
Together we took part in Mental Health Week, spreading awareness whilst engaging in staff fitness classes and activities across the centres. With set themes from Monday to Friday, we had yoga and pilates classes at Stretford Sports Village, spin session at move Urmston, daily walks around the golf course, moving meetings and fruit baskets! We hope this series of events put a spotlight on the importance of Mental Health all year round.
SUPRISE & DELIGHT
CARLY BRANAGAN
“My son John has just completed stage 6 swimming with Carly. I'd like to pass on my appreciation to Carly for her dedication and patience in getting John to this level, she has done an absolutely brilliant job. John has struggled with stamina at times, but he kept coming to lessons, and Carly kept supporting him and he got there in the end. I have no doubt that without the skill and support of a teacher like Carly, John would have given up before reaching the end of stage 6.”
ANDY CARROLL
“His passion for Roller Disco is amazing, people return because of the effort he puts in. He has adults bringing their kids and those adults originally came as kids themselves.His swimming teaching, he’s consistent and parents like his teaching style.”
ELOISE & CHARLOTTE
“Eloise and Charlotte are fantastic at the gymnastics classes. My daughter has made so much progress. They are a credit to the Leisure Centre. I’ve recommended their classes to so many people!”
BRENDA MCCANN
“Ahh! That’s exactly it. I was trying to book for next Friday, which is 7 days away. Thank you so much for the speedy response, I’ll have another go in a couple of days. Brilliant customer service, thank you Brenda!” - Jen
RACHEL BRINDLEY
“Rach is a key contact at the Talbot & supporst Lee in managing the operations. She knows the customers and helps where she can, consistently learning and training other staff when asked of over the last 12 months due to the North’s staffing challenges. With staff shortages at the Barn, she’s been flexible working there which has been so helpful. Rachel has taken on 2 regular classes which have continued to grow and thrive, she has a great rapport with all of her attendees. She goes above & beyond and is a key member of the team for the North.”
MARC MARTIN
“Very happy with the level of customer service received at Sale from Marc Martin, in setting gup his membership, and with the customer hub support, resetting his password, and learning how to book activities via the app with Shonagh. Very happy to speak to their managers and sing their praises.”
EHSAN ALIZADEHNOOHI
“My daughter goes to Ehsan's swimming class at 6.30 on Tuesdays. The classes are fantastic. Ehsan is brilliant with all the children and isle's swimming has come on so much. Please can you pass on my thanks to Ehsan.”
MARIA CLARKE
“Maria is an incredible swimming teacher and his Emmeline a huge amount of confidence. A credit to Move Urmston.”
CAROL WOOLSTENCROFT
“Elaine attends Carole low impact aerobics class, she is an amazing instructor and she gets everyone going and pushes you a little further. I really enjoy the class and it had got me off my back side; brilliant class.”
THE PAR TEAM
We would like to showcase Trafford’s Physical Activity Referral scheme which addresses health inequalities by supporting people with specific health conditions or risk factors who might benefit most from increasing their physical activity.
YEAR ONE INSIGHT
2023/2024 BASELINE Referrals 939
Take Up 428 (45.58%) Completed 182 (75.52%)
Not Participating 296
Year one participant survey results shows a positive short-term change…
- In participants increasing their physical activity levels from low to moderate
- From acknowledging to change their behaviours towards physical activity from the contemplation to the preparation phase
- in participants average wellbeing levels improving
few examples of how our Physical Activity Referral Specialists really understand what matters to an individual...
“I am 92 years of age and it’s never too late to set goals and get moving”
Referred to the programme by Bluesci due to mental health and isolation following the passing of his wife to Dementia. Alf feels fitter to enjoy time with his dog, children and grandchildren, and stronger to help his performance in the bowling league this summer.
“The programme has made such a difference to both my physical and mental health”
Referred by a Community Rehabilitation Team Physiotherapist following a diagnosis of a degenerative spinal condition, Connie overcame uncertainty and confidence about what physical activity she could and should be doing without making her condition worse.
JUNE 2024
FINANCIAL DASHBOARD
Take a look at an insightful update from the Finance Team for June, including the financial results for the 23-24 year end and for our first month of trading, credit control and upcoming events. The auditors are currently reviewing our financial performance and so it is a busy month for Emma and her team on all things finance!
Year End 23-24
We closed our 23-24 financial year end with a positive uplift to our budgeted results. This was ultimately due to the hard work and dedication of our wonderful staff that drove the outperformance in all of our main income categories. Credit control was another key driver supporting the results, where cross-business collaboration saw the tightening up of credit control on block bookings and collection of unpaid direct debits. This, accompanied with continued close control of our costs led to a positive uplift to our budgeted performance of over £800K.
P1 - April 2024
April financial results were challenging due to inclement weather affecting the availability of the golf course, which was closed for much of the month for golf green use. There has also been some large billing discrepancies from our utility providers that we are investigating both internally and with our utility suppliers. Aside from these negative factors, the remainder of the key business areas performed as expected and we look forward to what the first quarter of trade will bring.
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People
Mental health awareness week in May saw the finance team getting active and participating in the various activities that were hosted throughout the sites. It was a great week of team bonding, getting active with our colleagues in the leisure centers and supporting this great cause by proudly wearing our green badges. Thank you to all involved in making this week happen.
Upcoming Events
July will see a push on all things move Altrincham. The team will be busy building out budgets and refreshing business plans, reviewing the Spa model; a first for Trafford Leisure and securing the expected outcomes for the first 5 years.
Alongside the investment in Altrincham we will be supporting the transition of Partington through its levelling up fund transformation and performing financial planning for its re-opening.
Site P&L reviews are set to commence in June, led by our Finance Manager Shaun who has been leading the team redesigning the site financial applications to support our General Managers and site administrators in their work.
CGI of Move Partington
WHAT’S NEW?
@ Support Office & The Customer Hub
Jon and Hannah were invited down to AMEY for a health & safety meeting, and they weren’t afraid to stand out with their high-vis jackets! Looking stellar, guys.
We had some surrpising guests at the Support Office, where 4 tiny ducklings were rescued after being found abandoned on the golf course. Our environmental experts in Biora were quickly on the scene to help look after them whilst searching for the mother; nice job guys!
THE PEOPLE TEAM
SHE SAID YES! TRAINING
Wanting to say a massive congratulations to Vanessa Francisco (from the People Team) who had a wonderful surprised engagement recently. Wishing Vanessa and Craig all the very best for their future.
ASSISTANTS
Great News! We will soon be recruiting for more TA’s (training assistants) across Trafford Leisure and will be advertising for these roles. As a TA you will form part of Fiona’s team and will help to deliver RLSS Lifeguard courses as well as delivering some of the monthly training sessions. More details for this will follow when start recruitment and in the meantime, if you’re interested in this opportunity or would like to know a little more please speak to Fiona or email her at fiona.buckley@traffordleisure.co.uk.
STAFF SURVEY 2024
BENEFITS REMINDER
We will soon be coming out to everyone at Trafford Leisure to ask you to complete a staff survey. This helps to give us more insight into what’s important to you as are main asset and then allows us to adapt our People Strategy. There will be lots of communication when we open the staff survey so please do look out for it and take the time to complete as the more responses we have the better informed we are.
Just a gentle reminder of all the wonderful benefits we have being part of the Trafford Leisure team. We offer more than other employers including enhanced annual leave, a ride2work scheme, SimplyHealth, an Employee Assistance Programme on top of 24/7access to a GP (for employees and dependents). We also offer access to Manchester Credit Union for savings and loans as well as the Perks at work scheme to help make your money go further – there’s an image below to show just some of the discounts available at Perks at work so please do get involved.
WHAT’S NEW?
WHAT’S NEW?
@ Partington Sports Village
SNEAK PEAK: LEVELLING UP
KEEP MOVING!
Keep Moving Circuit class at Partington has been a huge success. Mark has done an excellent job by promoting the class every week and most importantly keeping all participants engaged to move more! Due to the demand, we have now reached class capacity with the vision to have another community offer available for Partington residents.
There was a difficuklt goodbye at Partington recently, as Rebecca Millar left the team to begin a new chapter at Eccles. We appreciate all your hard work and wish you all the best, Rebecca!
WHAT’S NEW?
@ move urmston
WELLBEING OPEN DAY
There was some great work from Hayley, Adam and Craig at Trafford Town Hall for their Wellbeing Open day. Adam is pictured conducting our TANITA assessment on the council’s leader, who’s team were very impressed by Trafford Leisure & move. Well done, team!
GOD’S COUNTRY
The sun graced us for a (very) short period of time across the past few weeks, and the team at Urmston took the chance to have a H&S meeting outside with a cuppa.
SPORTING MERIT
Kimani Worrell and Ella Sutton were on the recieving end of some personal sporting awards across the last month. Kimani won his most recent boxing bout, and Ella won Goal of the year for 23/24 season at her football club. Nice one, guys!
WHAT’S NEW?
@ Altrincham Golf Course
NEWLY WEDS
Our very own David Howlett recently tied the knot and got married! The teams at the Golf, Customer Hub and Support Office were sure to give him a proper send off. A massive congratulations Dave from your Trafford Leisure family, we wish you and your wife a life of joy and happiness!
BIRTHDAY BUFFET
It was Donna’s birthday recently who is an integral part of the team at Altrincham Golf Course & Driving Range. We hope you had a lovely birthday Donna!
EEDI RESULTS
Thank you to everyone who has completed the recent EEDI questionnaire! Our aim from an EEDI perspective is to have a workforce that not only thrives, but also that reflects and understands the communities we work for and with, so ideally, we wanted the EEDI data for our people to be show that we are similar in our composition to the Trafford Community as identified via the latest Census information. We are delighted with the EEDI data provided as its given us a great insight into the people here at Trafford Leisure, it shows that we are a good reflection of the Trafford Community and what a wonderfully diverse team we are.
You will see from the EEDI data below and we have taken some key points and areas for action. We need to attract employees from all ethnicities as we have 11.6% more white employees than our community. We have a thriving LGBTQ+ population, and 12% of our workforce identify as having a disability (compared to 17% in the Trafford Community). We should celebrate our diversity and continue the hard work to ensure we are a supportive and inclusive local employer.
This information will help us to develop our EEDI Plan and if you’d like to be involved in forming this plan please do speak to your manager, your Employee Voice Representative or send an email to supportservices@traffordleisure.co.uk.
Electronic Payslips
Further to recent communication we plan to give you access to the I Trent payroll system in which you can view and download electronic payslips and P60’s directly. Our plan for when and how we move to the new way of accessing payslips is below and in the next week or so you will be receiving an e mail from GMSSNoReply@gmss.co.uk with your individual log in details. If you have any questions on this please send an e mail to payroll.queries@traffordleisure.co.uk.
NOTICE BOARD
Here we would like to shine a light on all our new staff, those who are sadly leaving us, and those who have moved up in the business - an opportunity for us all to welcome, say goodbye and congratulate!
NEW STARTERS WHERE POSITION
Sam Harper-Barber
Victoria Adams
Alison Mackay
David Marsh
Craig Lucas
Elliot Savage
Miras Eskander
Graham Jenkins
Catherine Podmore
Hannah Payton
Lewis Rowlinson
LEAVERS
Benjamin Overland
Catherine Podmore
Adam Steadman-Byrne
Emma Shahidi
Kate Holden
Lia Guite
Victor Ionescu
Olivia Yardley
Rebecca Millar
Aaron Hambright
Daisy-May Lewis
Iwan Richards
Katarzyna Spryszynska
Kymberlee Collum
Thomas Pucci
Olivia Parr
URM URM
Swimming Teacher Level 2
Customer Service Executive
Swimming Teacher Level 2
Leisure Assistant Dry
Senior Leisure Assistant
Lifeguard & Leisure Assistant
Lifeguard & Leisure Assistant
Swimming Teacher Level 2
Lifeguard & Leisure Assistant
Aerobics Instructor
Leisure Assistant Dry
POSITION
Lifeguard & Leisure Assistant
Lifeguard & Leisure Assistant
Lifeguard & Leisure Assistant
Swimming Level 1
Swimming Level 1
Administration
Swimming Level 1
Swimming Teacher Level 2
Duty Manager
Lifeguard & Leisure Assistant
Lifeguard & Leisure Assistant
Lifeguard & Leisure Assistant
Swimming Teacher Level 2
Lifeguard & Leisure Assistant
Health & Fitness Instructor
Swimming Level 1
DATE
05/04/2024
02/04/2024
01/04/2024
15/04/2024
01/05/2024
01/05/2024
01/05/2024
01/05/2024
06/05/2024
09/05/2024
03/06/2024
01/04/2024
01/04/2024
01/04/2024
10/04/2024
11/04/2024
30/04/2024
30/04/2024
30/04/2024
09/05/2024
16/05/2024
31/05/2024
01/06/2024
01/06/2024
10/06/2024
17/06/2024
25/06/2024
@traffordleisure @moveurmston @saleleisurecentre @movealtrincham @stretfordsv @partingtonsportsvillage @thegrammar1 @altrinchamgolf
